D2.Soc.11.9-12: The Primary Agents of Socialization and Why They Are Influential
In plain English: D2.Soc.11.9-12 is the C3 Framework sociology indicator for grades 9-12 that asks students to analyze the influence of the primary agents of socialization and why they are influential. Students examine what the family, school, peers and media teach, and explain each agent's power through time, emotional bonds, rewards and sanctions, practice and imitation.
Analyze the influence of the primary agents of socialization and why they are influential.
C3 Framework for Social Studies (NCSS) · Dimension 2: Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools · Discipline: Sociology · Social Relationships: Self, Groups, and Socialization · Official standard
D2.Soc.11.9-12 asks students to analyze the influence of the primary agents of socialization and why they are influential. Socialization is the lifelong process by which people learn the norms, values, skills and roles of their society. An agent of socialization is a person, group or institution that does this teaching. Sociology courses usually name four primary agents: the family, the school, peers (people of about the same age and status) and the mass media. The indicator has two parts: what each agent teaches, and why it has the power to teach it.
The lesson uses two passages from John Dewey's The School and Society (1899, revised 1915) on what the household and the school teach, a passage from Jane Addams's The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909) on why the theater gripped young people in industrial cities, and an invented survey with invented data. Students plan studies on paper only.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Define socialization and identify the family, school, peers and media as primary agents
Analyze what each agent teaches, using historical sources and data
Explain why an agent is influential, using five reasons: time and exposure, emotional bonds, rewards and sanctions, practice through participation, and imitation of models
Compute and interpret shares from an invented survey and explain the limits of self-reported influence
Plan, on paper only, a study of how one agent shapes a specific behavior
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should already be comfortable with:
How social context influences individuals D2.Soc.3.9-12
How culture influences the individuals in it D2.Soc.7.9-12
"Think of one common teenage habit, such as how teenagers greet adults, how they study or what music they play. Who or what usually teaches it, and why does that lesson stick?"
Students share with a partner, then the class. Collect the kinds of answers: parents, teachers, coaches, friends, shows, apps, songs. Sort them on the board into four columns (family, school, peers, media). Today's questions: what does each of these agents teach, and why do some lessons stick?
Direct Instruction20 minutes
Five reasons an agent of socialization is influential (written for this page)
Reason
What it means
Example
Time and exposure
The agent is present often and for a long time
A child spends most early years with family
Emotional bonds
People care about the agent's approval
A student works hard so as not to disappoint a parent
Rewards and sanctions
The agent praises, grades, includes or excludes
Friends laugh at a style and a student stops wearing it
Practice through participation
People learn by doing real tasks with others
A teenager learns to handle money by working in a family shop
Imitation of models
People copy those they admire or see often
Viewers copy a phrase from a popular show
Primary and secondary socialization. Primary socialization happens in early childhood, mostly in the family, and lays down language, basic norms and a first sense of self. Secondary socialization continues through school, peers, media, work and other groups across life. Agents can agree or compete: a family may teach one thing and a friend group another.
John Dewey (1859-1952) built The School and Society from three lectures he gave in April 1899 to an audience of parents and others interested in the University Elementary School. In Source 1 he looks back one to three generations to the farm and village household. Source warning: Dewey's picture of the old household is a general description from memory and reading, not a study, and it describes rural American households, not all families.
1Back of the factory system lies the household and neighborhood system. Those of us who are here today need go back only one, two, or at most three generations, to find a time when the household was practically the center in which were carried on, or about which were clustered, all the typical forms of industrial occupation. The clothing worn was for the most part made in the house; the members of the household were usually familiar also with the shearing of the sheep, the carding and spinning of the wool, and the plying of the loom. [...] The entire industrial process stood revealed, from the production on the farm of the raw materials till the finished article was actually put to use. Not only this, but practically every member of the household had his own share in the work. The children, as they gained in strength and capacity, were gradually initiated into the mysteries of the several processes. It was a matter of immediate and personal concern, even to the point of actual participation.
