Socialization of personality. Stages of personality socialization

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Sometimes we see a child walking home from school and throwing a candy wrapper past the trash can.

Or someone talks very loudly on public transport and everyone around can hear what kind of drama happened with his girlfriend.

And it happens that it is difficult for a person to communicate with others, he cannot at least say: “Hello.”

These are all examples of how someone has not fully gone through and mastered all the stages of socialization. What is it, what is the sequence here, what types of socialization is divided into - let's figure it out.

Compliance with social norms

Socialization is the process of assimilation of social norms, morals, rules, and values ​​by an individual so that he becomes a full-fledged unit of society with the ability to interact with the same other units.

- these are measures of the proper (desired) behavior of an individual, regulating relations between people (making them acceptable). Norms are established common to everyone with characteristic rules of behavior and regulate social relations between people.

Social norms emerge over time as a result of the will and conscious activity of people. Moreover, they always correspond to the type of culture and socialization of society (different nations have different rules of good manners).

It is important to understand that social norms are divided into:

1. Mandatory - for example, written into laws that require their implementation and provide penalties for non-compliance.
2. Optional (unwritten) - customs, traditions, rituals, religious norms, etc.

Socialization includes acquiring skills in areas such as:

1. social;
2. physical;
3. intellectual.

Socialization is a two-way process. On the one hand, this is the transfer of information, experience and rules from. On the other hand, there is the perception and assimilation of them by a person. The success of the process depends on both the “teachers” (social agents) and the “student”.

How, where and when does the socialization process take place?

An important role is played not only by innate, but also by environment that is built around: parents, distant relatives, friends, classmates, classmates, people with the same interests, work colleagues.

The formation of personality depends on their:

1. type of thinking;
2. level of development;
3. education;
4. aesthetic views;
5. morality;
6. traditions;
7. hobbies.

In order for you to find out what moral values ​​another person has, he does not necessarily have to give you a whole lecture about what his position in life is and his attitude towards various aspects of it.

People react to certain things. There are different ways to express emotions, approval or contempt. This is how we recognize their attitude towards us and our actions even without words, we adopt something if it is a person who is significant to us - let's socialize.

That’s why it’s so important to communicate with different people to expand your worldview.

We should not forget that the process of becoming happens not only in childhood, but also continues throughout life. More and more new situations provide new experiences.

New conditions influence a person, under which he acquires new knowledge and skills. Adults are also able to rethink the moral standards they previously followed. For example, they get rid of their naive, childish views of the world.

If we look at socialization in a broader sense, we will see that it, in essence, helps to preserve society. The latter is constantly replenished with new members who need to be educated, given basic knowledge, and taught the rules of the hostel. Only under such conditions is its successful functioning possible.

From this we can conclude that socialization has 2 goals:

1. Teach the individual to interact with society.
2. Replenish society with a new cell so that it continues to prosper.

Agents of socialization, social statuses and roles

Agents of Socialization- these are the people and institutions (organizations) that form our norms.

1. In childhood - educational institutions, church, informal associations.
2. In adult life, this is also added to: the workforce, the media, the state, political parties and other institutions (science, business, etc.)

So, throughout his life, an individual absorbs social norms, forms his social status and masters certain social roles that he has to try on. What it is? Let's get a look.

Occupied by a person in society (cell), which determines the range of his rights and responsibilities.

We always occupy some position in society, which depends on our marital status, age, work, income, education, profession.

1. We receive some statuses regardless of our desire. This prescribed statuses- for example, son, daughter, man, woman, etc.
2. Other statuses are called achieved- for example, husband or wife, janitor or president, etc.

is a model of behavior that is focused on a certain social status.

For example, you had a child and you received a new status - mother or father. In this regard, you have a need to play a new social role as a parent in order to correspond to your new status. The difference from status is that it exists, but the role can be performed or not performed.

Factors and types of socialization

We have already become familiar with the conditions that influence the formation of personality, so we only need to systematize this knowledge and supplement it.

Factors influencing socialization:

1. Micro – those conditions and people that directly influence the formation of personality (relatives, upbringing with family, friends, work).
2. Meso – location where an individual lives (district, city).
3. Macro is the concept of influencing an individual on a large scale (government, planet, universe).

Classification of species socialization depending on the age and development of a person:

1. Primary – from birth to adulthood (25-30 years).
2. Secondary is the breaking of old patterns. A person rethinks all those norms that were perceived in childhood and adolescence. New personal rules and views are formed. This type of socialization lasts until the end of life.

Types of personality formation based on another characteristic:

1. Gender – depending on gender. Girls are raised and taught according to one principle, boys - according to another.
2. Group - depending on the social group in which the individual spends most of his time (parents, circle of acquaintances, colleagues).
3. Organizational – refers to socialization in a team (at study, work).

Stages of personality development

Many psychologists have focused their attention on the socialization of the individual. Each presented information in its own way, but the periodizations did not differ too much from each other. The most common one was proposed by the famous (in narrow circles) psychiatrist Erickson:

Socialization is an important process in everyone’s life that goes on all the time. Although the most productive stage falls on the first part of life, in adulthood you can also accumulate experience and change your norms to suit the acquired new worldview.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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4.1.1. Socialization of personality

The formation process determines the development of personality under the influence of natural and social forces. But even a mature person is not yet fully ready to live in society: he does not have education, profession, or communication skills; he has a poor understanding of the structure of society and is not oriented in social processes.

Simultaneously with the process of personality formation, the process of its socialization occurs.

Socialization is the introduction of a person into society, his mastery of skills and habits of social behavior, the assimilation of the values ​​and norms of a given society.

If the process of formation is especially intense in childhood and adolescence, then the process of socialization intensifies the more strongly the more actively the individual enters into the system of social relations. Children's games, education and training at school and university, mastering a specialty and serving in the army, etc. - all these are external manifestations of the socialization process.

The differences between socialization and formation are as follows:

socialization changes external behavior, and personality formation establishes basic value orientations;

socialization makes it possible to acquire certain skills (communications, professions), and formation determines the motivation of social behavior;

personality formation creates an internal psychological orientation towards a certain type of social action; socialization, by adjusting these social actions, makes the entire installation more flexible.

The process of socialization in Soviet sociology was tied to labor activity, which was understood as work paid for by the state. With this approach, three types of socialization are distinguished:

pre-work (childhood, school, university);

labor (work in production);

post-work (retirement).

Such periodization, which placed emphasis on work activity, unsatisfactorily revealed the essence of socialization in childhood and did not adequately consider the situation of pensioners.

It seems simpler and more convenient to divide the socialization process into two qualitatively different periods:

primary socialization - the period from birth to the formation of a mature personality;

secondary socialization (resocialization) is a restructuring of an already socially mature personality, associated, as a rule, with mastering a profession.

The process of socialization of the individual proceeds on the basis of social contacts, interactions of the individual with other individuals, groups, organizations, and institutions. In the process of this interaction, social mechanisms of imitation and identification, social and individual control, and conformity are triggered. Social, national, professional, moral, and racial differences leave their mark on them.

Sociological research shows that parents from the middle strata of society have a flexible attitude towards the power of authority. They teach their children to understand facts and take responsibility for their decisions, and encourage empathy. In families of the lower strata of society, where parents are mainly engaged in manual labor and work under strict supervision, they instill in children a willingness to submit to external authority and power. Here they attach more importance to obedience than to the development of creative abilities.

National differences, national values ​​and norms also have a significant impact on the socialization of the individual.

For comparison, let us consider American and Russian national values ​​(Table 4).

It is clear that, having experienced the same processes of socialization, but absorbing and becoming familiar with different norms and values, Americans and Russians acquire different personality traits. However, it should be noted the influence of reforms and the general direction of development of Russian society on the change in basic national values ​​and national character traits, which originate in the features of the Russian community in the direction of bringing them closer to the more rational characteristics of developed post-industrial societies.

The main means of socialization that ensure social contact between individuals, an individual and a group, an organization, are:

values ​​and norms of behavior;

skills and abilities;

statuses and roles;

incentives and sanctions.

Let's consider these means.

Language is the main tool of socialization. With its help, a person receives, analyzes, summarizes and transmits information, expresses emotions and feelings, declares his position, point of view, and gives assessments.

Values, as we have already found out, are ideal ideas, principles with which a person correlates his actions, and norms are social ways of thinking, behavior, and communication acquired by a person.

Skills and abilities are patterns of activity. They play not only a behavioral, but also a didactic (educational) role in subsequent socialization. The education of skills and abilities is called socialization for socialization, since the skills and abilities fixed in behavior help to master new skills and abilities faster and more confidently. For example, mastering a computer significantly broadens a specialist’s horizons, helps him not only obtain the necessary information, but gives him new communication skills on the worldwide electronic network Internet.

To illustrate the sociological term “status”, we will introduce the concept of “social space”, by which we will understand the entire set of social positions of a given society, i.e. the entire volume of the so-called “social pyramid”. Social space, as we see, does not coincide with geometric space. For example, in geometric space the king and the jester are almost always nearby, but in social space they are separated by almost the entire height of the social pyramid.

Social status is the position of an individual in social space, in the social pyramid, in the social structure of society. Social status is characterized by social position (i.e., belonging to a certain class, social stratum, group), position, earnings, respect of other people (prestige), merits, awards, etc.

