Social Forces

Social Forces

Every person who is born into a society is affected and influenced by agents of socialization and social structures. The agents of socialization are the various smaller sections, or groups, of society that we are a part of. These groups have the most impact on who we are and who we become. “Some of the most influential” (agents of socialization) “in most people’s lives are the family, school, peers, and the mass media.” (Houston, Lecture, Week 2) The social structures are the different faction of a particular group in society, and how they relate to each other. The social structure is the guiding factor in our behaviors and mind set which are relative to the statuses that we occupy and the roles that we play. The agent of socialization that has influenced my life the most is my family. Because my family is the largest part of my social structure it heavily impacts every other status that I occupy. “One of the main findings of sociologists concerns the way socialization depends on a family’s social class.” (Henslin 2006, p. 71) While I was growing up my family was what is considered working class. My parents, and their closest friends and family, were hard-working, hard-partying, honest people. I was also raised with my husband and his parents, who were very close friends and neighbors of my parents, so I have been heavily impacted and influenced by them as well. Because of these influential factors my husband and I are still living that same lifestyle with our own children. This means that my life course, although never quite staying the same, has never drastically changed either. I am who I am because of my parents, my husband, and my in-laws. The people who raised me, though not always “right”, were always honest, independent, strong-willed, and loyal. Because I grew up seeing that, I am the same way. Our parents were also very protective of all of us children, which has caused us, in turn, to be even more so of our own children because there...

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