2We cannot overlook the factors of discipline and of character-building involved in this kind of life: training in habits of order and of industry, and in the idea of responsibility, of obligation to do something, to produce something, in the world. There was always something which really needed to be done, and a real necessity that each member of the household should do his own part faithfully and in co-operation with others. Personalities which became effective in action were bred and tested in the medium of action. Again, we cannot overlook the importance for educational purposes of the close and intimate acquaintance got with nature at first hand, with real things and materials, with the actual processes of their manipulation, and the knowledge of their social necessities and uses. In all this there was continual training of observation, of ingenuity, constructive imagination, of logical thought, and of the sense of reality acquired through first-hand contact with actualities. The educative forces of the domestic spinning and weaving, of the sawmill, the gristmill, the cooper shop, and the blacksmith forge, were continuously operative.
3No number of object-lessons, got up as object-lessons for the sake of giving information, can afford even the shadow of a substitute for acquaintance with the plants and animals of the farm and garden acquired through actual living among them and caring for them. No training of sense-organs in school, introduced for the sake of training, can begin to compete with the alertness and fulness of sense-life that comes through daily intimacy and interest in familiar occupations. Verbal memory can be trained in committing tasks, a certain discipline of the reasoning powers can be acquired through lessons in science and mathematics; but, after all, this is somewhat remote and shadowy compared with the training of attention and of judgment that is acquired in having to do things with a real motive behind and a real outcome ahead. At present, concentration of industry and division of labor have practically eliminated household and neighborhood occupations—at least for educational purposes. But it is useless to bemoan the departure of the good old days of children’s modesty, reverence, and implicit obedience, if we expect merely by bemoaning and by exhortation to bring them back. It is radical conditions which have changed, and only an equally radical change in education suffices. [...]
John Dewey, Source 1: Dewey on what the household once taught children (1915) (1899; this edition 1915). Public domain (published 1915). Source text.
1The great thing to keep in mind, then, regarding the introduction into the school of various forms of active occupation, is that through them the entire spirit of the school is renewed. It has a chance to affiliate itself with life, to become the child’s habitat, where he learns through directed living, instead of being only a place to learn lessons having an abstract and remote reference to some possible living to be done in the future. It gets a chance to be a miniature community, an embryonic society. This is the fundamental fact, and from this arise continuous and orderly streams of instruction. Under the industrial régime described, the child, after all, shared in the work, not for the sake of the sharing, but for the sake of the product. The educational results secured were real, yet incidental and dependent. But in the school the typical occupations followed are freed from all economic stress. The aim is not the economic value of the products, but the development of social power and insight. [...]
[...]
2[...] To do this means to make each one of our schools an embryonic community life, active with types of occupations that reflect the life of the larger society and permeated throughout with the spirit of art, history, and science. When the school introduces and trains each child of society into membership within such a little community, saturating him with the spirit of service, and providing him with the instruments of effective self-direction, we shall have the deepest and best guaranty of a larger society which is worthy, lovely, and harmonious.
John Dewey, Source 2: Dewey on the school as a small community (1915) (1899; this edition 1915). Public domain (published 1915). Source text.
What an agent teaches: Source 1, paragraph 2
Name two things Dewey says the household taught children.
Result: "Training in habits of order and of industry, and in the idea of responsibility," and "continual training of observation, of ingenuity, constructive imagination, of logical thought." The family, as an agent, taught work habits and ways of thinking, not only facts.
Why the agent was influential: Source 1, paragraph 1
Which reason from the table explains how the household taught, and what is Dewey's evidence?
Result: Practice through participation: "The children, as they gained in strength and capacity, were gradually initiated into the mysteries of the several processes." They learned by taking real parts in real work, every day, alongside family members.
The school as an agent: Source 2, paragraph 2
What does Dewey want the school to teach, and how?
Result: He wants each school to be "an embryonic community life, active with types of occupations that reflect the life of the larger society," training each child "into membership within such a little community." The school would teach membership in society by giving students real shared tasks, using the same reason that made the household influential.
Reading Source 4's data
What percent of the 80 students named their family as the main influence on manners at meals?
Result: 58 / 80 = 0.725, or 72.5%. The family is named far more often for manners than for music taste (8 of 80, or 10%), which fits the idea that primary socialization at home shapes everyday norms early.
Close the segment: Dewey praises learning "with a real motive behind and a real outcome ahead." What in a teenager's life today has a real motive and a real outcome, and which agent teaches it?
Guided Practice15 minutes
Read Source 3 together. Jane Addams (1860-1935) wrote this book at Hull-House in Chicago, as its title page shows, drawing on the young wage earners she met there. Source warning: Addams's evidence is her own experience and a few cases she remembers; it is not a sample, and her moral judgments about the theater are hers.