It should be noted personal status, which is characterized by personal qualities and is more clearly manifested in a small group.

For example, in any long-established team, especially during off-duty hours, communication is based on personal rather than social status, if the differences in positions are small.

The same person can have several statuses. For example: engineer, husband, loyal friend, football fan, etc.

The status received from birth is called ascribed status. For example: the son of a big boss.

The position of an individual in the social pyramid, which she achieved through her own efforts, is called achieved status.

The behavior of an individual associated with his social status, that is, dictated by a person’s position in society, is called a social role.

The set of all social roles corresponding to all social statuses of an individual is called a role set.

Social roles, the entire variety of social behavior of an individual, are determined by social status and the values ​​and norms prevailing in society or in a given group (Fig. 3).

Personal behavior

If a person’s behavior corresponds to social (group) values ​​and norms, he receives social encouragement (prestige, money, praise, success with women, etc.); if it does not comply, there are social sanctions (fines, condemnation by public opinion, administrative penalties, imprisonment, etc.) (Fig. 3).

With the help of means of socialization (language, values ​​and norms, skills and abilities, statuses and roles), constant interaction between individuals, personality and institutions of socialization becomes possible, i.e. those groups that ensure the process of the younger generation’s entry into society.

Let us consider in more detail the main institutions of socialization.

The family is one of the leading determining agents of socialization. It has a functional impact not only on the formation and socialization, but also on the formation of the entire personality structure. Empirical studies show that in conflict or single-parent families, the percentage of children with deviant behavior is much higher.

Peer group - performs the function of “protection” from seizing the priority of adults in the process of socialization. Provides the emergence of such personality qualities as autonomy, independence, social equality. Allows the socializing individual to express new emotions and feelings that are impossible in the family, new social connections, statuses and roles (leader, equal partner, outcast, marginalized, etc.).

The school acts as a miniature society. Gives new knowledge and socialization skills, develops intelligence, forms values ​​and norms of behavior. In contrast to the family, it allows us to understand the meaning of formal statuses and roles (teacher as a formal and temporary boss). The school is more authoritarian and routinized. Her social space is impersonal, since teachers and the director cannot be as affectionate as parents; besides, any teacher can be replaced by another person.

The media form values, images of heroes and anti-heroes, provide patterns of behavior, and knowledge about the social structure of society. They act impersonally and formally.

The army carries out specific, secondary socialization (resocialization). Military education allows a young officer to quickly integrate into the military system. Another thing is those called up for military service. The difference in values ​​and behavioral stereotypes of civil and military life manifests itself sharply and often causes social protest among young soldiers. This is also a kind of socialization institution, a form of mastering new social norms. It is important that such protests take place at a low level of conflict and do not cause mental turmoil in young people. For this purpose, special training is provided (pre-conscription training, young soldier course), and the activities of commanders, military sociologists and psychologists are aimed at this. Old-timers who have undergone secondary socialization are not so much protesting as “trying on” new roles in “civil” life.

If the protest takes open forms and acts constantly, this means the so-called unsuccessful socialization.

Sociological research shows that when in the process of socialization exclusively authoritarian pressure is used, designed for blind obedience, then a person who then finds himself in a non-standard critical situation and finds himself without a boss cannot find the right way out. The result of such a socialization crisis can be not only failure to complete a task, but also stress, schizophrenia, and suicide. The reason for these phenomena lies in simplified ideas about reality, fear and suspicion, lack of empathy (compassion), personality conformity, formed due to unsuccessful socialization.

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The concept of “socialization” refers to the interaction of a person with society. This concept has an interdisciplinary status and is widely used in psychology, sociology, pedagogy, and philosophy. Its content varies significantly in different concepts of personality. The concept of socialization was first described in the late 40s - early 50s. in the works of American psychologists and sociologists (A. Park, D. Dollard, J. Coleman, W. Walter, etc.). The concept of socialization as a process of complete integration of the individual into the social system, during which its adaptation occurs, developed in American sociology (T. Parsons, R. Merton). In the traditions of this school, the concept of “socialization” is revealed through the term “adaptation,” which means the adaptation of a living organism to environmental conditions. This term was extrapolated into social science and began to mean the process of a person’s adaptation to the conditions of the social environment. This is how the concepts of social and mental adaptation arose, the result of which is the adaptation of the individual to various social situations, micro and macro groups.

The following levels of adaptation are distinguished: 1) purposeful conformism, when an adapting person knows how he should act, how to behave, but outwardly agreeing with the requirements of the social environment, continues to adhere to his value system (A. Maslow); 2) mutual tolerance, in which interacting subjects show mutual leniency towards each other’s values ​​and forms of behavior (J. Szczepanski); 3) accommodation, as the most common form of social adaptation, arises on the basis of tolerance and is manifested in mutual concessions, which means a person’s recognition of the values ​​of the social environment and the environment’s recognition of a person’s individual characteristics (J. Szczepanski); 4) assimilation, or complete “Adaptation, when a person completely abandons his previous values ​​and accepts the value system of the new environment (J. Piaget).

There are other classifications of levels of social and mental adaptation: normal (protective), deviant (deviant) and pathological. Thus, with the help of the concept of “adaptation”, socialization is considered as the process of a person’s entry into the social environment and his adaptation to cultural, psychological and sociological factors.

The essence of socialization is interpreted differently in humanistic psychology, whose representatives are A. Allport, A. Maslow, K. Rogers, etc. In it, socialization is presented as a process of self-actualization of the self-concept, self-realization by an individual of his potentials and creative abilities, as a process of overcoming the negative influences of the environment, interfering with her self-development and self-affirmation. Here the subject is considered as a self-forming and self-developing system, as a product of self-education.

These two approaches are to a certain extent shared by domestic psychologists, although priority is often given to the first. So, I.S. Kohn defines socialization as the assimilation by an individual of social experience, during which a specific personality is created.

With the help of socialization, society reproduces the social system, preserves its social structures, forms social standards, stereotypes and standards (group, class, ethnic, professional, etc.), and patterns of role behavior. In order not to be in opposition to society, the individual is forced to assimilate social experience by entering the social environment, into the system of existing social connections.

Socialization carries out the social typification of the individual, adapts and integrates a person in society due to his assimilation of social experience, values, norms, attitudes inherent both in society as a whole and in individual groups. However, due to its natural autonomy, a person retains and develops a tendency towards independence, freedom, the formation of his own position, and the development of individuality. The consequence of this trend is the transformation of both the individual and society. The trend of personal autonomy allows not only to update the existing system of social connections and social experience, but also to acquire new, including personal, individual Experience. Both trends - social typification and autonomization of personality, inherent in socialization, retain their stability, ensuring, on the one hand, the mutual renewal of social life, i.e. society, and on the other hand, the realization of personal potentials, inclinations, abilities, reproduction of spirituality and subjectivity.

Socialization is a continuous process that lasts throughout life. It breaks down into stages, each of which “specializes” in solving certain problems, without the elaboration of which the subsequent stage may either not occur at all, or may turn out to be distorted or inhibited. Thus, socialization is specific, in which a growing person is involved, developing and mastering his own subjectivity, the realities of his own existence through eventful community with other people, significant (referent) and indifferent (indifferent). The socialization of a mature, accomplished personality seems different.

When determining the stages (stages) of socialization, they start from the fact that it occurs more productively in work activity. Depending on the attitude towards work, the following stages of socialization are distinguished: 1) pre-labor, including the period of a person’s life before the start of work; 2) the labor stage covers the period of human maturity. However, the demographic boundaries of this stage are difficult to determine, since it includes the entire period of a person’s working activity. It is in work that the main basic values ​​are laid, self-awareness, value orientations and social attitudes of the individual are formed; 3) the post-labor stage occurs in old age and marks the cessation of labor activity.

In the process of socialization, a person seems to “try on” himself and perform various roles that give him the opportunity to express and reveal himself, i.e. represent it to society in a certain way. From the dynamics of the roles performed, one can get an idea of ​​those real interactions and those status-role relationships in which the person was included.

One of the main functions of socialization is the formation of a personality that adequately reflects the social situation and is capable of taking on the most important socially significant tasks, as well as conveying their spirituality to those living in the same society, country, family and in a single civilized space.

So, the essential meaning of socialization is revealed at the intersection of such processes as adaptation, integration, self-development and self-realization. Their dialectical unity ensures optimal personality development throughout a person’s life in interaction with the environment.

LITERATURE
1. Con KS. Sociology of personality. M., 1967. pp. 21-24.
2.Kotova I.B., Shiyanov E.L. Socialization and education. Rostov n/d, 1997, P, 514.
3.MudrikAV. Socialization and troubled times. M., 1991.
4. ParyginDB. Social psychology as a science. L., 1967. S. 123-126.
5. Petrovsky AB. Personality. Activity. Team. M., 1982.

Socialization explains the origin of human customs, norms, values ​​and the personality itself, which focuses in itself all the contradictory diversity of social relations. Man, as we know, lives in society and cannot be free from it, no matter how much he wishes. This is one of the constants of social behavior. Therefore, man is not only a “reasonable being,” but also a “social being.” Moreover, socialization, i.e., the formation of a person as “homo sapiens,” begins from birth. Any human action is only partly a product of nature. All human behavior is primarily the result of learning, or socialization.

