Agents of Socialisation MCQ Quiz - Objective Question with Answer for Agents of Socialisation - Download Free PDF

Socialization is the lifelong process through which individuals learn the values, norms, behaviors, and skills necessary to function in society. While multiple agents contribute to this process such as family, school, peers, and media each plays a distinct role at different stages.

Key Points

• Peers play a key role in helping children understand how to interact within a social setting beyond family structures. Through direct interaction with friends and classmates, children learn essential social norms such as taking turns, sharing, and respecting others' opinions.
• These interactions also offer firsthand experiences in cooperation and managing conflicts whether through play, group tasks, or everyday disagreements.
• Unlike adults, peers are equals, which means children must negotiate and resolve conflicts more independently, giving them real-life practice in social skills.
• This social learning helps children adapt to broader societal expectations and build emotional intelligence through continuous, shared experiences with others their age.

Hint

•  Parents are primary socializers in early childhood, teaching basic norms, values, and safety, but they don’t offer the same peer-based group dynamics required for practicing conflict resolution in social settings.
• Teachers guide moral and behavioral development and structure group interactions, but their influence is often more formal and limited by time and setting.
• Media can shape awareness of societal values and global issues, but it lacks the direct, reciprocal interaction that real social learning requires.

Hence, the correct answer is peers.

Socialization agents are the people, groups, and environments that influence a child's social development. While family plays a foundational role early in life, and media can shape attitudes and knowledge, the immediate social context becomes crucial for skill-building in specific settings like the classroom.

 Key Points

• To support a child struggling with social interactions in school, the teacher should primarily engage peers.
• Peers provide natural opportunities for practicing social skills such as communication, cooperation, empathy, and conflict resolution.
• Positive peer interactions foster a sense of belonging and help the child develop confidence in social settings.
• The school environment supports these interactions, but the direct influence comes from peer relationships.

Hence, the correct answer is peers.

Socialization is the process through which individuals learn norms, values, behaviors, and social skills appropriate to their society. While multiple agents of socialization influence a child throughout life such as family, school, peers, and media.

Key Points

•  During adolescence, peers become the most influential agent of socialization.
• At this stage, individuals seek greater independence and begin forming their identity.
• Adolescents often look to their peer group for acceptance, approval, and guidance, shaping their behavior, language, appearance, and choices.
• Peer influence can significantly impact attitudes, interests, and even risk-taking behavior, making it a powerful force in social development during this period.
• Family remains important, but adolescents increasingly value peer opinions over parental authority.
• School provides structure and learning, and media shapes awareness and exposure, but peers exert the strongest direct social influence in day-to-day interactions and self-concept formation.

Hence, the correct answer is peers.

Socialization is the process through which individuals learn norms, values, behaviors, and cultural practices essential for participation in society. 

Key Points

• The state plays a crucial role in shaping socialization by influencing education, laws, and policies that promote civic responsibility, cultural awareness, and moral development. 
• The state creates laws, policies, and institutions that shape social behavior.
• By establishing educational frameworks, such as the National Education Policy (NEP), the Right to Education Act, and curriculum guidelines, the government ensures that individuals receive structured learning that fosters ethical values and responsible citizenship.
• Legal policies against discrimination, child labor, and social injustices further contribute to positive socialization.

Thus, it is concluded that the state plays a role in socialization by creating laws, policies, and institutions that shape social behavior.

Hint

• Encouraging only informal learning limits structured education and policy-driven socialization, which are essential for a well-functioning society.
• Avoiding any role in education and cultural development would lead to a lack of standardized moral and civic education, weakening social cohesion.
• Preventing people from interacting with each other hinders socialization, as human interaction is key to learning societal norms and values.

Socialization is the lifelong process through which individuals learn and internalize the values, norms, customs, and behaviors of their society.

 Key Points

• Mass media plays a crucial role in socialization by influencing people’s thoughts, behaviors, and understanding of society.
• It spreads information about culture, politics, current events, and social norms, helping individuals form opinions and stay informed.
• Television, newspapers, social media, and the internet all contribute to shaping public perception and creating awareness about important issues such as human rights, democracy, and environmental concerns.

Thus, it is concluded that It helps shape public opinion and awareness about mass media’s role in socialization is true.

Socialization may be defined more comprehensively as a life-long process of inculcation whereby an individual learns the principles, values, and symbols of the social system in which he participates and the expression of those values and norms in the roles he enacts. 