1"Going to the show" for thousands of young people in every industrial city is the only possible road to the realms of mystery and romance; the theater is the only place where they can satisfy that craving for a conception of life higher than that which the actual world offers them. In a very real sense the drama and the drama alone performs for them the office of art as is clearly revealed in their blundering demand stated in many forms for "a play unlike life." The theater becomes to them a "veritable house of dreams" infinitely more real than the noisy streets and the crowded factories.
[...]
2The theater also has a strange power to forecast life for the youth. Each boy comes from our ancestral past not "in entire forgetfulness," and quite as he unconsciously uses ancient war-cries in his street play, so he longs to reproduce and to see set before him the valors and vengeances of a society embodying a much more primitive state of morality than that in which he finds himself. Mr. Patten has pointed out that the elemental action which the stage presents, the old emotions of love and jealousy, of revenge and daring take the thoughts of the spectator back into deep and well worn channels in which his mind runs with a sense of rest afforded by nothing else. The cheap drama brings cause and effect, will power and action, once more into relation and gives a man the thrilling conviction that he may yet be master of his fate. The youth of course, quite unconscious of this psychology, views the deeds of the hero simply as a forecast of his own future and it is this fascinating view of his own career which draws the boy to "shows" of all sorts. They can scarcely be too improbable for him, portraying, as they do, his belief in his own prowess. [...]
[...]
3Is it not astounding that a city allows thousands of its youth to fill their impressionable minds with these absurdities which certainly will become the foundation for their working moral codes and the data from which they will judge the proprieties of life?
[...]
4[...] I remember the remorse of a young girl of fifteen who was brought into the Juvenile Court after a night spent weeping in the cellar of her home because she had stolen a mass of artificial flowers with which to trim a hat. She stated that she had taken the flowers because she was afraid of losing the attention of a young man whom she had heard say that "a girl has to be dressy if she expects to be seen." This young man was the only one who had ever taken her to the theater and if he failed her, she was sure that she would never go again, and she sobbed out incoherently that she "couldn't live at all without it." Apparently the blankness and grayness of life itself had been broken for her only by the portrayal of a different world.
Jane Addams, Source 3: Addams on young people and the theater (1909) (1909). Public domain (published 1909). Source text.
Agent. Which agent of socialization is Addams describing in paragraphs 1-3? Which other agent appears in paragraph 4?
Reasons. Find a sentence that shows imitation of models and one that shows emotional bonds or the wish to be accepted.
Claim and evidence. What does Addams claim the theater's stories will become for young people? What kind of evidence does she offer?
Compare. Dewey's household taught through doing; how does Addams say the theater teaches?
Independent Practice15 minutes
Students read Source 4, an invented study with invented data, and use all four sources for the quiz and homework.
1Invented study with invented data, written for this page. Two sociology classes at an invented high school asked 80 students, aged 15 to 18, one question about four areas of life: "Which one of these most shaped how you act or what you think in this area: your family, your school, your friends, or the media you watch, read and listen to?" Each student chose one answer for each area.
2Manners at meals: family 58, school 6, friends 9, media 7. Study habits: family 30, school 34, friends 11, media 5. Music taste: family 8, school 3, friends 33, media 36. Career plans: family 37, school 21, friends 9, media 13.
3When asked why, many students who chose their family said "they were there every day" or "I didn't want to let them down." Many who chose friends said "you want to fit in," and many who chose media said "I see it all the time."
4Sample warning: the 80 students are volunteers from two classes in one school, so they do not represent all teenagers. People also cannot always tell what shaped them, and a single forced choice hides influences that work together.
SVHS (invented scenario), Source 4: Who shaped you? A survey of 80 students (invented study with invented data) (2026). Original passage written for this page.
Source 4 data: main influence named by 80 students (invented data)
Area of life
Family
School
Friends
Media
Total
Manners at meals
58
6
9
7
80
Study habits
30
34
11
5
80
Music taste
8
3
33
36
80
Career plans
37
21
9
13
80
Task: for each area of life, write which agent was named most often and one reason from the five-reasons table that could explain why. Then write one sentence on what the survey cannot show.
