Higher education

For your second paperDSA #2: My Socialization into Higher EducationI want you to reflect on your socialization experience as it relates to your connection and commitment to pursuing a college education and/or a career. Your task is to identify the most significant agents of socialization who have shaped your educational journey and explain how they have made an impact on your journey.
By educational journey, I refer to your developing qualities as a studentyour commitment to your education, the amount of effort you put into your studies, the importance of educational accomplishments (e.g., college degree), and other aspects of your sense of self as a student (Who am I as a college student?). Keep in mind that for this paper, your educational journey and sense of self as a student are the effects of the socialization process, while the primary focus of the paper is to discuss the agents of socialization (causes or influential factors) and how they shaped your educational journey.
Sociological Background
As explained in our text, socialization refers to the process in which we are shaped and molded by other people, groups, and life experiences. Socialization takes place when people interact with one another. For example, for most of us our parents or close family members have been instrumental in molding our personality and our outlook on life, through their conversations with us or through their actions that we observe. The socialization process can therefore be understood as a teaching and learning process in which we learn about our culture, our way of life (values, norms and symbols), and our social identities (often aligned with our familys social identity).
The teachers in this process are known as the agents of socialization, and the most significant agents of socialization are typically family, peers/friends, school teachers, fellow members of our faith-based community, colleagues at work, people from our neighborhood, and the mass media. As symbolic interactionists remind us, we are not passive in this processnot merely blank slates; however, these agents of socialization are clearly powerful social forces shaping our lives. In the logic of cause and effect, the agents of socialization represent the causes or factors shaping our individual goals and choices in life, including our educational journeys.
Recommendations: Here are some suggestions as you plan your paper:
Although the nature of your commitment and connection to a college education and career are important to noteperhaps in the introductory paragraphkeep the focus of the paper on the agents of socialization. The bulk of the should provide examples of how these important people in your life shaped your educational journey.
Please do not use yourself as an agent of socialization. The point of the paper is to focus on social forces outside our individual self. Focus on key people in your life who have made an impact on your educational journey. Of course, the impact from agents of socialization does not account for 100% of why we do thingswe do have a sense of self that is independent of others and self-motivation is crucial to educational success. However, the focus of this paper is on the external social forces, those people who made a difference in shaping our educational journey.
Agents of socialization do not always have a positive impact on our socialization experiences. It is very possible that your educational journey was shaped by a mix of positive and negative agents of socialization. Even the same person, as an agent of socialization, can have both positive and negative effects on us. Whatever your experience has been, talk about it, and explain how it shaped your educational journey. One key to good writing is being honest and authentic apply that principle in this paper.
Related to the previous recommendation, please know that the strength of your commitment to your education is not important to writing a successful paper. Be honest about your educational journey, the bumps in the road, and, perhaps, the mixed impactboth positive and negative impactfrom key people (agents of socialization) who shaped your educational experiences. For example, many former students have commented on how some of their peers (friends) have had a negative impact on their educational commitments. Also, students have effectively written about how negative influences have had a positive impact on their commitment to education, e.g., watching peers or family members make poor decisions about their education, seeing the consequences of those decisions, and then making different choices to avoid those negative consequences.
As I stressed for your DSA#1 paper, always keep in mind that this is a sociology paper. What does that mean? It means that you need to use the language of sociology, i.e., the key concepts from Chapter 5 in our textbook on socialization. At the very least, you will want to use the following three concepts: socialization, agents of socialization, and self. Other concepts you may want to incorporate include: looking-glass self, generalized other, peer group, mass media, anticipatory socialization, or resocialization. Please note that one of the key categories in the evaluation rubric I use for grading this paper is sociological tone; the clearest way to establish a sociological tone for your paper is by using the language of sociology make sure to do so.
As with your DSA#1 paper, please use APA formatting guidelines for your Title Page, References page, and in-text citations. For this assignment, I expect that everyone will use our e-textbook and nearly everyone will use just this one resource. However, if you do use other outside resources, make sure those are listed in the References page and cited properly in the paper.

Organizational Strategies: I have assigned this paper in my classes for many years. In reflecting on what has worked for my former students, I suggest following one of two strategies for organizing your paper.
Strategy #1: Anchor body paragraphs of paper to agents of socialization.
Paragraph #1: Introductory paragraph frame discussion within context of socialization into education topic, establish sociological tone (use language of sociology), create reader interest, preview what you will discuss in paper.
Paragraph #2: Agent of Socialization #1, provide examples of how this agent of socialization shaped your educational journey, maintain sociological tone.
Paragraph #3: Agent of Socialization #2, provide examples of how this agent of socialization shaped your educational journey, maintain sociological tone.
Paragraph #4: Agent of Socialization #3, provide examples of how this agent of socialization shaped your educational journey, maintain sociological tone
Paragraph #5: Concluding paragraph, summarize discussion, re-connect with big picture=power of socialization in shaping our life experiences.
In my experience, Strategy #1 is the one that has been used by most of my previous students. A second, alternative strategy has been used by some of my former students, and this second strategy may be an especially promising strategy for non-traditional, older students who are returning back to school/college after being away for many years.
Strategy #2: Anchor body paragraphs of paper to stages of the life course.
Paragraph #1: Introductory paragraph frame discussion within context of socialization into education topic, establish sociological tone (use language of sociology), create reader interest, preview what you will discuss in paper.
Paragraph #2: Life Course Stage #1 (childhood and/or adolescence), provide examples of how one or more agents of socialization shaped your educational journey during this stage of your life, maintain sociological tone.
Paragraph #3: Life Course Stage #2 (early adulthood years), provide examples of how one or more agents of socialization shaped your educational journey during this stage of your life, maintain sociological tone.
Paragraph #4: Life Course Stage #3 (current life stage) provide examples of how one or more agents of socialization shaped your educational journey during this stage of your life, maintain sociological tone
Paragraph #5: Concluding paragraph, summarize discussion, re-connect with big picture=power of socialization in shaping our life experiences.

Keep in mind that you will not be able to discuss every agent of socialization that shaped your educational journey. Select the more significant ones. Also, if discussing a particular agent of socialization is too painful in some way, its fine to avoid that discussion and instead focus on other important agents of socialization.

One aspect of this assignment that I like is that only you, the student, can write this paper. Only you know what impact this or that agent of socialization has had on your educational journey. There is no outside research involved with this course assignment. Simply reflect on your educational journey and the key people who have shaped that journey, then analyze those experiences by applying the key sociological concepts linked to socialization.

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