Key Points Agencies of socialization:

• Micro-Level Socialization: It deals with the role played by family, peer group and neighborhood. It entails small group interaction. This level is vital because face to face, intense, and intimate interaction forms the basic formulation.
  • It takes place in the initial years of an individual's first socialization. Early socialization is influenced by family.
  • Many good habits are consciously taught to the child, but many others are picked up by the child by observing his parents.
• Meso-Level Socialization: It deals with schools, educational institutions, political groups, religion, social class. These organizations and institutions may not be as big as the global units but are beyond the personal experiences encountered in everyday life.
• Macro-Level Socialization: It comprises larger units like the global community, electronic media, social networking, national, and international units.

Hence, from the above explanation, it can be concluded that above all are the agencies of socialization.

Socialization is the process through which communities transact or educate their members about the norms and values of society to be socially acceptable.

• Socialization is a process by which an individual becomes a member of society through a mechanism of interaction. Its purpose is to prepare individuals for future roles.​
• Public library is a passive agency of socialization because here we are not interacting directly with someone but we follow the norms and learn how to behave in public.

Hence, it could be concluded that Public library is passive agency of socialization.

Additional Information

There are two main types of socialization:

• Primary socialization: Takes place early in life. Eg- family.
• Secondary socialization: Takes place throughout one's life. Eg- peer groups.

Socialization is a process of internalizing the norms, culture, values and customs of the society to be socially acceptable. Peer groups are the agents of 'Secondary Socialization' which takes place throughout one's life.

Peer groups help children to be socialized by making them learn to behave in a way that is socially acceptable with age-peers. At the age, children learn appropriate social attitudes such as how to like and enjoy social life and group activities.

Note: Refer to the image to be familiar with types of socialization:

Socialization is the process through which communities transact or educate their members about the norms and values of society to be socially acceptable.

• It simply refers to acquiring the socially approved ways of behavior and taking ideal expectations seriously.
• Socialization is the continuous process of negotiating identities and shaping one’s concept of self, identity, various attitudes, and behaviors. 
• Socialization has 4 major agents namely family, school, peers, and mass media. 

Key Points

Types of Socialization: There are mainly two types of socialization including primary and secondary socialization.

Secondary Socialization: 

• It occurs once the infant passes into the childhood phase and continues into maturity. It refers to the process that begins in the later years through agencies such as schools and peer groups. 
• During this phase more than the family, some other agents of socialization like the school and peers’ group begin to play a role in socializing the child.
• For example, Schools help children in learning the importance of social cohesion and unity and inculcating the informal cues about social roles through interaction. Schools teach new behaviors and rules to children and expect them to act accordingly.

Hence, it could be concluded that the school acts as an agency of secondary socialization.

Additional Information 

Primary Socialization: 

• It happens during infancy and childhood. It refers to the process where the child becomes socialized through the family in the early childhood years. 
• This highlights that primary socialization occurs within the family when children first learn their individual identity, acquire language and develop initial cognitive skills.
• For example, a very young child in a family has little knowledge of his culture. It is through the family that the child gets to know what is accepted and what is not in a particular society.

A school is a place designed to provide an adequate learning environment for effective teaching-learning. It is a miniature society where children learn by interacting with their environment.

• Socialization is a process of internalizing the norms, culture, values, and customs of society to be socially acceptable. 
• School is an agent of secondary socialization which takes place throughout one's life.

Key Points

Schools are considered as a centre for socialization as they help children in:

• acquiring values, norms, and traditions.

• learning the importance of social cohesion and unity.

• inculcating informal cues about social roles through interaction.

Hence it could be concluded that schools are the centre of socialization as they help children in acquiring values and traditions.

Socialization is the process through which communities transact or educate their members about the norms and values of society to be socially acceptable.

• It simply refers to acquiring the socially approved ways of behavior and taking ideal expectations seriously.
• Socialization is the continuous process of negotiating identities and shaping one’s concept of self, identity, various attitudes, and behaviors. 
• Socialization has 4 major agents namely family, school, peers, and mass media. 

Key Points

Types of Socialization: 

Primary Socialization: 

• It happens during infancy and childhood. It refers to the process where the child becomes socialized through the family in the early childhood years. 
• It highlights that the key agent in the process of primary socialization is the family (Parents, siblings, etc.).

For example,

• A very young child in a family has little knowledge of his culture. It is through the family that the child gets to know what is accepted and what is not in a particular society.
• Rhea, a 4 year old girl got scolded by her parents when she refused to eat her vegetables. During make-believe play, Rhea repeats this behavior.

