Masum Billah :
Academic certificates don’t give us the skills to meet some situations we face in our everyday life. These skills can be termed as social skills as we need them to move around the societal institutions. But schools need to serve a number of functions in our society beyond just transmitting academic knowledge and skills. We socialize as we grow up. Acquiring socialization skills will equip our learners to face the challenges they face in their practical lives. Socialization always takes place in specific contexts. It is culturally specific: people in different cultures are socialized differently, to hold different beliefs and values, and to behave in different ways.
Socialization refers to a process by which individuals acquire a personal identity and learn the knowledge, language, and social skills required to interact with others. Students only learn from the academic curriculum but also learn social rules and expectations from interactions with others in the school. Besides socialization, another significant manifest function of school is the transmission of cultural norms and values to new generations. Schools help to mold a diverse population into one society with a shared national identity and prepare future generations for their citizenship roles. Students are taught about laws and our way of life through civic lessons, and they’re taught patriotism through rituals. They learn how to salute the national flag. It means they are taught how to honour the nation. The socialization process involves learning how to be-with self, with others, with students and teachers, and with life’s adversities and challenges. The socialization outcomes of child-child interaction are constrained by numerous subject and situational conditions, that is, the characteristics of the children involved and the settings in which their interaction occurs (Hartup, 1999).Children develop in many ways when they grow. They not only develop physically but also mentally. Each child also acquires a consistent personality structure, so that he or she can be characterized as shy, ambitious, sociable, or cautious to say the least. As children start to grow they move into a widening world of persons, activities, and feelings. Culture is a real and significant dimension of child socialization. Understanding various cultural styles of parenting and skills acquisition is critical to understanding how, why, and under what circumstances socialization occurs (Coates & Wagenaar, 1999)
The importance of the school as an agency of socialization can be divided into three subtopics such as the school and society, the classroom, and the teacher. When children begin school it is usually the first time that they come under the supervision of people who are not their relatives. It is likely that the school is the first agency that encourages children to develop loyalties and sentiments that go beyond the family and link them to a wider social order. The school as an agency of socialization should be recognized as the first organizer of social relationships (Elkin & Handel, 1978). The classroom is often seen as a place where the child is easily faced with socializing amongst peers. Since most of the things that children do in the classroom are done in the presence of their peers, they have to learn how to deal with a more formalized group situation. Parental expectations and perceptions of their children’s development of both cognitive and motor skills serve to affect the transition to the school environment (Coates & Wagenaar, 1999).Socialization also continues throughout life, from childhood to adulthood. This is significant because there is reason to believe that childhood socialization sets limits to what may be accomplished through adult socialization (Elkin & Handel, 1978).Children spend a large amount of time with other children and, in so doing, have extensive opportunities to influence one another. The same situation exists for adolescents, suggesting that peer relations contribute substantially to socialization from early childhood through second decade and beyond. Children and adolescents also make different attributions to themselves and others on the basis of age, and these attributions figure prominently in social comparisons and other social experiences (Hartup, 1999)
Learners’ social interactions with their peers contribute to their cognitive development. Their play is considered a form of social behavior, and they engage in several social situations such as cooperation, assistance, sharing, and solving problems in appropriate ways. In these situations, children acquire social skills and learn about their social world, such as the adults’ and their playmates’ points of view, morals, social skills, and conceptions of friendship (Saracho, 1999).Schools are major contexts for gender socialization also, in part because children spend large amounts of time engaged with peers in such settings. Certainly schools are important contexts for the socialization of young children’s gender attitudes and behaviour. Teachers receive relatively little training in recognizing and combating gender stereotypes and prejudices-their own and others-and, as a consequence, teachers often model, expect, reinforce, and lay the foundation for gender discrimination among their pupils. Thus, most schools create and maintain traditional gender stereotypes, biases, and differences. Teachers need training to recognize their own explicit and implicit biases and how these biases affect their classroom behaviours. Additionally, teachers should receive explicit training in confronting children’s biases, so that they reduce peer policing of gender normativity. Parents should seek educational settings for their students that are gender integrated and that make use of curricula that directly teach about, and challenge, gender bias and inequality.
As people grow up within a particular society, they pick up on the expectations of those around them and internalize these expectations to moderate their impulses and develop a conscience. Second, socialization teaches individuals how to prepare for and perform certain social role such as occupational roles, gender roles, and the roles of institutions such as marriage and parenthood. Third, socialization cultivates shared sources of meaning and value. Through socialization, people learn to identify what is important and valued within a particular culture. We must give a serious thought to the point whether our existing educational institutions serve the purpose of socializing our learners as they are going to occupy the key positions in the society. The prevailing incidents and happenings we experience and hear every day around us bear testimony to the moral degradation of our young generation. Eve-teasing, rape, mass rape by the students and even in higher educational institutions undoubtedly prove that they have not been socialized up to the expected standard. Even, the so-called cadres of highest seats of learning take arms and ammunition in their hands replacing the academic books amply prove that our process of socializing the learners has been far off the usual norm.
