Schools provide a common time and space for children of approximately the same ages to come together and learn. And while states have standards for math, language arts, science, and social studies that teachers directly instruct their students in, there are also other skills that students are learning, both directly and indirectly.
Sometimes schools create intentional programs to accomplish some of the goals of socialization. They may focus on a specific character trait, such as honesty or respect, for a month, and intentionally recognize those students who display that trait. And sometimes skills of socialization are taught more indirectly. By participating in class and seeing the behaviors (and rewards and consequences of those behaviors) of classmates, students begin to assimilate into patterns of social behavior that reflect that school's values. So, for example, after watching a classmate have her recess taken away for calling math "stupid," other children learn that this type of language and behavior are not appropriate and should not be imitated.
Depending on where children live, they may not have contact with any other children outside of school (particularly in very rural areas) or may only have contact with children of a race and socioeconomic status similar to their own, determined by housing affordability options. Schools, however, bring together a typically diverse group of students from a variety of backgrounds and ask them to accomplish learning goals together. Students learn to deal with conflict that inevitably arises from being in close proximity to others with dissimilar backgrounds. They hopefully learn empathy as it is modeled through literature and contextual situations. And they learn about healthy competition between students of various backgrounds. Students share recess, lunch, and creative arts classes with classmates who are different genders, races, and abilities and have daily opportunities to engage in healthy and authentic conversations as they discover areas of common interests.
Bullying can have multiple effects on socialization. If it is recognized and handled well at school, other students will see the negative results of that type of behavior and will not be encouraged to follow in that path. It can also indirectly strengthen other friendships as students bond together in resistance of a bully's threats. But if the bully's behavior isn't recognized or if the behavior isn't appropriately dealt with, impacted students will feel unsafe at school and will likely retreat socially in an effort to disappear from the bully's radar.
Socialization is the process where humans learn the ideologies and norms of society. Schools are one of the strongest agents of socialization because children spend a lot of time there and have to attend school for many years. At school, they learn how to interact with others by playing with their friends or by learning it from their teachers.
Additionally, children can also form their own cliques or group of friends based on ethnicity, gender, or social class. Here, societal roles will start to form. For example, a group of girls may only play together exclusively. They may only do girly activities, and when one of them suggests that they try a boy activity, she may get teased or mocked for wanting to do so. This will prevent that girl (and possibly others in the group) from doing boy activities or acting like a boy, thus perpetuating how a girl should act.
As for how bullies can impact socialization, well, they can bully someone based on their ethnicity, gender, or social class. Over time, this can teach the victim that he/she has lesser social power than a certain ethnicity, gender, or social class (or maybe all three). Another thing to consider is that teachers can also teach kids of certain ethnicities, genders, or social classes that they are of lesser value by treating them worse than other students.
Schools act as an agent of socialization through the hidden curriculum. According to sociologists, the hidden curriculum is an unintended result of education. It is the process by which the norms and values of a society are taught to children, alongside the expectations of their particular society. It teaches girls how to be feminine, for example, and boys to be masculine. It also teaches children how they should treat and perceive other classes and races of people.
In terms of school socialization, it could be argued that bullying hinders this process because instead of teaching a child the correct norms and values of their society, bullying teaches deviant (or unacceptable) norms and values. So, instead of teaching a child how to correctly behave in society and how to feel part of their society, bullying can make a child feel less connected to society and more likely to become deviant.
For more information, see the reference link provided.
https://open.lib.umn.edu/sociology/chapter/16-2-sociological-perspectives-on-education/
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