In Class Essay #1 How Identity is formed?

Referring to the article “Socialization, the Life Course, and Aging” written by Duneieir Applebaum, identity is the understandings of people to an individual about who they are to them and how important is that individual to them. So what are the elements that form our identity? Indeed our identities are formed through a series of socialization. Socialization is a process that we gradually become mature through learning different things by various means and accordingly help us to develop a set of values and perceptions which shape our identities. Moreover, it is also greatly influenced by the social environment that he or she involved in and through interactions with different agents of socialization, our identity is shaped. Basically, socialization can be separated into social identity and self identity, where social identity often includes gender, occupation and nationality while self identity refers to an individual’s perception of “self”.

There are numerous agents of socialization and undoubtedly family is one of the most important agents of socialization. Family is the first people we know since we are born and they always act as a crucial role in our life. For instance, they teach us how to speak and help us to develop our values and perception through their teachings. Most importantly, our parents’ behavior can have significant effect on our development. This is because children tend to learn the ways their parents behave due to the fact that they are curious and are lack of the ability to think logically. In addition, according to Applebaum, families of different background can affect socialization as well. “It is easy to understand the influence of different types of family background if we think of what life is like, say, for a child growing up is a poor black family living in a run-down city neighborhood compared to one born into an affluent while family living in an all white suburb.”  Families of different types of family background can certainly affect socialization. As an illustration, family in black would have a higher possibility to be discriminated by other people than family in white. Obviously, this kind of discrimination can cause serious effect to the children’s mind, especially when he or she is undergoing socialization.

The second agent that I would like to bring out is school. Schools are always significant to a child’s development as a student spend most of the time in school. Schools have a set of rules and regulations for students to follow. If they fail to obey any of the rules, they would be punished and subject to punishment. As a result, children are able to have a sense of discipline and able to know that there are certain rules in the society and if they fail to obey the rules, such as laws, they would be subject to punishment. Furthermore, children will undergo a lot of difficulties during school. Students would need to figure out a way to overcome and endure the hurdles. In this way, they are able to learn how to survive and deal with the hurdles in which they can apply this in reality and they wouldn’t hesitate and give up easily when they face difficulties in times of work and other aspects.

     

      Furthermore, peer relationship can also have great impact on children’s development. Basically, peer relationship is the relationship between children of similar age. The behavior of the children in the peer relationship can have significant impact on other children. This is because children often lack the ability to think critically and tend to follow what others do. As a result, if one of the children in a certain peer group consume drugs, it is very possible that other children in that peer group would follow that child to consume drugs. Therefore, peer relationship can have fundamental effect to the socialization of the children, especially when they are lack of the ability to ponder and distinguish what is right and wrong.

      

     Undeniably, our identity is formed through socialization, which is a process we undergone since we are born. Socialization is greatly influenced by numerous agents of socialization, and among these agents, family, school and peer relationship are the most influential ones For example, family can affect our development seriously since how our parents behave and the background of our family would affect our values, beliefs and attitudes. Secondly, school are also an important agents of socialization due to the fact that train children’s discipline which is beneficial to future development while peer relationship can affect children through following what other child do. These various factors help us to develop our own value, perception, attitudes, behavior, which accordingly shapes our identity, creating an understanding of people to ourselves.

Reflection: 

  To be honest, I never know what identity is before enrolling this class. Through writing this essay, I need to read several related articles and it has undoubtedly enable me to have a better understanding of myself and sociology. For instance, our identities are influenced by numerous agents of socialization. And these agents of socialization, such as school, peer relationships, family, mass media, gender and work. In my opinion, the most important agent of socialization is family. This is because family are the people we met since we are born in this world and they are the ones who teach us how to talk and educate us to distinguish what is right and wrong. Therefore, I think that family should be the most influential agent of socialization.

  As a writer, after writing my first essay, I realized that my essay is not organized enough. This is due to the fact that I spend much of my time developing my ideas and I think that I should be more focused on writing my ideas instead of just thinking ideas. Secondly, I think that I should really proofread my essay before. I made a lot of careless grammatical mistakes in the essay and I know I would not make these if I proofread my essay. Therefore, in writing my next essays, I would pay more attention on proofreading and maintain a better time management.