The rudiments of social organization exist in bees and ants: they live collectively, they have a division of labor, defense of territory, control of order, an established system of relations, there is even a certain “social hierarchy” (workers, warriors, nannies), i.e. almost like in human society. However, there are good reasons to argue that animals do not have socialization. The behavior of animals leading a collective lifestyle, although similar to that of humans, occurs instinctively. Instinct is a biological program of action that is innate and transmitted genetically. Instinct assumes unilinear, strictly prescribed behavior (without options); deviation from instinct can lead to death.

Living organisms have a natural hierarchy. All their diversity can be arranged on a ladder of types from the simplest to the most complex. The more complex an organism is, the longer it takes to adapt to its environment. Insects, unlike people, are born already adults, i.e., ready to function normally in their ecological niche. Higher organisms have it more difficult. Nature took care to allocate a special period of time during which the newborn learns and adapts to the adult world of its species. This period is called childhood. In birds it lasts one season, in tigers, elephants and monkeys it lasts several years. The higher up the species ladder, the longer the adaptation period.

The hierarchy of living beings that arises during evolution, from the lowest - insects to the highest - humans, can be presented in the form of a corresponding diagram (Fig. 11). On it, along the Y axis, the complexity of the organization of the psyche of living beings will increase; along the X axis is the density of instincts and the degree of their influence on the behavior of a living creature (see Fig. 11).

Rice. 11. The more primitive a living creature, the more instincts influence its behavior

The pattern presented in the figure is as follows: the more primitive the creature, the greater the role instincts play in its behavior. In insects, behavior is almost 100% instinctive. Elephants and wolves already have fewer instincts and more so-called acquired behavior, which is transmitted by parents. Monkeys have even fewer instincts than, say, tigers. In humans, according to some researchers, more than 80% of behavior is socially acquired. The more a living creature’s behavior is guided by instincts, the less role parents play in its “teaching.” In insects, the function of parents is essentially performed by nature itself (innate behavioral programs). Accordingly, the fewer instincts, the higher the role and responsibility of parents.

The period of preparation for adulthood is the most protracted period for a person. Previously it was believed that it was limited to childhood; today it includes the period of adolescence and young adulthood. For almost a third of his life, a person learns to live in the most complex of existing worlds - in the world of social relations. No other species of living being has such an ecological niche. Recently, experts have come to the conclusion that a person learns and retrains throughout his life. These are the requirements of modern society. This preparation process is called socialization.

Socialization explains how a person transforms from a biological being into a social being. Socialization, as it were, describes at the individual level what happened to society at the collective level. Even the founder of sociology, Auguste Comte, pointed out that a person, in the course of his social maturation in a condensed form, goes through the same stages that society went through during 40 thousand years of its cultural evolution and which the human race went through during 2 million years of its biological evolution.

The process of socialization permeates all phases of the development of any human being, which are also called the main life cycles. There are four such cycles:

¦ childhood (from birth to puberty) – mastering the basic skills of human life;

¦ youth (from 12–14 to 18–20 years) – preparation for the active working period;

¦ maturity (18–60 years) – active working period;

¦ old age (60 years and older) – exit from the active working period.

These life cycles correspond to four main phases (stages) of socialization:

¦ primary socialization – the stage of socialization of infancy;

¦ secondary socialization – a stage coinciding with the receipt of formal education;

¦ socialization of maturity - the stage of turning an individual into an independent economic agent and creating his own family;

¦ socialization of old age – the stage of gradual withdrawal from active work and transformation into a kind of “dependent” (of the state or one’s own children - depending on the level of development of society).

Each of these stages is associated with the acquisition of a new status set and the development of new roles. The duration of each stage and its content depend decisively on the level of development of society.

In addition to the phases (stages) of the socialization process, the concept of “content of socialization” should also be highlighted. Interaction with one’s own kind in the process of socialization, when one social group teaches the “rules of life” to another, is called the formation of the social “I”. The content of socialization is not only the acquisition of social and economic independence, but also the formation of personality.

The formation of a social “I” is possible only as a process of assimilation of the opinions of significant others about me, who serve as a kind of mirror of the “I”. We can say it differently: at the socio-psychological level, the formation of the social “I” occurs through the internalization of cultural norms and social values. Let us recall that internalization is the transformation of external norms into internal rules of behavior.

As already mentioned, human socialization is a lifelong process of assimilating cultural norms and mastering social roles. As we now know, a social role is influenced by many cultural norms, rules and stereotypes of behavior; it is connected with other roles by invisible social threads - rights, responsibilities, relationships. And all this must be mastered. This is why the term “acquisition” rather than “learning” is more applicable to socialization. It is broader in content and includes training as one of its components.

Since throughout life a person has to master not one, but many social roles, moving up the age and career ladder, the process of socialization for a person continues throughout his life. Until a very old age, he changes his views on life, habits, tastes, rules of behavior, roles, etc. And now let’s take a closer look at the content of each of the phases (stages) of socialization.

Primary socialization. During the period of primary (children's) socialization, the possibility of acquiring information from social memory is still largely determined by the capabilities and parameters of biological intelligence: the quality of “sensory sensors,” reaction time, concentration, and memory. However, the further a person moves away from the moment of his birth, the less role biological instincts play in this process and the more important factors of social order become.

From birth, the child interacts not only with his own body and physical environment, but also with other human beings: the baby's world is populated by other people. Moreover, very soon the child becomes able to distinguish them from each other, and some of them acquire dominant significance for his life. The biography of an individual from the moment of his birth is actually the history of his relationships with others.

Moreover, the non-social components of the infant's experience are mediated and modified by others, that is, by his social experience. During most of this period of existence, the baby's physical comfort or discomfort is caused by the actions or omissions of others. This object with a pleasantly smooth surface was placed by someone in the child's fist. And if he got wet from the rain, it was because someone left his stroller uncovered in the open air. In such a situation, social experience, insofar as it can be distinguished from other elements in the child’s experience, does not yet constitute a special, isolated category. Almost every element in a child's world includes other human beings. His experiences with others are of decisive importance for his entire experience. It is others who create the patterns through which they experience the world. And it is through these patterns that the body establishes stable connections with the outside world, not only with the social world, but also with the physical environment. But the same patterns also permeate the body, that is, they interfere with the functioning of the body. It is others who implant in him the patterns by which the child’s hunger is satisfied. The most obvious illustration of this is eating patterns. If a child only feeds at set times, his body is forced to adapt to this pattern. During the formation of such a device, the functioning of his body changes. As a result, the child not only begins to eat at a certain time, but his hunger awakens at the same time. Society not only imposes its own behavioral patterns on the child, but also, in fact, “gets inside” his body in order to organize the functioning of his stomach. The same observations could be made for physiological secretions, sleep, and other physiological processes endemic (i.e., intrinsic) to the body.

The practice of feeding infants - this seemingly most elementary level of primary socialization - can be considered as an important example of their acquisition of social experience, where not only the individual characteristics of the mother, but also the social group to which the family belongs are a serious factor. There are, of course, many variations possible in this practice—feeding the baby on a regular schedule versus so-called on-demand feeding, breastfeeding versus bottle-feeding, varying timing of weaning, and so on. Here there are great differences not only between societies, but also between different classes within the same society. For example, in America, bottle feeding was first introduced by middle-class mothers. This then spread quite quickly to other classes. Therefore, the social status of the child’s parents literally “decides” whether he will be given the mother’s breast or a bottle when he is hungry.

The differences between societies in the context of the example discussed above are truly remarkable. In middle-class families in Western society, before experts on these issues disseminated various ideas about demand feeding, there was a rigid, almost industrial regime of scheduled feeding. The child was fed at certain hours and only during these hours. In between, he was allowed to cry. A variety of reasons were given to justify this practice, either from the point of view of practicality or in defense of the idea of ​​​​maintaining the health of the child. We can observe the opposite picture in the feeding practices of the Gusai people in Kenya. Here, when the mother works, she carries the child on herself, tied either to her back or to another part of the body. As soon as the baby starts to cry, he immediately receives the breast. The general rule is that your baby should not cry for more than five minutes before being fed. For Western societies, this feeding regime actually looks very “liberal”.

One can trace the enormous influence of society even on the sphere of physiological functioning of the child’s body, that is, on the practice of teaching young children to use the potty. Sometimes this influence turns out to be too intrusive; just remember the typical advertisement: “Libero is the best friend of kids!” Each nation, era and class had its own methods of caring for children. In countries with cold climates, they prefer to keep babies swaddled in a cradle day and night, and in warm climates, they wear them in a scarf or in a sling behind their back. Babies here are dressed lightly or not at all.

And, of course, the social factor turns out to be decisive in the formation of the intellect of a beginning member of society. The duration, functions and methods of education vary among different peoples, different classes and in different historical eras. Thus, upbringing in the upper and middle classes was longer than in the working class. Among the wealthy, childhood was considered a period of relative carelessness and non-participation in hard work. The typical social situation “inequality of opportunity – unequal start” manifests itself already in the first years of a child’s life. In some families, they are involved in the upbringing and development of the baby’s intellect almost from the moment of his birth, while in others they are not involved at all. By the time they enter school or kindergarten - that is, by the beginning of the stage of secondary socialization - children already differ quite noticeably in their level of development, ability to read and write, in their literary and general cultural background, in their motivation to perceive new information.

