Following are five main agents of socialisation:
1. Family: (a) A child is born dependent and helpless. He has various biological and psychological attributes. He has to depend on his parents for physical and mental needs. The mother fulfills all these needs of the infant.
(b) The child is emotionally attached to his mother first and later to his father. He identifies the relationship with his mother and father and grandparents and gradually learns to differentiate among all.
(c) After the parents, the child comes close to his siblings, who sometimes take care, fondle and express their love and affection towards him. In this way, he integrates his siblings into a new and an enlarged social system.
(d) Thus, the child comes in contact with an increasing number of family members and imitates their actions and behaviour patterns through different forms of responses such as anger, screaming, smiles and through movements of arms, hands and legs, etc.
(e) These special gestures help him to associate and integrate himself with his family. The child internalizes the knowledge about the members of the family. In this way, the child starts his life with learning in the presence of his/ her mother, father and other family members. Gradually, this process of social relationships widens if he lives in an extended family. Thus, the child acquires knowledge, behaviour, manners and internalizes all these patterns and learns to adjust or conform to the norms of the family.
2. Neighbourhood: (a) The locality and village constitute the neighbourhood which a child grows up. He is socialised in the physical and social environment of the neighbourhood. He plays with elder siblings, other children of the locality/village and thus, acquires knowledge about physical and social objects available in the neighbourhood. He learns about the nature, characteristics and usefulness of these objects operating in his neighbourhood. He tries to adjust himself in different situations and also with the members of different castes, communities, religious and other occupational groups. In this way, he learns to differentiate between different qualities possessed by different individual members and also the communities which bind them.
(b) During his interaction with both physical and social neighbourhood, he learns about the various ways of making a living, different types of occupations and the role of the physical environment in providing facilities for adopting one of these occupations. He becomes familiar with the process of interdependence in the locality/ village and the neighbourhood among the different sections of the group. He also visualises the ways and means in which the village solidarity is maintained. He also learns to act and behave in conformity to the different groups to which he belongs and also to their norms and values. He acquires insight into the behaviour of others and in this process, he develops an understanding of his own self. Here, the process of socialization inculcates discipline, orderly behaviour, and furnishes skills.
3. School / Institution: (a) Schools and educational institutions are important agents of socialization. They provide learning situations and environment to the child which impart discipline and inculcate certain qualities which enable him to develop his personality. This way he learns to discover his own needs and needs of the group to which he belongs. Thus, he learns to conform to the norms set by the school and other institutions.
(b) Education plays an important role in the development of human behaviour. After family, it is the class room, the peer group, and the teachers who exercise influence on a child. Education gives moral, intellectual and social insight to the individual. It links one to one's heritage and sets a perspective before him.
(c) The norms rooted in these institutions provide standards of behaviour and are regulatory in character. They condition our social actions. Violation of the norms may lead to social ridicule, boycott and even more severe punishment.
4. Society: We live in society. All our actions and behaviour are governed by different rules and regulations. No one can act independently with complete disregard to society and social patterns of life. The action and behaviour should commensurate with traditions, customs and norms and values prescribed by the society. If individuals living in a society follow the norms as are applicable and act strictly in accordance with that they are rewarded, else they are punished for this deviant behaviour.
5. Reward and Punishment: (a) The process of socialization also involves reward and punishment for the better performance and reinforcement of competitive sense in the child. Reward and punishment operate as important agents of socialization. In their operation, there is a basic difference and they serve different purposes. Man is a cultured animal and communicates largely through symbols. If possible, human beings are likely to use symbolic sanctions resorting to other types of sanction only if the symbolic approach fails. Thus, pointing to the rod at first may serve a better purpose than using it; similarly, an appreciative smile may at times serve purposes more than the reward.
(b) Punishment is used mostly as a principal form of social control and against those who disturb the order. Reward and punishment both have a variant.
