Socialization Across Generations - Essay Sample

Socialization is the process of learning and behaving in a way associated with a particular community. It is a way of passing social and cultural beliefs from one generation to another. Culture is the norms and behavior of a specific society and includes language, customs, and religion. There are several factors of socialization that can instill the communal beliefs in an individual. The agents of socialization between my grandmother and me that I will analyze in this paper include family and peer groups. Family entails all the members who share a common ancestor, while a peer group is a collection of people who are approximately the same age and share common interests.

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The approximate period when my grandmother was my age is in the early 1950s. It is a period marred by the world war, thus, affected how people interacted. According to my grandmother, living in the 1950s is different from what she currently observes today. Back then, she was forced away from her family and started working at the age of fourteen because of the world war's effects. In that period, she could hardly recall a time when all the family members could converge because her parents were still involved in the post-world war activities. They rarely had the funds for activities such as vacation and spent most of the time trying to survive. My grandmother further explains that in the 1950s, she could not frequently meet with her peer group. It is because young adults were assigned chores at home and most of them did not further their studies. She learned how to behave, her parents' cultural beliefs, and rarely had fun with her friends. Additionally, endogamy occurred at a young age due to the tremendous pressure associated with culture. Endogamy is the marriage between members of the same age-group. Most of the unions occurred after high school or while studying in college. The focus was on the gender role rather than how successful women can be when pursuing their studies. Gender role is the traits associated with a person based on their sex.

In contrast, there is a similarity in socialization aspects in terms of being separated from other family members because of working conditions. Currently, I only get to see my father on the weekends or public holidays because he works in a different state from where we live. Although I hardly see my father on weekdays, we have severally been together as a whole family and have been going for vacations, unlike my grandmother, who cannot recall having a family gathering. She started working at the age of fourteen, which is different from my situation because I started working at sixteen. In most cases, I seek white-collar employment, unlike her, a commoner forced by the tough times of post the world war. White-collar employment is a job opportunity associated with the middle-class, while a commoner is a person who engages in physical labor to earn a living.

In terms of meeting with peers, my grandmother hardly interacted with them, contrary to the current scenario where we are frequently in contact. Besides learning in the same institution, we have social media sites that keep us always in touch, dissimilar the 1950s, where such technology did not exist. A notable similarity between the two generations is the passing of cultural beliefs and teachings on how to behave by our parents. It is a continuous trait by the community where parents raise children according to the norms.

In conclusion, there is a change in socialization between the two generations. My grandmother only engaged in relationships with others when she wanted to marry, contrary to currently where dating occasionally occurs. In society's case, there was sociological imagination where my grandmother was not free to study and seek white-collar jobs and was supposed to perform household duties, unlike now where I have the opportunity to learn and pursue a well-paying job. The sociological imagination is the ability of a person to change an opinion to what they feel is best. There is a remarkable similarity of culture where both generations reinforce values such as religion and acknowledge their importance.