It is obvious that in the family of a professional intellectual, children undergo a significantly different socialization than in the families of parents of a lower intellectual level. It seems to us that the influence of these factors of the “social network” in which the developing personality is included, the influence of its immediate social environment is much stronger, more significant than the 30 percent that, for example, the famous English psychotherapist G. Eysenck assigns to the formation of intelligence to the surrounding social environment (if such a comparison is generally accessible to quantitative assessment). It must be emphasized that mental abilities and intelligence should not be confused: the former are indeed, to a large extent, determined genetically, the latter, of course, is developed. One could list a huge number of outstanding individuals who received a decisive intellectual start precisely thanks to the conditions of their childhood - from their parents and that circle of family friends who played the most important role as agents of primary socialization. “In absolutely all cases where the childhood and youth of a genius are known, it turns out that in one way or another he was surrounded by an environment that was optimally conducive to the development of his genius, partly because the genius was able to choose, find, create it, partly because a child of genius was born (and was brought up! - V.A., A.K.) in a family with a certain social continuity. The cases of such families are well known to many: the youth of Mozart and Bach has been described many times.”

Perhaps the most convincing evidence in favor of the social origin of individual intelligence (even in its most general - psychological - sense) includes the results of observations of the so-called Mowgli children. This is exactly what - after Kipling's hero - they call children who, for one reason or another, were deprived of human society from infancy and raised by animals. Another name for this phenomenon is “feral people”. There is an opinion that in the course of individual mental maturation there is a certain critical period - at the age of approximately 7 to 9 years, beyond which Mowgli children (if they were not returned to people before) finally lose the opportunity to acquire a human mind and remain forever animals.

One of the most frequently mentioned cases of this kind is the feeding and raising by wolves of two Indian girls, who were named Amala and Kamala. The youngest of the girls, Amala, died soon after returning to the people, and the eldest lived among the people for another ten years. Observers noted that, despite some adaptation to the surrounding social, human conditions, her behavior was to a great extent reminiscent of the behavior of a wolf (ease of movement on four limbs with difficulty in walking upright, aversion to clothing, lapping water instead of drinking, a well-developed sense of smell, even howling in full moon). The entire vocabulary she mastered during this period never went beyond about forty words. (Perhaps wolf thinking is limited to the range of concepts denoted by these forty words?) In other words, this girl’s human mind was never formed - not only at the level of intelligence, but even at the level of elementary common sense. Perhaps those psychologists are right who claim that the age of approximately 7–9 years is a certain critical threshold. By this age, the child has mastered up to 50% (!) of the amount of information that he will have to learn throughout his life.

There are examples of children being raised by animals not only in the depths of the jungle, but also in the modern city. So, in Yevpatoria, a six-year-old boy lived for four years in an abandoned house with a pack of dogs. “He lived on equal terms in a booth with three large mongrels left over from the previous owners of the house. They fed him: they brought him food from the surrounding garbage dumps, like a puppy.” The boy does not speak, and all his behavior is really like that of a stray dog. True, in the family orphanage where the boy finally ended up, they do not lose hope of turning him into a man. And for this, apparently, there are certain reasons, since he has not yet crossed the critical age threshold mentioned above. Evidence of this kind has been increasing recently, and it is most often due to social factors. Thus, in the “Confrontation” program on NTV on July 22, 2002, they talked about a girl Oksana Malaya from the Ukrainian village of Novaya Blagoveshchenka, who lived with a yard dog in her kennel and who was chained by her own parents (!). And, although she not only barks, but also speaks, according to experts, she will never become a full-fledged person.

Similar conclusions could be drawn from the so-called “Kaspar Hauser phenomenon” (named after a young man who was brought up in almost complete isolation from other people). True, judging by the descriptions of this case in the literature, Kaspar Hauser rather quickly adapted to the cultural values ​​of his time.

Observations of the inhabitants of the Zagorsk boarding school for deaf-blind children provided enormous material for psychologists dealing with the development of mental abilities. Some of the boarding school's pets, who entered it with a significant delay, with a chronological age of 19–20 years, had the development level of one and a half to two year old infants. Probably, psychological deprivation, which arose as a result of significant isolation from external stimuli and sensory insufficiency, leads not just to a delay, but even to a stop in intellectual development. However, the boarding school pupils who entered it at an early age and were trained using a special method (there was even a special scientific and methodological direction associated with the education of the deaf and mute - the so-called typhlo-deaf pedagogy) were relatively successful (as far as possible in case of deprivation of vision and hearing) all stages of socialization (up to the defense of a candidate’s dissertation by one of E. Ilyenkov’s students).

Why did the primary socialization of the wolf pupil Kamala fail? It seems to us that it did take place, but it happened before returning to human society. Actively communicating with her “relatives” in the wolf pack, the girl, upon reaching a “critical age,” acquired a fairly complete (and therefore stable) psyche of a wolf. As a result, resocialization turned out to be impossible: the social demands of the new environment were no longer able to displace the behavioral and adaptive stereotypes of the animal that were too firmly entrenched in the psyche, which had practically nothing in common with the norms and values ​​of human society. The consciousness of a deaf-blind child (like, probably, Kaspar Hauser) at the moment of a full-fledged collision with human society represents a kind of tabula rasa. Perhaps, in such children, sensory deprivation (from the Latin deprivatio - loss, deprivation, deprivation) contributes to the emergence and accumulation of an organic need for active activity (including cognitive), and therefore the socialization of these children proceeds relatively quickly.

The importance of early influences that develop personality and intelligence is emphasized, in particular, in the work of R. Bergins, who shows that 20% of future intelligence is acquired by the end of the first year of life, 50% by four to five years, 80% by 8 years, 92% - up to 13 years. It is believed that already at this age it is possible to predict with a fairly high probability both the scope and the “ceiling” of future possible achievements. V.P. Efroimson also drew attention to the fact that the situation in families and in the environment, which constitute the main agents of socialization of highly creative children and potentially intellectual children, is somewhat different. If in the families and surroundings of the former there is a situation of independence and some uncertainty, a propensity to take risks, then in the latter, who make up the majority, preference is given to standards of fairly even behavior.

Scientists have proven that children raised outside the family generally have significantly reduced opportunities for full development. Among children in orphanages aged from one to three years, 46% of children examined in 1988 are lagging behind in physical development, and 75% in mental development.

One way or another, by the time primary socialization is completed, the parents and the child’s immediate environment have already conveyed to him not only a significant amount of information about the world in which he will live, but also the norms, values ​​and goals of their groups and their social class (in any case - the class with which they identify themselves).

Secondary socialization. The content, nature and quality of a person’s secondary socialization, which coincides in time and content with the period of his receiving formal education, are determined by the level of training of teachers, the quality of pedagogical methods, and the conditions in which the educational process takes place. And this, in turn, cannot but be influenced by social origin, and therefore the cultural and material level of the family. This level determines what school the child will go to, what books and how much he will read, what his daily social circle will be, whether he will have personal mentors and tutors, and today a computer, etc. Differences psychometric intelligence of children are identical to the differences in social status of the families in which they were born and raised.

The true formation of intelligence, that is, the introduction of an individual to the world of scientific, systematized knowledge, begins precisely at school. However, the school pursues more than just this goal. One of the main functions of the stage of secondary socialization is the general preparation of the individual for his future life activities in social institutions operating within the framework of formal organizations. One of the critics of the modern education system, Evan Illich, even called the school a “universal church.” For these reasons, the school, in addition to forming a stable set of certain knowledge in its students, always sets itself the task of instilling in them the ideological and moral values ​​dominant in a given society in a given historical period.

As P. and B. Berger argue, “there is an ideology of education, deeply rooted in the history of Western civilization, that speaks to what that experience should be.” Education is supposed to impart the skills and foundations of knowledge that an individual needs to succeed in the world. It is also assumed (and more importantly in the classical tradition of Western education) that education is designed to build character and develop the mind - quite independently of the criteria for success in any particular society. Despite the great diversity of national educational systems, they are, in essence, organized according to a single principle: “The educational career of an individual as a whole is structured as follows: knowledge is “packed” into courses, each of the units is added to other units, the total sum of which represents specific educational goals (completion of a particular curriculum, obtaining a particular degree) that the individual expects to achieve.”

Undoubtedly, the main function of the stage of secondary socialization is the intellectualization of the individual, that is, the maximum possible filling of his thesaurus with information accumulated by previous generations (and information that is in the nature of systematized scientific knowledge), and the development of logical thinking skills. However, in addition to this direct function, secondary socialization also performs a number of latent functions hidden from direct observation. Thus, it is safe to say that one of these functions is the development of skills to function in a formal organization. Before coming to school, the child spent all his time in informal small groups - in the family, in friendly companies of peers. For everyone around him, he was a unique, unrepeatable personality. Sitting down at a desk, he becomes one of many, acquiring the formal status of a student, pupil. Consequently, it can be argued that secondary socialization begins even before school - for those children who are brought to kindergarten or even nursery. And orphans - inmates of orphanages - find themselves completely deprived of primary socialization, starting their lives almost immediately with secondary socialization.

