Socialization

Whether women are better than men I cannot say—but I can say they are certainly no worse.

Of my two ‘handicaps,’ being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.

One is not born a woman—one becomes one.

Personal development is a process of being and becoming. Individual development takes place in the context of social settings (family, school, church, college, work, etc.) aimed at socializing the individual. The above four quotes are useful in helping me explain how culture shaped my own socialization and development process. The social setting context on which I will focus is education, i.e. my schooling. After a brief gloss of my background, I will use the above quotes to explain how the culture into which I was born has shaped my own personality and development.

My major is elementary education and also involved myself in high school athletics. This experience filled me with a lifelong commitment to healthy living and staying fit, including regular exercise and diet. My family was a traditional upper-middle class family with good social standing in the community. I am Jewish and Catholic, a white female. During my socialization process in junior high and high school, I realized that being a female comes with it ow

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nents of culture and society. As I continued my classes and education, I began working with children and interacting with them because of my interest in elementary education. This experience educated me to the fact that males and females are quite different when it comes to their personal interests, spending habits, musical tastes, methods of communication and myriad other aspects of personality. However, I saw that males are often the benefactors of culture because they exist in a culture that has been primarily shaped by men. Never could I imagine a group of college guys willing to go shopping with me and my girlfriends instead of going to the college football game. The thought of asking was out of the question. Instead, I learned that these differences are to be appreciated by each gender because being the same would be dull and less enriching. I learned from the courses I took in literature, sociology, and education that men and women are not the same but definitely equal to men or deserving to be. I also learned that just as there are good and bad men there are good and bad women and the goal is to rise above making distinctions based on gender—something that has been done to women as a sex for centuries. This is w
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Approximate Word count = 1279
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

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