Socialization is especially important today due to the emphasis on individuali ty. Few would question the desirability of focusing on individual abilities interests, and needs. That which individuals perform in their own way and on their own initiative is usually done with greater dispatch, with more enjoyment, and at a higher level of quality than that which is done at someone else's bidding. Ayn Rand has even gone so far as to discount the desirability of altruism. Ftowever, in order to operate within the limits of a culture, individuals must become acculturated and socialized to some functional extent.
The process of socialization involves both social and cultural learning. As children grow and interact with their social groups, they gradually acquire a cultural heritage. From contact with people in their environment, for example, they learn the language, and language influences the way they view the world around them. Learning the cultural intricacies of society is a prerequisite for membership in that group due to the restrictions society places upon acceptable behavior patterns. At the same time most of the individual's secondary needs are culturally determined. Therefore, participation in society becomes a major means of satisfying needs.
Everyone belongs to some social group and acquires a basic cultural heritage. This socialization occurs as a result of the obvious dependent state of the young child and continues throughout the individual's lifetime. If at any time one chooses to "drop out" of a certain culture and society, one normally "drops into" another culture and society more in keeping with one's self- actualization needs. In this new society the pressure to conform is equally as strong as in the former. As Taba (1962, p. 131) states the situation: "Generally speaking, man conforms to culture, and even his deviations occur only within certain limitations. . . ." The influence of one's culture is so total that it is "difficult to understand either behavior or learning except in relation to the particular culture in which it occurs." McDonald (1965) asserts that an adjusted person is a socialized person, i.e., she satisfies her own needs by learning the acceptable social behavior patterns.
Taba (1962) lists seven principal tenets of social learning.
1. Anthropologists and sociologists define the goal of learning as the acquisition of socially acceptable behavior. What is absorbed includes not only external behavior patterns but also basic beliefs and concepts held by the culture. Each person learns the cultural patterns of his social group.
2. The individual's functional capacity to learn is determined by cultural expectations, and by self-expectations, which have been acquired as a result of socialization.
3. For the most part individual behavior is acquired.
4. Individual behavior, thinking, and feeling are closely associated with those of the social and cultural group.
5. Learning is primarily a social process. The individual learns the culture and the social standards of behavior.
6. Socialization occurs at home, in school, among peers, etc.
7. Individual actions are controlled by motives, which are largely culturally determined.
While it is true that all individuals pass through a continuous socialization-acculturation process, the experiences they have and the information they receive may be quite varied. Since many subgroups, including social classes and ethnic and racial groups, exist in society, there is a tremendous variation among individuals in their acquired social and cultural experiences, which in turn affects their abilities and expectations.
This variation in the socialization process presents difficult problems for the schools to solve. Difficulties occur in communication and understanding when a member of one cultural-social group interacts with a member of another group. The necessity of having some common ground upon which to establish a meaningful exchange becomes a significant factor in the social atmosphere of the school and of the class as the students interact with each other and with the teachers.
Another problem is that the behavior patterns of different families and different groups may contain conflicting and opposing predispositions toward certain types of action and interaction. For example, students who are accustomed to varying systems of reward and punishment will, in all likelihood, react in diverse manners to any set of rules and expectations the teacher attempts to establish in the classroom.
A further problem is the one dealing with academic achievement in the schools. Students from a low socioeconomic class often lack the background support to achieve their academic desires. In the first place, deficiencies in past achievement have left them in the position of being unable to cope with the cognitive material being presented at each succeeding level. Consequently, their achievement motivation suffers. They have been exposed to the same aspirations and desires as students from upper socioeconomic levels, but their backgrounds have not stressed the necessity of perseverance and acquisition of supportive abilities in order to attain these aspirations. As a result, their attitude toward success, school, authority, and their own ability to rise to the level of their aspirations does little to motivate them in the direction of maximum participation and effort in school (Ausubel & Robinson, 1969).
On the other hand, some students are consumed by such a fierce determination to succeed in school that their achievement rises far above what one would suspect from examining their academic credentials. Other students
are so blessed innately with intelligence that their deprived sociocultural background does little to affect achievement. The latter two types represent the kind of student all teachers like to have in class because of the positive effect their achievement has on the teachers' egos. This reaction is natural and to be expected, but it does point out vividly the extreme difficulty of establishing "person" goals in education in which the teachers' satisfactions can be derived not from how high the students fly, but how much teachers have helped them. Setting a goal of self-actualization for students in their academic work, their personal growth, and their social adjustment presents a Herculean task to education, and its attainment will require much more than good intentions. Continued, conscious effort is the least teachers can bring to their work.
Practically all aspects of individual personality are learned through socialization. The individual's location on the adjustment-maladjustment continuum is a most influential factor in prediction of the probability of successful acclimatization to the school and classroom social situations (McDonald, 1965). How well each student is assimilated into the school and class social system, her resultant social status in the group, and her relationship with the teachers play a major role in her ability not only to feel a part of the school and to enjoy the experience, but to benefit from it.