An unusual situation in which a child who has left the family finds himself is the absence of parents and relatives who previously supervised him. He has to learn to obey strangers, and not because he feels affection or love for them, but because the social system, based on the uniformity of requirements, norms, rules and social roles, requires it. None of the children are any longer seen as a unique individual, a favorite son or daughter, or exceptionally gifted. The individual qualities of a child in a typical school are not the object of special attention. The child becomes just one among many, he is now subject to the same rules as all the others. What is expected of him is not exceptional, but typical behavior that corresponds to prescribed standards.

In schools in some countries, there is a special school uniform, a standard set of textbooks and writing materials, a strictly observed daily routine, a clearly established sequence of subjects (lesson schedule), stability of the teaching staff and students. Children's progress is assessed using special standards (school grades), usually using a five-point system. If they fulfill the required minimum requirements (good or satisfactory performance in credit subjects), after a year they are promoted to the next grade. The usual duration of secondary school education in different countries is from 10 to 12 years. Training can be divided into several stages, for example, primary, incomplete secondary, completed secondary. After graduating from school, a certificate is issued - a diploma (certificate) of completion of high school, which records success during the school years and serves as the basis for admission to a college or university.

The effectiveness of the educational process on the formation of personality also largely depends on the nature of social interactions taking place within the walls of the classroom. In the early 1970s, a number of English sociologists conducted research into the social interactions and values ​​(often tacit rather than formally recognized) that make up the social system of the school classroom. Because these studies have been limited (often to a single school) and primarily descriptive in nature, the generalizations that can be made about the findings of such studies are limited to the following issues:

¦ hidden curriculum and control over students as part of the social system - the school;

¦ the existence of clearly defined student subcultures - those who accept school values, and those who, to one degree or another, diverge from them;

¦ the influence of the social organization of the school on students - representatives of these subcultures (for example, segregation into streams of “capable” and “less capable”, stereotyping and labeling both from teachers and from the students themselves, etc.);

¦ the extremely complex nature of social interaction between teachers and students, based on an asymmetrical distribution of power, which sometimes meets resistance from some students.

Consequently, the real successes of students are a product not only of their intellectual level and innate abilities, but also of the complex social processes taking place at school.

The English sociologist N. Keddie, studying the practice of distributing students into parallel classes in British schools based on their abilities, connects the assessment of the student’s abilities, which forms the basis of such division, with the criteria used by teachers to evaluate the knowledge acquired in the classroom. It is assumed that the knowledge that the school itself considers necessary and “correct” is quite abstract and can be presented in general forms. At the same time, teachers value precisely this knowledge acquired at school above the specific knowledge of students, which they acquire directly from their own experience. Candidates in high-ability groups are more willing to learn first what teachers define as “relevant” knowledge, and refrain from expressing disbelief when it does not match their own experience. Once assigned to parallel classes, those who are judged to be more capable have freer access to knowledge that is valued more highly than those who are judged to be less able. It should be noted that at the same time, an assessment is probably made of the level of intellectual development achieved by the student, which, thus, is carried out within the framework of the value-normative ideas prevailing in society.

Almost all schools and other organizations operating within educational institutions have a formal curriculum covering those areas of academic knowledge that students are expected to master - for example, mathematics, physics, biology. However, beyond this academic and precisely stated curriculum, there are a number of values, attitudes or principles that are implicitly conveyed to students by teachers. It is believed that this hidden curriculum is designed to maintain social control in school and society. This, as a result, accustoms people to adapt to the actually functioning state power, as well as the dominant ideology in society, and to obey it; makes them perceive social inequality as a natural state and thus ensures cultural reproduction in a given society. Of course, all this leaves its mark on the formation of intelligence. It is often observed that students who are creative and independent perform relatively poorly in school, while students who have qualities such as punctuality, discipline, obedience and diligence succeed.

One way or another, the level and quality of education (here we do not separate formal and informal, professional and non-professional aspects, but are talking about education in general - as the purposeful and systematic acquisition of new knowledge, skills and abilities) is the most important factor in the formation of individual intelligence. The relationship between education and the level of psychometric intelligence has been repeatedly confirmed by data from both foreign and domestic studies. Thus, L.N. Borisova analyzed the results of an experiment to determine the level of intelligence in five groups with different levels of education. A total of 2,300 subjects were examined, which suggests a fairly high representativeness and statistical significance of the results. As one would expect, the gap in intelligence level increases noticeably as educational level increases (Figure 12).

Concluding our consideration of secondary socialization, let us pay attention to the following. The school is a rather late result of the historical development of civilization. In primitive society and among backward (primitive) peoples today, school as such does not exist at all. Learning new knowledge and skills in such societies occurs through informal contacts between elders, who pass on their experience, and younger ones, who assimilate it; and not through written media (books, textbooks, notebooks), but through oral speech and visual examples.

Socialization of maturity. Most authors studying the problems of socialization focus almost all their attention only on the first two phases, sometimes without even mentioning the next two, although they cover at least two-thirds of human life. There is a certain reason for this: it is assumed that socialization, considered mainly as preparation for life in the conditions of human society, ends with the onset of biological and social maturity. However, considering socialization in a broad sense - as the development of norms and values ​​of society,

Rice. 12. Dependence of the level of intelligence on education: 1 – group of subjects with 8 years of education; 2 – schoolchildren; 3 – with secondary education; 4 – students; 5 – with higher education

in which the individual lives - we will have to agree that it continues in a person almost until his death (in full accordance with the saying “live and learn”). True, given the huge variety of social practices and the difference in the involvement of different members of society in them, it is quite difficult to identify typical patterns of socialization in adulthood. Nevertheless, some of them, characteristic of all societies and all historical periods, should be pointed out.

In the context of this issue, two typical points can be distinguished.

The first is mastering the role of an independent economic agent. Both previous stages of socialization - primary and secondary - regardless of their duration, are characterized by the fact that the physical and cultural existence of the individual is financially provided by other people - parents, educators, guardians. Having completed secondary socialization, a person must learn to independently take care of obtaining the means for his existence.

The second is starting your own family. This means not only his (her) direct participation in procreation in the biological sense. If at the first two stages of his socialization a person is only an object of someone’s teaching and educational influence, then with the onset of the third stage he himself turns into an agent of socialization. He is now required to master new roles - husband (wife), father (mother), educator, mentor, guardian. The “correct” performance of all these roles, of course, is quite closely related to the effectiveness of fulfilling the role of an economic agent.

Of course, family role scenarios largely depend on the nature of marriage and family institutions typical of a particular society, as well as the predominance of one or another form of family. For example, for traditional societies where the extended family dominates, entering the stage of socialization of an adult does not yet mean gaining complete independence: even after becoming a father or mother, the individual remains subordinate to the real head of the family - the patriarch. By the way, he also fulfills his role as an economic agent without going beyond the family, since it is the family that is the basic economic unit in a traditional society. It is a different matter in modern industrial society, where the nuclear family predominates. In such a society, having your own family also means having your own autonomous household, which means a much higher degree of independence.

Differences in the types of societies and levels of their development leave their mark on the nature and content of the various stages of socialization, as well as on their duration. In traditional societies, with their inaccessibility of education to the general public, the absolute majority of members of these societies simply “skip” through the stage of secondary socialization, moving from primary socialization directly to adult socialization. In reality, this means that children in families of peasants and artisans from a very young age are introduced to feasible work to obtain their daily bread, not in play, but in practice, mastering the role of an independent economic agent. In addition, it is the most common practice here to marry immediately upon reaching biological puberty. There were serious objective reasons for the spread of such a tradition. Suffice it to remember that even in developed England on the eve of the industrial revolution (mid-18th century), the average life expectancy was thirty years. There is hardly any reason to believe that in previous eras and in other societies it was longer. In addition, marriage (as well as the birth of new children) meant the appearance of new workers in family production, on the total number of whom production and efficiency depended.

This situation changes radically in industrial societies, which, of course, also has its own objective prerequisites. Here, first of all, the family turns out to be completely separated from production activities, and its social functions are limited to reproduction - biological and cultural. In addition, the increasing complexity of technology and the increasingly active introduction of scientific achievements into the production process dictate the urgent need for mass literacy. This leads to the fact that the stage of secondary socialization becomes mandatory for the vast majority of members of industrial societies. Moreover, the duration of this stage (separating primary socialization and adult socialization) consistently increases in size as industrialization progresses. A person’s entry into the stage of socialization of maturity is delayed until the age of 25, or even older. For traditional societies this would be tantamount to death, but industrial societies are not in danger of this, at least due to the more than doubling of average life expectancy.

Socialization of old age. The emergence of this stage as a special typical stage of the life cycle also becomes possible only in an industrial society, and at fairly high levels of its development. Of course, a particularly respectful attitude towards the elderly was inherent in almost all societies, starting with primitive ones. In preliterate societies, old people were objects of respect and veneration, because in the absence of other material carriers of information, they were living repositories of wisdom, customs, information about property and other rights. In addition, their share in the total population was insignificant - due to the just mentioned low level of average life expectancy. And when someone lived to an old age, this in itself distinguished him from his fellow tribesmen. Although, of course, there is a fair amount of romanticism in our ideas about the more favorable status of older people in the early periods of the history of human society. The idyllic picture of a gray-haired old man sitting by the fire and telling wonderful stories of the past to children makes one close one's eyes to many of the cruelties that characterized the treatment of old people in the past.