Closure5-10 minutes
Exit ticket: "Choose one agent of socialization. Name one thing it teaches teenagers today and the strongest reason it is influential, with one piece of evidence from today's sources."
Teacher notes. (1) Dewey and Addams wrote over a century ago and use the language of their time. Dewey uses "his" for every child, and Addams writes of the boy's "ancestral past" and "a much more primitive state of morality," an outdated idea that treats some societies as earlier stages; ask students to note these as views of 1909. (2) Source 3 leaves out Addams's descriptions of violent shows, one of which centered on the killing of a man identified by his ethnicity. (3) The Warm-Up asks about teenagers in general, not about students' own families; never require students to disclose family details.
Differentiation Strategies
For Struggling Students
Give the five-reasons table with one example per reason already filled in
Pre-mark one sentence in each source that names something an agent teaches, and have students label the agent
Provide a frame: "The ___ (agent) teaches ___. It is influential because ___ (reason), as shown by ___ (evidence)."
For Advanced Students
Explain whether Addams's evidence in Source 3 shows that the theater shaped young people's morals, or only that some young people valued it, and what evidence would settle the question
Compare Dewey's household in Source 1 with a present-day family business or farm, and explain which of his reasons for influence still apply
Design a question for Source 4's survey that would detect agents working together rather than forcing one choice
Assessment Guidance
What to Look For
Strong answers name a specific agent and what it teaches, give a reason for its influence with evidence from a source or the data, and keep group patterns apart from claims about every individual. Watch for students who list agents without explaining their power, who treat one anecdote as proof, or who read a single forced choice as the only influence on a person.
02
Classroom Activities
3 Activities
1
Mechanism Match: Eight Invented Moments
15 minPairs
Pairs read eight invented moments. For each one they name the agent of socialization and the main reason the lesson stuck, chosen from the five-reasons table (time and exposure, emotional bonds, rewards and sanctions, practice through participation, imitation of models). Some moments fit two reasons; pairs justify their choice.
The 8 Invented Moments
Invented: a six-year-old copies her older cousin's way of answering the phone.
Invented: a coach benches a player for skipping practice, and the player never skips again.
Invented: a teenager learns to run a cash register by working weekends in his aunt's bakery.
Invented: students in a new school pick up the slang they hear in the hallway within a month.
Invented: a boy keeps studying late because he does not want to disappoint his grandmother.
Invented: a girl hums a song all week after hearing it in a video she watched ten times.
Invented: a student team learns to plan a budget by running the school's book fair.
Invented: a group chat teases a member for a post, and she deletes it within an hour.
Debrief Questions
Which moments involved a sanction, and who gave it?
Which moments would Dewey call learning through participation?
Which moments show peers and media working together?
Teacher Note
The moments are invented. Accept any reason the pair can defend from the wording. Moment 8 can be read as peers (the group) using media (the chat) to sanction a member.
2
Then and Now: Dewey's Household and Today's Teenager
15 minGroups of 3
Groups make a T-chart. On the left, they list what Dewey says the household taught (Source 1). On the right, they name the agent that teaches each of these to teenagers today, if any, and how. Groups then decide which of Dewey's reasons for influence still apply.
Guiding Questions
Which lessons from Dewey's list are still taught mainly by the family?
Which have moved to the school, a job, a team or the media?
Are there lessons on the left that no agent clearly teaches today?
Debrief
Each group shares one lesson that moved to another agent and the reason the new agent can teach it, or cannot.
Modification for Struggling Students
Give the left column already filled in with four items from Source 1, paragraph 2: order, industry, responsibility and observation.
3
Reading the Invented Survey
15 minIndividual, then pairs
Students compute shares from Source 4, compare the agents across areas of life, and plan on paper a better study of one agent.
Steps
For manners at meals, compute the percent naming school, friends and media.
Rank the four areas by how often the family was named.
Plan, on paper only, a better study of one agent's influence on one behavior: whom you would ask, how you would avoid a single forced choice, and how answers would stay anonymous.
Answer Key for Steps 1-2
Manners at meals: school 6 / 80 = 7.5%, friends 9 / 80 = 11.25%, media 7 / 80 = 8.75%. Family named most to least: manners (58), career plans (37), study habits (30), music taste (8).
Teacher Note
Plans stay on paper: students do not survey anyone. The data are invented and describe no real school.
