Very Strong Agent Of Political Education example essay topic

Assess the view that the Education system is the most powerful agent of political socialization. Socialisation is learning the customs, attitudes, and values of a social group, community, or culture. Socialisation is essential for the development of individuals who can participate and function within their societies, as well as for ensuring that a society's cultural features will be carried on through new generations. Socialisation is most strongly enforced by family, school, and peer groups and continues throughout an individual's lifetime. Education Systems differ from country to country. In most of the western world there are three levels of education, primary, secondary and higher.

The contemporary goal of British, American and Irish Education is to help children fit into a technological, hierarchal, yet democratic society. Schools are recognized as institutions, ones that should prepare students to take their places in society. Schools are believed to give young people the ability to develop skills and acquire knowledge so that they can survive on their own in the future. The very structure of today's schools and the messages that they send to children are seen as training for future employment.

Students learn to form momentary social relationships, accept categorical treatment, and loose their personal identities. Students move through the school in an orderly fashion, follow precise directions, and learn information that they will be tested on. However, schools should not only be a place where children learn skills that make them employable in the workforce. People are more than just workers- they are parents, citizens, neighbours, and individuals with private goals and desires. It is the role of public education to see that children develop the abilities for all of these roles. They should foster an environment that promotes individual interests and a quest for knowledge.

Public education often overlooks the way that children learn best, and they often try to teach students according to national goals and standards. Webster defines education as 'the action or process of educating or being educated'. The educational system must help all individuals fulfill their needs and reach their fullest potential. This process helps learners acquire the skill of learning by enhancing their ability to inquire, postulate, reason, make decisions, problem solve, and be independent, self-directed learners. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that the education system is not formally geared towards producing politically aware citizens the very fact that Politics in most schools is only offered at A-level and it is optional. There have been steps taken in recent years in an attempt to make children more politically aware.

For example in the Republic of Ireland a new subject CAPE is compulsory for juniors and its aim is to 'help young people to have a regard for themselves and for others; to develop the abilities needed to empower them to participate effectively in the life of their families, their communities and the society in which they live and work; to be able to identify and assess the values which underlie their own behaviour and that of others; to be able to take responsibility for their beliefs and actions; to appreciate such moral values as honesty, justice and concern for others, and to be committed to applying these values in their own lives and promoting them in the life of society. ' In England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland there has also been the introduction of a new subject that is compulsory for first and second year students, it is called 'citizenship. ' It could be said that the education system in the U.S. makes a more active attempt to socialize children politically because every morning before lessons begin the children say the pledge of allegiance. This places a very strong value on nationalism and loyalty to the state from an early age.

Perhaps the education system has been abused in the past and has been called a tool of oppression. Education is based on the belief that there is some program that everyone should follow, whether they want to or not. It is a system where other people decide for us what we are to learn, when we are to learn, how we are to learn. It is part of a larger program of social control, a system where everyone is assigned his or her appropriate place. Such a system seeks to destroy individuality or unpredictability, seeks to destroy what makes humans more interesting than machines. Perhaps before we " ve ever succeeded in making machines like people, we " ll already have made people like machines.

Students who do not conform and refuse to assume a passive position, children who refuse to let the school game define them by structuring how they spend their time, are 'problem children' or 'behaviour al cases. ' But education should not be seen as a tool of oppression but one of empowerment. Lack of education and ignorance is to blame for a lot of society's problems and education is the key to becoming an intelligent well-rounded individual. Schooling makes people wiser the more education an individual has the more they learn about life, the universe and everything in general.

The Education System without a trace of a doubt socialists children politically weather it be direct or indirect. School teaches children to accept their role in a hierarchical society from principal to the PM. They very fact that I am a student of political science and it is offered in schools all over the world demonstrates that the education system socialists children and young people politically. I feel that some of the other agents of socialization play a bigger and more influential role in political socialization. Family plays a huge role and is one of the most powerful agents of political socialization. For most of us, the first primary relationship we form is with our parents or guardians - the people who are charged with the initial socialization process.

As we grow older and go to school, we also start to form primary attachments with friends and, eventually, with other adults. I feel that the mass media is the most powerful agent of political socialization as opposed to education. Mass media Radio, television, cinema, newspapers, magazines, music, and the Internet are powerful agents of socialization. Television is a leisure activity, which has a range of viewers, and therefore many members of society are socialized by this medium. Television can be harmful as one imitates what is on television and this can threaten authority. Television also portrays gender roles, it teaches us what the idea of a man is and how women are meant to act.

Nowadays with drag queens on television, adults and adolescents views on gender roles have been challenged. Peer groups are also a very strong agent of political education. The adolescent struggles with being a part of a group and being themselves. Peer groups usually consist of people of similar ages and social status. In conclusion it is fair to say that the education system plays a major role and is one of the most powerful agents of political socialization. We learn most when we are young children, in the very first year of a child's life it learns the most important and difficult task it will ever do, it learns to speak.

Children are like sponges they absorb everything that goes on around them and from childhood to adolescence the majority of their time is spent in some form of education so of course it will influence them socially and politically. That is why it is vital that schools promote a healthy ethos and create an environment in which children can learn and grow physically and spiritually as well as mentally. Education should not just be aimed at producing adults that are qualified to fulfil a certain role but should be to produce good citizens with healthy values, morals and beliefs.