The current interest of sociology in aging and gerontology is stimulated primarily by the increasing proportion of older people in the population of industrial societies and the need to increase the amount of government care for the elderly. Old age in modern society means an inevitable decline in social status - both in phylogenesis (in comparison with previous societies) and in ontogenesis (in comparison with what took place in previous age periods). First of all, this is due to the impossibility of an individual continuing his previous economic activity with the same intensity. This entails a decline in such parameters of economic status as the active disposal of property for those who own it, and the place in the organization of labor for hired workers. Gradual or abrupt - in connection with retirement - departure from the labor market means a simultaneous decrease in the importance of all parameters in the system of professional stratification - both for the person himself and for the people around him. These losses are especially sensitive to the individual due to the fact that they usually coincide with a decrease in income and health status. We are not talking about the feeling of social and professional lack of demand, which requires a certain psychological adaptation.

At the same time, observations of this category of the population in developed societies show that everything is not as dramatic as it seems at first glance. The fact is that the old-age social security system in these societies (associated, in particular, with the intensive development of non-state pension funds) makes it possible to provide older people with a standard of living that is much higher in comparison with what was the case even just half a century ago. In addition, pensioners more often have an excess of income over expenses - firstly, due to the fact that the previous period of life allowed them to make substantial savings (all loan payments for housing have been paid, all major acquisitions have been made long ago, they have a bank account), secondly, the level of their demands is noticeably lower in comparison with their younger contemporaries. We are not even talking about the fact that they - again in comparison with their children - have an almost unlimited supply of free time. We repeat that we are talking about advanced societies here, but this kind of situation is increasingly observed in Russia.

One way or another, both positive and negative aspects of the transition to the period of “twilight of life” mean the need to master new roles (pensioner, dependent, grandfather, grandmother), which means entering an almost new - now final - stage of socialization, which also requires certain psychological and moral efforts from the individual and which increasingly makes both government authorities and sociologists think about this problem.

In sociology, there is another, slightly different approach to the division into primary and secondary socialization. According to him, socialization is divided into primary and secondary depending on who acts as its main agent. With this approach, primary socialization is a process that occurs within small – primarily primary – groups (and they, as a rule, are informal). Secondary socialization occurs in the course of life within the framework of formal institutions and organizations (kindergarten, school, university, production). This criterion is of a normative and substantive nature: primary socialization occurs under the close gaze and decisive influence of informal agents, parents and peers, and secondary socialization occurs under the influence of the norms and values ​​of formal agents, or institutions of socialization, i.e. kindergarten, school, production, army, police, etc.

Primary groups are small contact communities where people know each other, where informal, trusting relationships exist between them (family, neighborhood community).

Secondary groups are social groups of people that are quite large in size, between which there are predominantly formal relationships, when people treat each other not as individual and unique individuals, but in accordance with the formal status that they possess.

A fairly common occurrence is the inclusion of primary groups in secondary groups as constituent parts.

The main reason why the primary group is the most important agent of socialization is that for the individual, the primary group to which he belongs is one of the most important reference groups. This term denotes that group (real or imaginary), whose system of values ​​and norms acts as a kind of standard of behavior for the individual. A person always - voluntarily or unwittingly - correlates his intentions and actions with how they can be assessed by those whose opinions he values, regardless of whether they are watching him in reality or only in his imagination. The reference group can be the group to which the individual currently belongs, and the group of which he was a member before, and the one to which he would like to belong. Personified images of people who make up the reference group form an “internal audience” towards which a person is guided in his thoughts and actions.

As we have already said, the primary group is usually a family, a group of peers, or a group of friends. Typical examples of secondary groups are army units, school classes, and production teams. Some secondary groups, such as trade unions, can be considered as associations in which at least some of their members interact with each other, in which there is a single normative system shared by all members and some common sense of corporate existence shared by all members. In accordance with this approach, primary socialization occurs in primary groups, and secondary socialization occurs in secondary groups.

Primary social groups are the sphere of personal relationships, i.e. informal. Informal is such behavior between two or more people, the content, order and intensity of which is not regulated by any document, but is determined by the participants in the interaction itself. An example is family.

Secondary social groups are the sphere of business relations, i.e. formal ones. Formal are those contacts (or relationships), the content, order, time and regulations of which are regulated by some document. An example is the army.

Both groups - primary and secondary - as well as both types of relationships - informal and formal - are vital for every person. However, the time devoted to them and the degree of their influence are distributed differently at different stages of life. For full socialization, an individual needs experience of communication in both environments. This is the principle of diversity of socialization: the more heterogeneous the experience of communication and interaction of an individual with his social environment, the more fully the process of socialization proceeds.

The process of socialization includes not only those who learn and acquire new knowledge, values, customs, and norms. An important component of this process are those who influence the learning process and shape it to a decisive extent. They are called agents of socialization. This category can include both specific people and social institutions. Individual agents of socialization can be parents, relatives, babysitters, family friends, teachers, coaches, teenagers, leaders of youth organizations, doctors, etc. Social institutions act as collective agents (for example, the main agent of primary socialization is the family).

Socialization agents are specific people (or groups of people) responsible for learning cultural norms and mastering social roles.

Socialization institutions are social institutions and institutions that influence the process of socialization and guide it: school and university, army and police, office and factory, etc.

Primary (informal) agents of socialization are parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, close and distant relatives, babysitters, family friends, peers, teachers, coaches, doctors, leaders of youth groups. The term “primary” refers within this context to everything that constitutes the immediate, or immediate, environment of a person. It is in this sense that sociologists speak of a small group as primary. The primary environment is not just the closest to a person, but also the most important for the formation of his personality, since it ranks first both in terms of significance and in the frequency and density of contacts between him and all its members.

Secondary (formal) agents of socialization are representatives of formal groups and organizations: school, university, enterprise administrations, officers and officials of the army, police, church, state, as well as those with whom contacts are indirect - employees of television, radio, press, parties, courts, etc.

Informal and formal agents of socialization (as we have already indicated, sometimes these can be entire institutions) influence a person differently, but both influence him throughout his entire life cycle. However, the impact of informal agents and informal relationships usually reaches its maximum at the beginning and end of a person's life, and the impact of formal business relationships is felt with greatest force in the middle of life.

The reliability of the above judgment is obvious even from the point of view of common sense. A child, just like an old man, reaches out to his family and friends, on whose help and protective actions his existence entirely depends. Old people and children are noticeably less socially mobile than others, more defenseless, they are less active politically, economically, and professionally. Children have not yet become the productive force of society, and the elderly have already ceased to be so; both need the support of mature relatives who are in an active position in life.

After 18–25 years of age, a person begins to actively engage in professional production activities or business and build his career. Bosses, partners, colleagues, study and work mates - these are the people to whose opinions a mature person listens most, from whom he receives the most information he needs, who determine his career growth, salary, prestige and much more. Do grown-up children-businessmen who, it seems, just recently held their mother’s hand, often call their “mothers”?

Among the primary agents of socialization in the above sense, not all play the same role and have equal status. There is no doubt that in relation to a child undergoing primary socialization, parents are in a preferential position. As for his peers (those who play with him in the same sandbox), they are simply equal to him in status. They forgive him much of what his parents do not forgive: erroneous decisions, violation of moral principles and social norms, indiscretion, etc. Each social group can give an individual in the process of socialization no more than what they themselves have been taught or what they have been socialized into . In other words, a child learns from adults how to be an adult “correctly”, and from peers - how to be a child “correctly”: to play, fight, be cunning, how to relate to the opposite sex, make friends and be fair.

A small group of peers (Peer group) at the stage of primary socialization performs the most important social function: it facilitates the transition from a state of dependence to independence, from childhood to adulthood. Modern sociology indicates that this type of collectivity plays a particularly important role at the stage of biological and psychological maturation. It is youth peer groups that have a clearly expressed tendency to have: 1) a fairly high degree of solidarity; 2) hierarchical organization; 3) codes that deny the values ​​and experiences of adults or even oppose them. Parents are unlikely to teach you how to be a leader or achieve leadership among your peers. In a sense, peers and parents influence the child in opposite directions, with the former often nullifying the efforts of the latter. Parents, in fact, often look at their children’s peers as their competitors in the struggle for influence over them.

We have already repeatedly touched upon the problem of inequality and socialization in this chapter - in particular, when we were talking about primary socialization as a stage of infancy. To a certain extent, this problem also occurs at the secondary school stage, especially in those societies where there are actually two separate systems - one for everyone, and the other for those from privileged classes, and the second provides incomparable advantages for continuing education in higher education. institutions (for example, so-called “academic schools” in the USA or “grammar schools” in the UK).

Education in modern countries is a very broad and highly developed differentiated multi-level social system (subsystems of society) of continuous improvement of the knowledge and skills of members of society, playing a vital role in the socialization of the individual, his preparation for obtaining one or another social status and performing the corresponding roles, in stabilization, integration and improvement of social systems. Education is of great importance in determining the social status of an individual, in the reproduction and development of the social structure of society, in maintaining social order and stability, and exercising social control.

Education is the most important factor in the reproduction and improvement of the social and professional structure of society. In addition, it is an important channel for social movement and social mobility. The more democratic and open a society is, the more education “works” as an effective social “elevator”. It allows a person from the lower strata in the hierarchical structure of society to move to the higher strata and, therefore, achieve a high social status.

In the former USSR, this problem did not explicitly exist, but there were schools for “gifted children,” among whom there was a fairly large proportion of people from the families of party and government officials. In post-reform Russia, issues of inequality of opportunities in obtaining education, especially higher education, became much more clear and prominent.

