Examine the sociological explanations of the process of socialisation.

This guarantees that the child has a strong valued consensus and feels a strong sense of belonging to society. Functionalists see secondary stages of socialisation as agents that reinforce a stronger valued consensus. Education is seen as an essential system that transmits shared cultural values. Certain subjects such as History and religious education link the individual to society by encouraging a sense of pride in historical and religious achievements.  This reinforces their sense of belonging into the society and makes for a stronger valued consensus. Education also imposes important values like achievement, competition and individualism, which essentially prepare young people for the world of work. Another agent of socialisation which functionalism take into consideration is religion. Religion’s main function is to socialise the members of society into society by investing values, which have sacred qualities. These values become moral codes and these codes regulate our behaviour in regarding to sex, crime and our duty towards others. A good example of these “codes” are the Ten Commandments. These included rules which have given us formal codes and law such as “Thou shalt not kill” and “Thou shalt not commit adultery” which are informal codes. However the Marxist view is completely different to this and they are critical of the functionalist view. They argue that the family is used by the capitalist class to instil values such as obedience and respect for the authority which are essentially useful to the capitalist ruling class. These values ensure that individuals can be exploited by the ruling class later in life. This is because they will simply come to the fact that differences in power and authority will always exist.  When it comes to religion the view of the Marxist also varies. Unlike the functionalist view where education is used to give a stronger sense of society and valued consensus, Marxists argue that the education is dominated by a hidden curriculum. Althusser (1971) claimed that subjects which would challenge the capitalist society, such as Sociology and Politics, were purposely excluded from the curriculum because the ruling class thought that they might cause students to become too critical of the capitalist society. The Marxist theory of religion as an agent of socialisation also differs massively from the Functionalist view. Whilst religion in functionalism is seen as investing values into individuals, Marxists see Religion as promoting the idea that material success is a sign of God’s favour whilst poverty is caused by wickedness, sin and immorality. There are also criticisms of the concept of socialization. Many accounts of socialisation often imply that it is a straight forward and positive process. This is not always the case. For example, if the parents have not been properly educated or do not have the required skills to nurture a child then obviously the child’s childhood is not going to be a pleasant or happy one. They’re also theories that childhood socialisation is not easy as it was in the past. Mass media often influences children at a much younger age and the childhood process is often shortened.  So in conclusion, Functionalist see primary socialisation as a time where values and norms are taught into a child, and during secondary socialisation these values are reinforced through other agents such as religion. Marxists see it as the complete opposite. They believe that the family is there to instil values such as authority and obedience which can later be exploited whilst secondary agents such as education and religion make sure that individuals do not become too critical of the capitalist society.