Agents of Socialization

This week in class, we discussed socialization and the agents of socialization. Socialization is the process of learning and internalizing the values, beliefs, and norms of our social group, by which we become functioning members of society.  We get "socialized" by agents of socialization. Agents of socialization can be parents, peers, neighborhood, media; really, they can be anything that forms us into the people we become.
In class, we watched an episode of Freaks and Geeks. In the episode, Lindsay and Sam's parents were going out of town. Lindsay's friends had convinced her to have a party in which there would be alcohol at. In this case, her friends were an agent of socialization. They were forming Lindsay into a person that has parties with alcohol. By doing this, she would be seen as cool. Sam on the other hand did not want Lindsay to have alcohol at the party. He pressured his friend to use his Bar Mitzvah money in order to buy a keg of non-alcholic beer. Sam in this case was an agent of socialization for his friend. He told him by doing this, he could come to Lindsay's party.
This week also happened to be Halloween. Halloween is a time for people to dress up and look funny, dumb, sexy, etc. The way people decide to dress up is based on agents of socialization. One agent of socialization that influences peoples costumes is media. Media is a huge agent of socialization on halloween because people usually dress up as whatever is hot in the world or in the media. I remember going to the halloween store with a couple of friends and looking at masks. They had a hole section dedicated to political officials. This was in my opinion because of the upcoming election and the amount of media coverage of it. Another agent of socialization on halloween are peers. Your peers ultimately help you decide what you are going to be for halloween. You can go anywhere in the world for halloween and see a group of people dressed as the same thing. This is because they all agreed to wear the same thing based on their interest and because they are friends. This year i didn't dress up because my friends decided not to dress up. My friends were an agent of socialization for me. They influenced my choice not to dress up.