In a series of studies conducted by Novosibirsk sociologists under the leadership of V.N. Shubkin over a 30-year period, global patterns were revealed that characterize the accumulated effect of social inequality in the education system. If the children of workers and peasants and the intelligentsia entered the first grade of school in the same proportion as these categories are represented in the social structure of society, then by the time it ended, the share of children of the latter increased sharply, and the share of the first two groups decreased. The discovered trend was even more pronounced at the level of higher education: in essence, at universities, some intellectuals (teachers) taught others (students).

If earlier, in the 60s, the government, through additional measures, somehow equalized the proportions of students in accordance with the parameters of the social structure, then by the mid-90s there were no longer any funds or desire left for such an equalization. Paid education – both at university and at school – has sharply increased social differentiation not only among adults, but also among children.

Thus, according to the data obtained, by 1994, compared to 1962, the share of high school students among the children of leaders increased by 3.5 times, and the share of children of workers and peasants decreased by 2.5 times. The latter dropped out of school not only due to poor academic performance, but also for financial reasons. Having divided the respondents into four groups (children of workers and peasants, children of specialists, children of employees, children of managers), V.N. Shubkin and D.L. Konstantinovsky, having compared the orientations of high school students, established the following: the higher the status and level of education of the parents, the more Professions associated with skilled mental work are attractive to boys and girls. There is a clear tendency here to reproduce the status of the parents.

The intelligentsia, which fills the three layers of the middle class, is focused only on higher education. Parents, even those with very limited financial resources, sometimes invest their last money in their children’s education. The formula “the best investment is the education of our children” is the leitmotif of the entire life of the middle class, which itself is formed from representatives of the educated part of society. Children grow up constantly focused on university education. They always have the right socializers who can give the right advice, all family income is mobilized for them, and a favorable spiritual environment is created for them during the period of study.

The trends described above are much less typical for families of workers and peasants, the bulk of which belong to the lower class - regardless of even the size of their income. Children here are noticeably less oriented toward university education. They do not see a living example of a highly educated specialist engaged in prestigious and creative work in their immediate environment: their parents, relatives and friends, as a rule, are representatives of the same class.

In Soviet society, the path to the top was, in principle, open to representatives of all strata and classes, but in present-day Russia, the so-called supra-class model of socialization was formed. In Soviet society, one way or another, everyone aspired to higher education - the children of workers, peasants and the intelligentsia. Moreover, the first ones even received a certain advantage upon admission. Studying at a university was the dream of almost all Soviet youth. In some ways, this tradition, or model of behavior, was preserved in the 90s, but it became extremely difficult to implement it. Higher education itself has been fragmented into free - state, where competition has increased, and paid - commercial and semi-commercial, where there is practically no competition, but tuition fees are prohibitively high for many. As a result, in addition to the lower internal motivation for obtaining higher education, the lower class faced two more external filters:

¦ high competition for budget (free) education;

¦ high fees in non-state universities.

Both social barriers made higher education almost inaccessible to the lower class. To overcome high competition, you need deep knowledge and thorough preparation, which an ordinary Russian high school, where the vast majority of children from the lower class study, is not able to provide. Paid universities are becoming inaccessible not so much because children are not prepared to enter them, but because their parents were unprepared for market life: they did not become “new Russians”, do not have their own business, do not work in commercial sector.

The investment of all capital in the education of children of the intelligentsia is facilitated by the orientation of parents towards obtaining higher education and strong motivation to achieve this goal. Even with the same material opportunities among workers and the intelligentsia, their children have unequal chances of entering a university. Often families of workers and peasants do not know how to effectively invest free funds in preparing their children for university, even if they have them: they do not know good tutors, they do not have friends among university teachers, and at the first failure they give up what they have started. But more often, something else happens: families from the lower class are simply unable to accumulate the necessary funds due to an incorrect, wasteful lifestyle.

In middle-class families, professions are often inherited. Children see from a living example how and how long their father works, what his work consists of, how creatively he grows from it, how he rejoices at success, how much money he receives, etc. In this way - firsthand, visually - the child becomes familiar with a very specific professions. It’s easier for him to make his choice. The transitional age is also less painful for such children, since they are gradually preparing for a new stable position, i.e., student years.

It is more difficult for the children of workers. Most representatives of the working class direct their children not to the physical labor in which they themselves are engaged, but to mental labor. And they want to “push” them into universities. However, they cannot give a clear example of an intellectual profession. Children observe a completely different kind of work, but they know firsthand what they will face in the future. And there is no one to advise: everyone around him is from the working class. Once they enter universities, they do worse than middle-class children.

Judging by some data on social origin (occupation and profession of parents), more than half of students at Russian universities in the mid-1990s came from families of the intelligentsia - engineers, designers, economists, financiers, lawyers, jurists, military officers, teachers, scientific and creative workers, doctors, businessmen, executives. Among the students, the proportion of representatives of the rapidly emerging layer of entrepreneurs is increasing, and the proportion of people from the humanitarian, scientific, engineering and technical intelligentsia is increasing. If this trend continues in the 21st century, two thirds of university students will be recruited from the families of the intelligentsia. Thus, a modern university is aimed mainly at the “self-reproduction” of the intelligentsia class (if, of course, it can be called a class).

So, the university, designed to prepare potential intellectual workers, previously recruited students from all walks of life, today this is done mainly from the intelligentsia. This process could be called a deformation of professional selection into universities. According to some experts, a clear bias towards the intelligentsia leads to mutual isolation of social classes and strata, gives rise to a feeling of social injustice and lack of equal chances for vertical mobility among workers and employees.

The discovered trends, which could be called a kind of “funnel” of social inequality, for example, in the field of education (Fig. 13), are manifested in a variety of facts. Thus, if in 1963, out of one hundred secondary school graduates, 11 people from workers and peasants entered universities, then in 1983 there were 9, and in 1993 - 5. Accordingly, the proportion of children of employees from 1963 to 1993 increased from 10 to 16 , specialists - from 14 to 18, managers - from 6 to 20 percent.

Rice. 13. “Funnel” of social inequality in education

Children of managers and specialists today fill three quarters (75%) of the most prestigious vacancies in universities - they study at the faculties of economics and finance. Only one tenth of these vacancies are occupied by the children of employees (13%), the share of children of workers and peasants is even smaller. In the 90s, high-quality secondary and higher education became less and less accessible to the lower social classes. Tuition fees in Moscow commercial lyceums and universities reach 2-4 thousand dollars a year, while the average salary of a Muscovite does not even reach 120 dollars. Obviously, those whose parents can pay for studying at a privileged school, for preliminary pre-university preparation, for studying at a university. As a result of increasing social differentiation, children who come from the lower classes are forced into “cheap” schools, and at the same time, the level of education of these adolescents is deteriorating. Mostly children from higher social strata pass through the school and university sieve. Other scientists also write about unequal access to education at the post-school and university levels for workers and peasants. “As a rule, the sons and daughters of party workers and intellectuals studied in universities; these layers used their influence to secure a place for their children in an elite secondary school or university... Another source of inequality was that the socialist education system and personnel training, as a rule, did not take into account children with specific needs. Children with disabilities, children with developmental delays or living in unfavorable social conditions rarely received the specialized help they needed.”

Thus, in the course of empirical studies conducted by domestic sociologists in recent decades, it turned out that social inequality in access to secondary and higher education increases not only from one historical period to another, but also from one level of education to another - from primary to secondary school and from secondary education to higher education.

1. The term “socialization” is used to describe the process by which and by which people learn to adapt to social norms, that is, the process that makes possible the continued development of a society and the transmission of its culture from generation to generation. Socialization explains the origin of human customs, norms, values ​​and the formation of the human personality itself. It shows how a person turns from a biological being into a social being, learning and relearning throughout his life.

2. The process of socialization is usually divided into four phases (stages), corresponding to life cycles: primary socialization - the stage of socialization of infancy; secondary socialization – a stage coinciding with the receipt of formal education; socialization of maturity - the stage of turning an individual into an independent economic agent and creating his own family; socialization of old age is the stage of gradual withdrawal from active work.

3. According to another approach, socialization is divided into primary and secondary, depending on who acts as its main agent. Primary socialization is a process that takes place within small – primarily primary – groups (and they, as a rule, are informal). Secondary socialization occurs in the course of life within the framework of formal institutions and organizations (kindergarten, school, university, production).

4. Agents of socialization are understood as specific people (or groups of people) responsible for learning cultural norms and mastering social roles. Institutions of socialization - social institutions and institutions that influence the process of socialization and guide it: school and university, army and police, office and factory, etc. Primary (informal) agents of socialization - parents, brothers, sisters, grandparents, close and distant relatives, babysitters, family friends, peers, teachers, coaches, doctors, youth group leaders. The term “primary” refers in this context to all the people who make up a person’s immediate, or immediate, environment. Secondary (formal) agents of socialization are, as a rule, representatives of formal groups and organizations.

5. At all stages of socialization, social inequality is clearly manifested. At the stage of primary socialization, children are in unequal conditions due to the unequal financial situation of families and differences in the amount of attention paid to children by adults. The nature and quality of education received by an individual also varies depending on financial capabilities and personal abilities. At the two subsequent stages - the socialization of maturity and the socialization of old age - this is aggravated by the effects of inequality accumulated in the two previous stages.

