Talk:Socialization

Comments (april 2012)
After reading the article, these are my impressions: 1- The second paragraph (first sentence) is filled with technical jargon. I don't know what it's saying. It's unclear how the last sentence of that paragraph relates. 2- The second paragraph of "theories" hints at a story... something about a transalation of Simmel's work. Could you elaborate on that? It sounds interesting. 3- Do you feel that Piaget belongs in this list? Jesserjames (talk) 02:04, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Socialization starts from the cradle and ends at grave
The article says socialization can refer to nationalization in political science. This is not entirely true. As an example, I can take Emma Goldman who writes in There is no communism in Russia (1935): "When a certain thing does not belong to an individual or group, it is either nationalized or socialized. If it is nationalized, it belongs to the state; that is, the government has control of it and may dispose of it according to its wishes and views. But when a thing is socialized, every individual has free access to it and use it without interference from anyone.

In Russia there is no socialization either of land or of production and distribution. Everything is nationalized; it belongs to the government, exactly as does the post-office in America or the railroad in Germany and other European countries. There is nothing of Communism about it."

Please comment on this. Kricke 19:27, 10 November 2006 (UTC)


 * In accordance with the differences outlined by Emma Goldman in the given quote, Canada's public health system would be considered "nationalized"; yet, in current times, it is commonly referred to as being "socialized".  I'm sure you can find countless references to this in the media.  It would perhaps be best to look in an encyclopedic work (rather than an argumentative one) for an accurate description of the two terms, as well as their differences. Skamza 06:34, 13 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Furthermore, the American Heritage Dictionary defines "nationalize" as "1. To convert from private to governmental ownership and control", while the word "socialize" is defined almost identically: "1. To place under government or group ownership or control." Skamza 06:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I think there is a big difference in your example from the Dictionary. To say that the terms are synonyms is in my opinion POV. To some people they may be synonyms, to other people, like Emma Goldman and, for example, most other anarchists, there is a big difference. Both uses should be mentioned to be NPOV, in my opinion. Kricke 14:24, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

article of concern
would people who watch this page please review the article, Early infanticidal childrearing, which makes many claims about anthropology and about non-Western societies? I was once involved in a flame-war with another editor, and it would be inappropriate for me to do a speedy delete or nominate the page for deletion. More important, I think others need to comment on it. I engaged in a detailed exchange recently with one other editor here, on the talk page; you may wish to review the discussion but it is getting involuted and I ask that you comment separately. Thanks, Slrubenstein  |  Talk 12:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Socialisation of animals
This section has been moved to its own article, as this article refers to socialisation in the proper social scientific sense of the word, and forms a crucial part of the sociology project. "Animal socialisation" is an appropriation of the term, when what's really meant is something more akin to animal training or Pavlovian conditioning.--Tomsega (talk) 23:59, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Gender socialization and gender roles
This section needs to be more balanced. In particular, it is my impression that the scientific consensus (outside of politically and feministically influenced circles) is that gender roles are largely inborn, with socialization only governing details. 94.220.254.157 (talk) 00:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
 * No, this is not the case--biology does not even deal with the concept of "innateness" any more because it is impossible to define precisely or verify empirically. Plus roles cannot be inborn by definition, even if the propensity towards assuming one of the roles was. DarwinPeacock (talk) 04:25, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

This article is quite turstworthy, quite biased, somewhat complete, somewhat well-written,and quite accurate. There is no information on the modern usage of socialization and how it works today. Agampa (talk) 16:11, 5 February 2012 (UTC)agampa

Developmental Socialization
I deleted the subsection in Theories titled Developmental Socialization because there was no reference with the one sentence explanation, I could not find any information bbb supporting this theory of Socialization, and because this describes socialization in general rather than a specific theory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Amyekankiewicz (talk • contribs) 19:00, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Unprofessional writing
Section 5, itself very short and needy of additions, altogether sounds unprofessional and not in fitting with WP standards. 95.14.204.154 (talk) 23:45, 30 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Whoever has access to the source, please add a line about the result of the study!  Lova Falk     talk   10:34, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Sofalizing as a redirect here
User Toddst1 has just made a blank and redirect of article sofalizing to point here. That article has content in its history page that people might want to look at. Diego (talk) 13:43, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Legal socialization
Some time in future I want to work on Legal socialization which is defined as under. I will appreciate comments on how much Legal socialization topic will get related to present Socialization article. or we will need to work for an independent article for Legal socialization.

Legal socialization is the process through which individuals acquire attitudes and beliefs about the law, legal authorities, and legal institutions. This occurs through individuals' interactions, both personal and vicarious, with police, courts, and other legal actors. To date, most of what is known about legal socialization comes from studies of individual differences among adults in their perceived legitimacy of law and legal institutions, and in their cynicism about the law and its underlying norms.2 adults' attitudes about the legitimacy of law are directly tied to individuals' compliance with the law and cooperation with legal authorities Refs:

Mahitgar (talk) 05:06, 29 November 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi Mahitgar. My feeling at this stage is that legal socialization should only ever receive very minimal coverage in the socialization article. The reason being that socialization is a topic that central to a wide range of fields (e.g. psychology, sociology, anthropology) with implications in innumerable practical areas (e.g. organizations, gender, education, culture, the military, clubs and associations, violence, criminal gangs, terrorism). As such, I do not think it is practical to begin covering each area to which socialization is relevant in this article. To do so would leave us with thousands upon thousands of words on the various areas of application, distracting from the content dealing more directly with the process of socialization itself. Your suggestion of a separate article for the topic would be my pick. Does that resonate with you? And, of course, what do other editors think? Cheers Andrew (talk) 01:07, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. My primary assessment was similar to yours but I felt second opinion will help in this regard. Thanks and seasons greetings.

