The Cycle Of Socialization By Bobbie Haro

Journal #2
I love to think of myself as a critically-thinking individual who comes to conclusions solely based on personal analyses of the world around me. In reality, I am largely a reflection of the cultures and spaces I occupy. The Cycle of Socialization by Bobbie Haro, defines socialization as “systematic training on how to beach of our social identities throughout our lives.” Thinking of my upbringing as something that is systemic sheds a different perspective on my realities.
I was raised in a conservative, catholic, middle class family. However, I tend to have much more liberal beliefs. My socialization by family members and my institutional socialization by Catholic Church, the education and legal systems had the most impact on me. Values, beliefs and biases were systematically reinforced and contradicted by the people, institutions and spaces in my life. The interplay between my first socialization and my institutional socialization has been key in me experiencing cognitive dissonance.

The complex Identity: Who Am I? reminded me that we are all socialized differently and have different experiences. This concept is easy to grasp but often gets lost in my social justice work and activism. I often refer to myself a progressive. Technically, this implies that people whose beliefs contradict mine are not “progressive.” When I consider the intersection of the looking glass self and socialization, I realize that this is not necessarily true. It highlights biases that I have about what I believe ought to be. For example, I have a friend who is a Tea Party member and she believes that she is progressive. Her experiences and socialization were completely different than mine and have led her to have a different set of beliefs than me. Understanding the role of socialization in our lives is key to engaging in open dialogues because it forces us to assess ourselves as critically as we assess