Secondary Socialization: 

• It occurs once the infant passes into the childhood phase and continues into maturity. It refers to the process that begins in the later years through agencies such as schools and peer groups. 
• During this phase more than the family, some other agents of socialization like the school and peers’ group begin to play a role in socializing the child.
• For example, Schools help children in learning the importance of social cohesion and unity and inculcating the informal cues about social roles through interaction.

Hence, it could be concluded that Rhea's behaviour depicts primary socialization.

Hint

• Make-believe play is a ubiquitous part of early childhood. In make-believe play, children pretend that an object is something other than what it actually is.
• In make-believe play, children also pretend to be another person. In other words, being able to make-believe means that the toddler is able to think symbolically.
• Toddlers reproduce acts that they have seen adults perform, like pretending to read a book, picking up the telephone receiver, and carrying out an imaginary conversation.

The process of learning to internalize the values and norms into itself or the mode of learning to live in society is called the process of socialization. It may be defined more comprehensively as a life-long process of inculcation whereby an individual learns the principles, values, and symbols of the social system in which he participates and the expression of those values and norms in the roles he enacts.

 Some important characteristics of socialization:

• It is a lifelong process. 
• The roles a person enacts are the expressions of his social nature. 
• The nature of what one communicates in society is determined by the influence of one's interaction with society. 

Key Points There are many sources of socialization such as School, College, Friends, Society, Neighbourhood, Religion, Caste, Media, newspapers, Meetings, Events, etc.

• Media: Media is the source in which observational skills are considered, media such as Television, magazines, Mobile phone, reality shows, newspapers, etc.
• In the question, Jafar observes a dance reality shows and then clapped for them. This shows the act is a part of media socialization.

So, Option (1) is the correct answer. ​

Additional Information 

•  Educational institutions: In educational institutions students socialized by learning various subjects,  interacting in different activities, Peer groups, teachers, textbooks, TLMs, etc.
• Neighbourhood: Children learn many skills by interacting with their neighbourhood, Neighbours play an important role in the socialization of the child.
• Religion: Religion makes child socially active, it gives them knowledge about religions, and Gods, and make them familiar with them.

Socialization is the process by which we acquire the culture of the society into which we are born - the process by which we acquire our social characteristics and learn the ways of thought and behaviour considered appropriate in our society. During the process of socialization

• children learn about their family traditions from their elders and preserve them and pass them on to the next generation as they grow older.
• helps children to learn and perform the different roles and responsibilities which they have learnt from their elders. 

Agents of Socialization- 

Thus from above-mentioned points, it is clear that physical Infrastructure does not play a role in the socialization of children. 

Socialization is the process through which communities transact or educate their members about the norms and values of society to be socially acceptable.

• It simply refers to acquiring the socially approved ways of behavior and taking ideal expectations seriously.
• Socialization is the continuous process of negotiating identities and shaping one’s concept of self, identity, various attitudes, and behaviors. 
• Socialization has 4 major agents namely family, school, peers, and mass media. 

Key Points

Types of Socialization: There are mainly two types of socialization including primary and secondary socialization.

Secondary Socialization: 

• It occurs once the infant passes into the childhood phase and continues into maturity. It refers to the process that begins in the later years through agencies such as school and peer groups. 
• During this phase more than the family, some other agents of socialization like the school and peers’ group begin to play a role in socializing the child.
• For example, Schools and peers help children in learning the importance of social cohesion and unity and inculcating the informal cues about social roles through interaction.

Hence, it could be concluded that the Peer group has a significant role in the secondary socialization of childhood.

Additional Information

Primary Socialization: 

• It happens during infancy and childhood. It refers to the process where the child becomes socialized through the family in the early childhood years. 
• This highlights that primary socialization occurs within the family when children first learn their individual identity, acquire language and develop initial cognitive skills.
• For example, a very young child in a family has little knowledge of his culture. It is through the family that the child gets to know what is accepted and what is not in a particular society.

Society is a ‘web of relationship’ and these relations are fundamental for understanding human behaviour and different institutions of society. Different forms of relations in family, community and society are:

• Within the family, there are relations like mother, father, son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister which we put under primary relations
• uncle, aunt, nephew, niece are called secondary relatives.
• There are also tertiary relatives like friends, neighbourhood relations and many other similar relations. 

Hence, we conclude that friend comes under tertiary relationship.