Mahitgar (talk) 04:21, 2 December 2014 (UTC)

Proposing inclusion of "Legal socialisation"
Presently article's Social institutions section' fifth bullet point refers to "Legal Systems". I feel instead inclusion of Legal socialisation will give better justice to legal aspect. So please do suggest a way of an inclusion of  Legal socialisation concept in the article. Thanks Rgds

Mahitgar (talk) 04:26, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Lead sentence overburdened by list1, list2, list3, and list4
Socialization is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and educationalists to refer to the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating [breathe here] norms, customs, values and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society.

Eventually the FOG index catches up to you on length alone.

Socialization is a term used by social scientists to refer to the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs, values and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within their own society.

Have we really lost anything that couldn't be footnoted further down in the lead?

Also, "necessary for participating within their own society" is some weird, impossible combination of euphemistic and tautological and false—an idiom beloved and perfected by high school textbooks everywhere—that seems a good half an idea short of such a long word bus.

Closer to the truth would be "necessary to engage a complex social environment in a sophisticated way".

Because extreme-spectrum autists still "participate". It's not the participation that conditional, its the sophistication of the participation that's conditional.

In fact, 100% of the text not contained within the lists is basically cliche. It's a white bread sandwich packed with so many nutritious ingredients it won't fit in your mouth. &mdash; MaxEnt 15:39, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

Discussion and 'vote'
I propose that Indoctrination be merged into Socialization. The word "indoctrination" as it is modernly used (and as used in its current article) is a perjorative expression for some types of socialization. This has made it difficult for editors to come up with a quality, and NPOV article. I think it would be better to merge it with this high-quality article. Redddogg (talk) 18:37, 16 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose The two are very different topics.-- &#9790;Loriendrew&#9789;  &#9743;(ring-ring)  23:51, 17 April 2017 (UTC)
 * What is closer in meaning to indoctrination? Or what is it called when someone is indoctrinated into something the speaker approves of?  Education?  Training?  Good influence?  I think that article would be much improved with a NPOV title.Redddogg (talk) 18:53, 19 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Support per WP:POVFORK, as Indoctrination in its current state could well be titled "A very negative perspective on intentional socialization". Indoctrination is just socialization + teaching with negative connotations associated with brainwashing, which is pseudoscience. There's no topic here, and no good sources cited which focus on indoctrination itself as a topic. A quick Google Scholar search showed only instances using the word for negative effect rather than technical precision. This should be a dab. Daask (talk) 12:30, 24 April 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose Indoctrination is a process that is intentional, but socialization is a more general and not necessarily intentional process. Jonpatterns (talk) 16:57, 8 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose I originally supported the merge as it seemed like indoctrination didn't have enough coverage to be an article, but after some more Googling I found a book and a master's thesis  which seem like enough material for an article. And of course it could also be expanded with discussion of various historical examples of indoctrination or modern indoctrination controversies. --Mathnerd314159 (talk) 20:07, 4 September 2018 (UTC)

Further discussion (originally on indoctrination talk page)
I'm sure WP has lots of articles on education, socialization, etc. "Indoctrination" seems to be when someone is educated or socialized in something we don't like. Nobody says we are indoctrinated to wash our hands, brush our teeth, look both ways before crossing the street, etc. Redddogg (talk) 21:51, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * One possibility would be redirect to or merge with Socialization.Redddogg (talk) 21:55, 15 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm happy with redirecting to Socialization. Indoctrination is less common and more recent, from . And they're used almost interchangeably, e.g. in the reporter talks about "indoctrination" but the study only discusses "socialization". Looking at WP:NPOVNAME it seems fine to classify "indoctrination" as a colloquialism.
 * In terms of the merge, I guess putting a few sentences in the lead would be OK, or it could be its own section. --Mathnerd314159 (talk) 06:46, 21 May 2017 (UTC)


 * Also, what is good indoctrination called? Education?  Training?  Good influence? Redddogg (talk) 18:54, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Integration? Persuasion? Socialization itself has a mildly positive connotation. --Mathnerd314159 (talk) 06:46, 21 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Sockpuppet blocked, nothing to see here.-- &#9790;Loriendrew&#9789;  &#9743;(ring-ring)  23:35, 30 May 2017 (UTC)

Mediums list socialization
How 58.145.184.250 (talk) 13:22, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia Ambassador Program course assignment
This article is the subject of an educational assignment at Carnegie Mellon supported by Wikipedia and the Wikipedia Ambassador Program&#32;during the 2012 Spring term. Further details are available on the course page.

The above message was substituted from by PrimeBOT (talk) on 15:55, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Dialectic of Socialization
I was dismayed to find no mention that socialization is dialectical, and not the uni-directional absorption into a social group or organization. Few sociologists discuss this, which is part of the problem, and neglect to mention how social institutions change when new generations are socialized. 50.4.132.185 (talk) 01:56, 11 April 2023 (UTC)