Academic certificates don’t give us the skills to meet some situations we face in our everyday life. These skills can be termed as social skills as we need them to move around the societal institutions. But schools need to serve a number of functions in our society beyond just transmitting academic knowledge and skills. We socialize as we grow up. Acquiring socialization skills will equip our learners to face the challenges they face in their practical lives. Socialization always takes place in specific contexts. It is culturally specific: people in different cultures are socialized differently, to hold different beliefs and values, and to behave in different ways.
Socialization refers to a process by which individuals acquire a personal identity and learn the knowledge, language, and social skills required to interact with others. Students only learn from the academic curriculum but also learn social rules and expectations from interactions with others in the school. Besides socialization, another significant manifest function of school is the transmission of cultural norms and values to new generations. Schools help to mold a diverse population into one society with a shared national identity and prepare future generations for their citizenship roles. Students are taught about laws and our way of life through civic lessons, and they’re taught patriotism through rituals. They learn how to salute the national flag. It means they are taught how to honour the nation. The socialization process involves learning how to be-with self, with others, with students and teachers, and with life’s adversities and challenges. The socialization outcomes of child-child interaction are constrained by numerous subject and situational conditions, that is, the characteristics of the children involved and the settings in which their interaction occurs (Hartup, 1999).Children develop in many ways when they grow. They not only develop physically but also mentally. Each child also acquires a consistent personality structure, so that he or she can be characterized as shy, ambitious, sociable, or cautious to say the least. As children start to grow they move into a widening world of persons, activities, and feelings. Culture is a real and significant dimension of child socialization. Understanding various cultural styles of parenting and skills acquisition is critical to understanding how, why, and under what circumstances socialization occurs (Coates & Wagenaar, 1999)
The importance of the school as an agency of socialization can be divided into three subtopics such as the school and society, the classroom, and the teacher. When children begin school it is usually the first time that they come under the supervision of people who are not their relatives. It is likely that the school is the first agency that encourages children to develop loyalties and sentiments that go beyond the family and link them to a wider social order. The school as an agency of socialization should be recognized as the first organizer of social relationships (Elkin & Handel, 1978). The classroom is often seen as a place where the child is easily faced with socializing amongst peers. Since most of the things that children do in the classroom are done in the presence of their peers, they have to learn how to deal with a more formalized group situation. Parental expectations and perceptions of their children’s development of both cognitive and motor skills serve to affect the transition to the school environment (Coates & Wagenaar, 1999).Socialization also continues throughout life, from childhood to adulthood. This is significant because there is reason to believe that childhood socialization sets limits to what may be accomplished through adult socialization (Elkin & Handel, 1978).Children spend a large amount of time with other children and, in so doing, have extensive opportunities to influence one another. The same situation exists for adolescents, suggesting that peer relations contribute substantially to socialization from early childhood through second decade and beyond. Children and adolescents also make different attributions to themselves and others on the basis of age, and these attributions figure prominently in social comparisons and other social experiences (Hartup, 1999)
Learners’ social interactions with their peers contribute to their cognitive development. Their play is considered a form of social behavior, and they engage in several social situations such as cooperation, assistance, sharing, and solving problems in appropriate ways. In these situations, children acquire social skills and learn about their social world, such as the adults’ and their playmates’ points of view, morals, social skills, and conceptions of friendship (Saracho, 1999).Schools are major contexts for gender socialization also, in part because children spend large amounts of time engaged with peers in such settings. Certainly schools are important contexts for the socialization of young children’s gender attitudes and behaviour. Teachers receive relatively little training in recognizing and combating gender stereotypes and prejudices-their own and others-and, as a consequence, teachers often model, expect, reinforce, and lay the foundation for gender discrimination among their pupils. Thus, most schools create and maintain traditional gender stereotypes, biases, and differences. Teachers need training to recognize their own explicit and implicit biases and how these biases affect their classroom behaviours. Additionally, teachers should receive explicit training in confronting children’s biases, so that they reduce peer policing of gender normativity. Parents should seek educational settings for their students that are gender integrated and that make use of curricula that directly teach about, and challenge, gender bias and inequality.
As people grow up within a particular society, they pick up on the expectations of those around them and internalize these expectations to moderate their impulses and develop a conscience. Second, socialization teaches individuals how to prepare for and perform certain social role such as occupational roles, gender roles, and the roles of institutions such as marriage and parenthood. Third, socialization cultivates shared sources of meaning and value. Through socialization, people learn to identify what is important and valued within a particular culture. We must give a serious thought to the point whether our existing educational institutions serve the purpose of socializing our learners as they are going to occupy the key positions in the society. The prevailing incidents and happenings we experience and hear every day around us bear testimony to the moral degradation of our young generation. Eve-teasing, rape, mass rape by the students and even in higher educational institutions undoubtedly prove that they have not been socialized up to the expected standard. Even, the so-called cadres of highest seats of learning take arms and ammunition in their hands replacing the academic books amply prove that our process of socializing the learners has been far off the usual norm.
(The writer works as education specialist in BRAC Education Program. Email: [email protected] )