03
Diagrams & Visual Aids
1 diagrams
Diagram 1: Main Influence Named by 80 Students, by Area of Life (Invented Data)
Invented data from Source 4. Each bar shows the 80 students' answers for one area of life, split by the agent they named; bars are drawn to scale (6 px per student). A small volunteer sample from one invented school, with one forced choice per area.
04
Homework Assignment
~30 min
Homework: What Agents Teach and Why
Directions: Part 1 uses Sources 1, 3 and 4. Quote every source you use with its paragraph number. Part 2 asks you to explain and to plan on paper only: do not survey or interview anyone, and do not share private family details.
Part 1: Reading and Computing (Problems 1-3)
Choose a present-day job, chore or team role that a teenager might have. Using Source 1, paragraph 2, explain whether it teaches the same habits Dewey describes, and which of his reasons (such as "a real necessity") applies or is missing.
Using Source 4, compute the percent of students who named each agent for career plans, to the nearest whole percent. Explain why the four rounded percents may not add to exactly 100, and which reason from the five-reasons table could explain the family's share.
Addams in Source 3 claims the theater's stories shape young people's moral codes. Identify the kind of evidence she gives in paragraph 4, then rewrite her claim as a question a researcher could test.
Part 2: Explaining and Planning (Problems 4-6)
Plan, on paper only, a study of how one kind of media shapes the words teenagers use. Name what you would compare, how you would choose participants fairly, and how you would keep their answers anonymous.
Explain why the influence of the family and of peers often shifts between childhood and the teenage years. Use at least two reasons from the five-reasons table.
Invented case: Sam's family expects him home for dinner on weeknights, and his friends meet at the park at the same hour. Explain which agent is likely to be more influential in this case and why, and what could change the balance.
Rubric
Criterion
Full Credit (2 pts)
Partial Credit (1 pt)
No Credit (0 pts)
Agents and lessons
Each answer names a specific agent and what it teaches
Agent named but lesson vague
Agent missing or confused
Reasons for influence
Reasons from the table are applied correctly and supported
One reason unsupported or misapplied
No reasons given
Evidence and computation
Quotations with paragraph numbers; Problem 2 correct with work shown
One error or missing citation
Several errors
Limits and privacy
Notes limits of anecdotes and self-report; plans on paper only and anonymous
One limit missing
Treats anecdotes or forced choices as proof
05
Quiz: 20 Questions
Interactive, with answers
Instructions
Sources 1 and 2 are printed in Direct Instruction, Source 3 in Guided Practice, and Source 4 with its data table in Independent Practice. Source 1 is used in Questions 1-5, 15 and 20; Source 2 in Questions 6, 7, 16 and 20; Source 3 in Questions 8-12, 17, 18 and 20; and Source 4 in Questions 13, 14, 16 and 19. Questions 1-14 are multiple choice; 15-20 are short answer.
Multiple choice: pick an option to check it. Short answer: write your answer, then reveal the model answer.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 1, paragraph 1, where were "all the typical forms of industrial occupation" carried on one to three generations earlier?
Answer: B
Dewey writes that "the household was practically the center in which were carried on, or about which were clustered, all the typical forms of industrial occupation." A, C and D are not his answer; factories and towns came later ("Back of the factory system lies the household").
Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 1, paragraph 1, how did children learn the household's work?
Answer: D
"The children, as they gained in strength and capacity, were gradually initiated into the mysteries of the several processes," "even to the point of actual participation." B leaves out the participation he stresses, and A and C are not in the paragraph.
Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 1, paragraph 2, why does Dewey say household life built responsibility?
Answer: A
"There was always something which really needed to be done, and a real necessity that each member of the household should do his own part faithfully and in co-operation with others." B, C and D are not in the source; Dewey stresses real need, not rules, pay or punishment.
Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 1, paragraph 3, what has "practically eliminated household and neighborhood occupations" for educational purposes?
Answer: A
"At present, concentration of industry and division of labor have practically eliminated household and neighborhood occupations." D appears in the paragraph as a weaker substitute, not as the cause. B and C are not in the source.
Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 1, paragraph 3, what does Dewey call useless?
Answer: C
"It is useless to bemoan the departure of the good old days" if we expect bemoaning to bring them back. D is what he calls for ("only an equally radical change in education suffices"); A and B he calls weaker, not useless.
Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 2, paragraph 1, what can the school become through active occupations, instead of being only a place to learn remote lessons?
