Discuss the stages of socialization.
Answers
Socialization is a gradual process of learning. The newborn child is not taught all the things about social life at once. It proceeds from simplicity to complexity. During the early stages of life (infancy and childhood) socialization takes place within the ‘simple’ limited social world. Gradually this social world becomes broader and broader and the child is confronted with several things to learn and to adjust
Socialization consists of four stages from infancy to adulthood. They are- (1) The oral stage, (2) The anal stage, (3) The oedipal stage and (4) Adolescence
1. The First Stage- The Oral Stage
The stage begins with the birth of the child and continues upto the completion of one year. Before birth, the child remains in the mothers womb is in the foetal form and is warm and comfortable. At birth, the little infant must breathe himself, to be and he must be protected from cold, wet and other discomforts. For everything, the child cries a great deal. By means of crying, the child establishes its oral dependency. The child here develops some definite expectations about the feeding time. The child also learns to give signals for his felt needs. In this stage, the child is involved in himself and his mother. For the other members of the family, the child is little more than a possession. If the father or some other person is providing the proper care for the child, that person, will also be performing the role
2. The Second State-The Anal Stage
The second stage normally begins soon after the first year and is completed during the third year. It is here that the child learns that he cannot depend entirely on the mother and that he has to take some degree of care for himself. Toilet training is the main focus of new concern. The child is taught to do some tasks such as toileting, keeping clothes clean etc.
The child in this stage internalizes two separate roles-his own role and that of his mother. The child receives care and also loves from the mother and learns to give love in return. The child is enabled to distinguish between correct and incorrect actions. The correct action is rewarded and the incorrect action is not rewarded or punished.
In this second stage the socializing agent, which is the mother plays the dual role. She participates in the interaction system
3. The Third Stage-The Oedipal Stage
The third stage mostly starts from the fourth year of the child and extends upto puberty (the age of 12 or 13 years). It is in this stage the child becomes the member of the family as a whole. It is here the child has to identify himself with the social role ascribed to him on the basis of his sex.
According to Freud, the boy develops the ‘Oedipus complex’-the feeling of jealousy towards father and love towards mother. In the same way, the girl develops the “Electra complex”- the feeling of jealousy towards the mother and love towards the father. Freud believed that the feelings are aiming sexual. But most of the writers do not subscribe to this opinion. They say that the child of four, five or six rarely has a clear knowledge of sex or sexual function.
In this stage, sufficient social pressures are brought on the child to identify with the right sex. Boys begin to be rewarded for behaving like boys and girls are rewarded for acting like girls. After the age of sex, the child is able to understand the sexual difference. The boy tries to identify himself with the father and the girl with the mother. When the children go to the school or mix with other children they prefer to join their respective playgrounds.
4. The Fourth Stage-The Stage of Adolescence:
The four stage starts with the period of adolescence. Due to the physiological and the psychological change, that take place within the individuals this stage assumes importance. During this stage, the boys and girls try to become free from parental control. At the same time, they cannot completely escape from their dependence on their parents. Hence, they may experience a kind of strain or conflict in themselves. They want to be free in doing various activities. But the parents continue to control many of their activities. This is particularly true of sexual activity.
In the modern society, the parents intend to give more freedom to the boys and girls to do some of their activities independently. The parents try to lessen the open expression of their emotional attachment towards the adolescent children. They encourage them to select their line of education, their occupation and their life-partners. They expect the adolescent child to accept responsibility and learn new roles assigned to them. The adolescents thus learn new roles and new behavior patterns and internalize new social norms associated with them. Hence, in the modern society the transition from the adolescent stage to the adult stage is more difficult than in the traditional societies. In the traditional societies all such life decisions are mostly made