1. What does the relationship between instincts and complex behavior look like in different species of living beings?

2. What is the interpretation of the socialization process from the point of view of the theory of social roles?

3. What stages is the socialization process divided into?

4. What is “resocialization”?

5. What characterizes primary socialization?

5. What are the explicit and latent functions of secondary socialization?

6. What are the main patterns of socialization in adulthood?

7. How is the socialization of old age characterized?

9. What is the main difference between primary small groups and secondary ones?

10. What is meant by agents of socialization and its institutions?

1. Abercrombie N, Hill S., Turner S. Sociological Dictionary / Transl. from English – Kazan: Kazan University Publishing House, 1997.

2. Anurin V.F. Some problems of the sociology of old age // Elderly people - a look into the 21st century. – N. Novgorod, 2000.

3. Borisova L.N. Dynamics of intellectual development of adults // Age-related features of mental activity of adults. – L., 1974.

4. Cooley Ch. Primary groups // American sociological thought. – M., 1994.

5. Konstantinovsky D. L. Youth in the education system: dynamics of inequality // Sociological Journal. – 1997, No. 3.

6. Mead J. Internalized others and the self // American Sociological Thought. – M., 1994.

7. Parsons T. About social systems. – M., 2002. – Ch. 6: Training in social-role expectations and mechanisms of socialization of motivation.

8. Rutkevich M. N. Changing the social role of secondary schools in Russia // Sociological studies. – 1996. No. 11, 12.

9. Serikova T. L. The Institute of Education and its transformation in the process of reforming Russian society // Where is Russia going? Crisis of institutional systems: Century, decade, year. – M., 1999.

10. Modern Western sociology: Dictionary. – M., 1990.

11. Sheregi F. E., Kharcheva V. G., Serikov V. V. Sociology of education: applied aspect. – M., 1997.

12. Ethnography of childhood. – M., 1983.

13. Efroimson V.P. The mystery of genius. – M., 1991.

BASHKIR ACADEMY OF PUBLIC SERVICE AND MANAGEMENT

UNDER THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF BASHKORTOSTAN

Department of Psychology and Sociology

Course test

Sociology

On the topic: Socialization of personality, its phases and stages

Completed by: 1st year student

Faculty of State Medical University (group 2, budget,

second degree)

Shaikhetdinov Rustam Faritovich

Checked by: Izilyaeva L.O.

Introduction. 3

The concept of “Socialization of personality”. 4

Phases and stages of personality socialization. 7

Childhood. 8

Adolescence. 10

Early maturity or youth. 12

Middle age or maturity. 17

Old age or old age. 19

Death. 22

Conclusion. 25

Bibliography.. 26

Introduction.

It is known that a baby enters the big world as a biological organism and his main concern at this moment is his own physical comfort. After some time, the child becomes a human being with a complex of attitudes and values, with likes and dislikes, goals and intentions, patterns of behavior and responsibility, as well as with a uniquely individual vision of the world. A person achieves this state through a process we call socialization. During this process, the individual becomes a human person.

The topic of my test is: “Socialization of the individual, its phases and stages.” The object of research is the individual as a social being. Subject of research: socialization of personality, its phases and stages.

Purpose of the work: to consider the content of socialization of the individual, its phases and stages

1. Expand the content of the concept “Socialization of the individual”

2. Explore the phases and stages of personal socialization.

The concept of “Socialization of personality”

In the context of increasing complexity of social life, the problem of including a person in social integrity, in the social structure of society, is becoming more urgent. The main concept that describes this kind of inclusion is “socialization,” which allows a person to become a member of society.

Socialization refers to the process of an individual’s entry into society, which gives rise to changes in the social structure of society and in the structure of the individual. The latter circumstance is due to the fact of human social activity, and therefore, his ability, when interacting with the environment, not only to assimilate its requirements, but also to change this environment and influence it.

Socialization is the process by which an individual assimilates the norms of his group in such a way that, through the formation of his own “I,” the uniqueness of this individual as a person is manifested, the process of assimilation by the individual of patterns of behavior, social norms and values ​​necessary for his successful functioning in a given society.

The process of socialization is continuous and continues throughout a person’s life. The world around us is changing, requiring corresponding changes from us. The human essence is not carved out of granite forever; it cannot be completely formed in childhood so that it no longer changes. Life is an adaptation, a process of continuous renewal and change. Three-year-old children are socialized within the framework of kindergarten, students - within the framework of their chosen profession, new employees - within the framework of their institution or enterprise, husband and wife - within the framework of the young family they have created, new converts - within the framework of their religious sect, and older people - within within a nursing home. In one way or another, all societies deal with a life cycle that begins at conception, continues through aging, and ends with death. Along the richest tapestry of organic age, societies weave bizarre social patterns: in one culture, a 14-year-old girl may be a high school student, and in another, a mother of two children; A 45-year-old man may be in the prime of his business career, just moving up the political ladder, or already retired if he is a professional footballer, but in some other society a person of this age has usually already passed away and is revered by younger relatives as an ancestor. . In all cultures, it is customary to divide biological time into appropriate social units. If birth, puberty, maturity, aging and death are generally accepted biological facts, then it is society that gives each of them a very definite social meaning.

Man is a social being. However, no person is born a ready member of society. Integration of an individual into society is a long and complex process. It involves the internalization of social norms and values, as well as the process of learning roles.

Socialization proceeds in two mutually intertwining directions. On the one hand, he is included in the system of social relations, the individual assimilates the cultural experience of his society, its values ​​and norms. In this case, he is an object of social influence. On the other hand, as a person socializes, he participates more and more actively in the affairs of society and the further development of its culture. Here he acts as a subject of social relations.

The structure of socialization includes the socializer and the socializer, the socializing influence, primary and secondary socialization. A socializer is an individual undergoing socialization. Socializer is an environment that has a socializing influence on a person. Usually these are agents and agents of socialization. Agents of socialization are institutions that have a socializing influence on the individual: family, educational institutions, culture, the media, public organizations. Agents of socialization are persons directly surrounding the individual: relatives, friends, teachers, etc. Thus, for a student, an educational institution is an agent of socialization, and the dean of the faculty is an agent. The actions of socializers aimed at socializers are called socializing influence.

Socialization is a process that continues throughout life. However, at different stages its content and focus may change. In this regard, primary and secondary socialization are distinguished. Primary socialization refers to the process of formation of a mature personality. Secondary is the development of specific roles associated with the division of labor. The first begins in infancy and continues until the formation of a socially mature personality, the second - during the period of social maturity and continues throughout life. As a rule, processes of desocialization and resocialization are associated with secondary socialization. Desocialization means a person’s rejection of previously acquired norms, values, and accepted roles. Resocialization comes down to the assimilation of new rules and norms to replace the lost old ones.

So, socialization is understood as the entire multifaceted process of humanizing a person, which includes both biological prerequisites and the individual’s immediate entry into the social environment and presupposes: social cognition, social communication, mastery of practical skills, including both the objective world of things and the entire a set of social functions, roles, norms, rights and responsibilities, etc.; active reconstruction of the surrounding (natural and social) world; change and qualitative transformation of the person himself, his comprehensive and harmonious development.

Phases and stages of personality socialization

The process of personal socialization consists of three phases. In the first, the individual adapts, i.e., mastering various social norms and values, he must learn to be like everyone else, become like everyone else, and “lose” his personality for a while. The second phase is characterized by the individual’s desire for maximum personalization, influence on people, and self-actualization. And only in the third phase, with a favorable outcome, does the individual’s integration into the group occur, when he is represented in others by his own characteristics, and the people around him have a need to accept, approve and cultivate only those of his individual properties that appeal to them and correspond to their values, contribute to overall success, etc. Any delay in the first phase or hypertrophy of the second phase can lead to disruption of the socialization process and its negative consequences. Socialization is considered successful when a person is able to protect and assert his individuality and at the same time is integrated into a social group. However, it is important to take into account the fact that throughout his life a person belongs to different social groups and, therefore, goes through all three phases of socialization many times. However, in some groups she can adapt and integrate, while in others she cannot; in some social groups her individual qualities are valued, but in others they are not. In addition, social groups themselves and individuals are constantly changing.

Socialization includes various stages and stages. In modern sociology, this issue is resolved ambiguously. Some scientists distinguish three stages: pre-labor, labor and post-labor. Others divide this process into two stages: “primary socialization” (from birth to a mature personality) and “secondary socialization” associated with the restructuring of the personality during the period of its social maturity. There are other points of view.

Childhood

In the Middle Ages, the concept of childhood that is characteristic of our time simply did not exist. Children were looked at as little adults. Works of art and written documents from the Middle Ages depict adults and children together in the same social environment, wearing the same clothes and engaged in mostly the same activities. The world of fairy tales, toys and books, which we consider most suitable for children, appeared relatively recently. Until the 17th century. in Western European languages, the words for young males - “boy” (in English), “garson” (in French) and “Knabe” (in German) (all three words are translated as “boy”), served to describe a man aged about 30, leading an independent lifestyle. There were no special words to designate male children and adolescents aged 7 to 16 years. The word “child” expressed family relationships rather than age differences. Only at the beginning of the 17th century. the formation of a new concept of childhood began.