Answer: A
The school gets a chance "to become the child's habitat, where he learns through directed living, instead of being only a place to learn lessons having an abstract and remote reference." B contradicts "freed from all economic stress," and C and D are not in the paragraph.
Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 2, paragraph 1, what is the aim of occupations in the school?
Answer: B
"The aim is not the economic value of the products, but the development of social power and insight." A is what Dewey rejects, and C and D are not in the source.
Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 3, paragraph 1, what does Addams say the theater is for thousands of young people in industrial cities?
Answer: A
"'Going to the show' for thousands of young people in every industrial city is the only possible road to the realms of mystery and romance." B, C and D are not in the source.
Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 3, paragraph 2, how does the youth view the deeds of the hero on stage?
Answer: C
Addams writes that the youth "views the deeds of the hero simply as a forecast of his own future." D reverses the point: he admires the hero rather than avoiding him. A and B are not in the source.
Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 3, paragraph 3, what does Addams say the theater's stories will become for young people?
Answer: C
She asks whether a city should allow youth to fill "their impressionable minds with these absurdities which certainly will become the foundation for their working moral codes." A, B and D are not in the paragraph.
Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 3, paragraph 4, why did the fifteen-year-old girl take the artificial flowers?
Answer: D
"she had taken the flowers because she was afraid of losing the attention of a young man whom she had heard say that 'a girl has to be dressy if she expects to be seen.'" She wanted the flowers to trim a hat for herself; A, B and C are not in the source.
Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which reason for influence best explains the girl's choice in Source 3, paragraph 4?
Answer: B
She acted on a young man's remark because she feared losing his attention: approval she valued, which she could lose. Her fear of the sanction is the reason. A and C do not fit the case, and D is the theater's pull on the boys in paragraph 2, not her reason.
Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 4, what percent of the 80 students named media as the main influence on music taste?
Answer: C
36 / 80 = 0.45, so 45%. A reads the count as a percent, B is the share naming friends (33 / 80 = 41.25%), and D adds friends and media ((33 + 36) / 80 = 86.25%).
Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 4, for study habits, by how many percentage points did the share naming school exceed the share naming family?
Answer: B
School: 34 / 80 = 42.5%; family: 30 / 80 = 37.5%; 42.5 - 37.5 = 5.0 points. A subtracts the counts (34 - 30), C divides the count gap by the family count (4 / 30 = 13.3%), and D is the family share itself.
Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer
Besides practice through participation, explain two reasons from the five-reasons table that help explain why the old household in Source 1 was an influential agent of socialization. Quote Dewey for each.
Model answer: (1) Time and exposure: the household was "the center" of nearly all work, and "practically every member of the household had his own share in the work," so children met these lessons every day. (2) Emotional bonds and sanctions: each member had to do his part "faithfully and in co-operation with others," so a child's effort mattered to people he cared about, and failing them had a cost. Rubric: 1 point for each reason with a quotation; 1 point for naming the reasons correctly.
Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer
Dewey hopes each school can become "an embryonic community life" (Source 2). Using the study-habits and career-plans rows of Source 4, evaluate how strongly students name the school as an influence compared with the family. Then give one reason, from Dewey's comparison of household and school work in Source 2, paragraph 1, why a school may have less pull than the old household had.
Model answer: For study habits, 34 of 80 students named the school and 30 the family, so the school leads in the area closest to its own work. For career plans, only 21 named the school and 37 the family, so the family still leads there. In this invented survey, the school is a strong agent for schoolwork but not the main one for life choices. Dewey suggests one reason: in the household, children shared in work that was needed "for the sake of the product," while in school "the typical occupations followed are freed from all economic stress," so school tasks may feel less necessary. The forced single choice also hides the school's shared influence. Rubric: 1 point for an evaluation using both rows; 1 point for a reason from Dewey, quoted; 1 point for a limit of the data or a fair qualification.
Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer
Match Source 3, paragraphs 1 and 2 each to a reason from the five-reasons table, explain your match, and evaluate how strong Addams's evidence is.
Model answer: Paragraph 1 fits emotional bonds and exposure: the theater gives young wage earners something their work and streets do not, so they keep returning and care about it. Paragraph 2 fits imitation of models: the boy identifies with the stage hero and imagines his own life in the hero's terms. Her evidence is her own experience and a few remembered cases; it shows that the theater mattered to some young people, but it cannot show how much it shaped most of them, which would need a larger and fairer sample. Rubric: 1 point for each paragraph matched and explained (up to 2); 1 point for a fair evaluation of the evidence.
Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer
Source 3, paragraph 4 involves more than one agent of socialization. Name two agents in the case and explain how they worked together.
Model answer: A peer, the young man, and the media, the theater. The young man was "the only one who had ever taken her to the theater," so his approval was her way into the theater, and his remark about how girls should dress set a norm she tried to meet. The theater made his approval matter more, because it was the only thing that broke "the blankness and grayness of life itself" for her. Rubric: 1 point for each agent correctly named with evidence; 1 point for explaining how they combined.
Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer
Describe the pattern in Source 4: which agents students named for manners and for music taste. Give a reason for the difference, then name two limits of the study.
Model answer: Students mostly named family for manners (58 of 80) but friends and media for music taste (69 of 80 together). Manners are learned early at home through daily practice and parents' approval, while music taste grows in the teenage years from what friends share and what students hear "all the time" in media. Limits: the 80 volunteers come from two classes in one invented school, so they do not represent all teenagers; and a single forced choice and self-report hide agents that work together. Rubric: 1 point for the pattern with figures; 1 point for a reason; 1 point for two limits.
Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer
Compare how Dewey (Sources 1 and 2) and Addams (Source 3) explain what makes an agent influential. Then apply one of their explanations to a present-day agent, describing it neutrally.
Model answer: Dewey stresses doing: people learn by doing work that matters, where "Personalities which became effective in action were bred and tested in the medium of action." Addams stresses imagination and imitation: stories on stage give young people models and "forecast life" for them. Applied today: a video platform can work the way Addams describes, offering models that viewers copy; a part-time job works the way Dewey describes, teaching responsibility through real tasks. Rubric: 1 point for Dewey's explanation with evidence; 1 point for Addams's with evidence; 1 point for a fitting, neutral present-day application.
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Frequently Asked Questions
10 Questions
What does D2.Soc.11.9-12 mean?
D2.Soc.11.9-12 asks high school students to analyze the influence of the primary agents of socialization and why they are influential. Students explain what the family, school, peers and media teach, and what gives each one its power.
What are the primary agents of socialization?
Most sociology courses name four: the family, the school, peers and the mass media. Many also add religious groups, the workplace and the community. The C3 indicator does not list them, so teachers can include others.
What is the difference between primary and secondary socialization?
Primary socialization happens in early childhood, mostly in the family, and lays down language and basic norms. Secondary socialization continues across life through school, peers, media, work and other groups.
Why is the family so influential in early childhood?
Because it combines several reasons at once: young children spend most of their time with family, depend on it, care about its approval, and learn by joining in daily tasks. Its influence often shares space with peers and media later.
Why do peers matter so much to teenagers?
Peers offer acceptance and status that teenagers value, and they reward or sanction behavior quickly through inclusion, teasing or praise. Peer groups also give room to try roles outside the family.
How is D2.Soc.11.9-12 different from D2.Soc.3.9-12?
D2.Soc.3.9-12 asks how social context influences individuals in general. D2.Soc.11.9-12 focuses on the main agents that do the teaching and asks why each one is influential.
Why use sources from 1899 and 1909 to teach socialization?
Dewey and Addams watched agents change as families left farm work and young people moved into city jobs and theaters. Their accounts let students see why an agent gains or loses influence, and they practice judging old evidence.
Is the media as influential as the family?
It depends on what is being learned and on the person's age. This lesson's invented survey suggests different agents matter for different areas of life; real studies use stronger samples and methods than a single forced choice.
How can teachers assess D2.Soc.11.9-12?
Ask students to name an agent, what it teaches and why it is influential, with evidence, and to state what the evidence cannot show. The rubric here scores agents, reasons, evidence and limits.
Do students have to share details about their own families?
No. The warm-up asks about teenagers in general, and the activities use invented moments and invented data. Studies are planned on paper only.
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Related Standards
6 standards
These standards connect to D2.Soc.11.9-12: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.
Before this lesson
D2.Soc.3.9-12Prerequisite
Identify how social context influences individuals
Identify characteristics of groups and their effects on individuals and society
Lesson coming soon
Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.
