Essay on Culture and Socialization

Culture plays a major role in how human beings socialization. Culture influences what human beings understand as being wrong and as being right. Based on the fact that human beings understanding about right or wrong depends on their culture; this determines their actions. Courtesy of cultural influences, human beings can learn beliefs, values, perceptions and influences that are appropriate and those that are not. Culture teaches children how to interact with people as well as how to interact with environmental factors.

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Culture has an influence on parents parenting styles. Children automatically embrace cultural influences that they get from their parents. There are countries whose cultures encourage parents to exhibit authoritative, permissive, authoritarian or uninvolved parenting styles. Arab and Asian cultures tend to encourage parents to exhibitive authoritative parenting style. Cross-cultural studies that have been done in Arabic countries and Asian countries have proved that authoritative style of parenting is an optimal parenting style that encourages children to grow up as disciplined and responsible members of society. Chinese parenting concept of chiao shun encourages children to strive in developing harmonious relationships. The chiao shun concept could be a good predictor of positive outcomes for Chinese children. European culture encourages parents to embrace permissive parenting style. However, permissive parenting style has received a lot of criticism for molding children to have difficulties in controlling their impulses as well as acting independently. Studies have revealed that authoritative parenting style is the most effective parenting style. Therefore, it is true that Arabic and Asian cultures are the best with regard to instilling appropriate values in their children. Children who receive authoritative parenting style tend to grow up into confident, self-reliant, emotionally stable and sociable adults (Saraswati, 1999).

Economic conditions and factors within different cultures have an influence on individuals socialization process. In most developing countries, due to economic problems, society encourages individuals to strive to be physically healthy and ensure that they survive in the society. In Europe, the United States and most western countries, because the countries are wealthy, society encourages individuals to take part in behaviors that lead to prestige, self-sufficiency, and prestige.

Culture influences how individuals view relatives and members of extended families. There are cultures that encourage individuals to value relatives and members of extended families whereas there are cultures that encourage individuals to be only concerned with members of their nuclear families. In African traditional culture, Arabic culture and Asian culture, individuals are encouraged to value members of extended families a being integral to their well-being. In African traditional culture, Arabic culture and Asian culture members of extended families are important because they provide a sharing of resources and accord emotional support to each other.

Cultural change in society has an influence on how much peers have an influence on how human beings interact with each other. With regard to the effect on peer influence on the cultural change in societies, cultural changes in societies can be categorized into three types. There are post-figurative cultures, configurative cultures, and pre-figurative cultures. Post-figurative cultures are characterized by slow cultural change and socialization is done by elders. Configurative cultures are characterized by faster cultural change and socialization is done by both peers and adults. Pre-figurative cultures are characterized by a rapid cultural change and socialization is done by peers and adults may also learn from younger people. In Western countries, children spend most of their time with their peers, who are relatively of the same age with them. In Asia and Africa, children spend relatively few hours with their peers.

Reference

Saraswati, T. S. (1999). Culture, socialization and human development: Theory, research, and applications in India. New Delhi: Sage Publications.