“Socialization involves being able to get along with others while at the same time being true to oneself.”

Common sense, and more than likely why bullying has become a big problem in society today..

Below is another article on a different topic, but closely related to socialization, that is the character of the child.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/parenting/back-to-school/why-kids-need-to-fail-to-succeed-in-school/article4513436/

“Nazi youth were the products of a socialization process”

No they weren’t. 

Please read the following examples differentiating between education, socialization and indoctrination from http://readlearnwrite.com/are-education-socialization-and-indoctrination-positive-or-negative-ions/ :

“1. EDUCATION: You teach a kindergartner his ABCs in a couple of different languages so he has a basis for comparison and understanding.

2. SOCIALIZATION: You teach a kindergartner his ABCs in English only.

3. INDOCTRINATION: You teach a kindergartner his ABCs in English while you ridicule other alphabets like the Greek alphabet as looking like nothing but gibberish.”

Indoctrination and inculcation are not only hallmarks of hard line regimes, but cults as well.  You wouldn’t describe the religious teachings of cults as ‘socialization’ either.  Mr. Neufeld has greatly over-stated his case.

BTW:  I am assuming that you’re not trying to label educators as Nazis as implied in the title of this thread, because I was initially very offended by the implication.

From “Education in Nazi Germany” by Lisa Pine, p. 4:

“Nazi ‘total education’ removed youth from the usual social frames of reference, such as the family, trying to encompass the entire experience of youth. It immersed young people in a completely organized network. It made huge incursions into leisure time and took up the majority of their waking hours. Furthermore, Hitler was keen to place the function of socialization firmly within youth groups and schools, removing it from the family as much as possible. Moreover, Hitler’s contempt for intellectual endeavour and his cynicism towards schoolteachers further enhanced the position of youth groups within the Nazi state. This is a large part of the reason why youth groups in the Third Reich had such a significant role designated to them. Schools’ and parents’ roles were partly undermined by Hitler’s idea that ‘youth’ must be educated by ‘youth’, a concept taken from the German youth movement.”

Ms. Dare,

If you read what I wrote above, you will see the distinction between socialization and indoctrination.  The difference lies in the purpose.  There is no doubt that the Hitler Youth and other organizations within Nazi Germany used socialization as a tool to open up young people to Nazi propaganda (willing participation rather than forced makes for a much more receptive audience).  Sports, in particular, were an avenue exploited by the Nazis to encourage German youth to attend their camps (No different than seeing churches and mosques with basketball courts in the parking lot). However, once there, they could be indoctrinated:  “Love and loyalty toward the Fatherland,  as Germany was always called, were also central to Hitler Youth doctrine….As part of their training in the Hitler Youth,  many teenage boys were taught to kill without remorse. One practice was to have each boy bring a favorite pet to a Hitler Youth meeting. There he was required to kill it. In this way boys were trained to believe that their obedience to Hitler should outweigh their attachment to anyone or anything else.” (http://www.ahsd.org/social_studies/williamsm/The Hitler Youth.pdf”) 

Are you seriously trying to equate the socialization that takes place in our schools with what happened in the Hitler Youth?  If you are, Glenn Beck will be proud. 

Furthermore, if you are - then you also ought to know that the Nazi indoctrination began in the HOME:  “The numerous and widely—read tracts by Dr. Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber, the inventor of the Schreberg?rten (the German word for small allotments) are of major interest here. Some of them ran to as many as 40 editions, and their central concern was to instruct parents in the systematic upbringing of infants from the very first day of life. Many people motivated by what they thought to be the best of intentions complied with the advice given them by Schreber and other authors about how best to raise their children if they wanted to make them into model subjects of the German Reich. They did this without even remotely suspecting that they were exposing their children to a systematic form of torture with long—term effects.”
(http://users.stlcc.edu/rkalfus/PDFs/078.pdf)

Hitler was able to do what he did by not only usurping and corrupting the German education system, but the German family as well - a point that neither you nor Glenn Beck seem to recognize.

Goodness! All I meant was that because German youth had their primary attachment to their peers, rather than their family, they were easily led.

Skipping the real dry stuff within the education files of sociology, education theories, and differing education philosophies. In Wikipedia -

“Socialization (or socialisation) is a term used by sociologists, social psychologists, anthropologists, political scientists and educationalists to refer to the lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within his or her own society. Socialization is thus ?the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained?.[1][2]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialization

“Indoctrination is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology (see doctrine).[1] It is often distinguished from education by the fact that the indoctrinated person is expected not to question or critically examine the doctrine they have learned.[2] As such the term may be used pejoratively, often in the context of education, political opinions, theology or religious dogma. The term is closely linked to socialization; in common discourse, indoctrination is often associated with negative connotations, while socialization refers to cultural or educational learning.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination

“Nazi youth were the products of a socialization process”

They certainly are, as of the youth today products of a socialization process. “The lifelong process of inheriting and disseminating norms, customs and ideologies, providing an individual with the skills and habits necessary for participating within his or her own society.” The education system and its structure was created for the very purpose, to condition youth to adopt and assimilate the norms, customs and ideologies of the State. The desired norms and values that will accomplished the goals and aims of the State.

Whereas, indoctrination “is the process of inculcating ideas, attitudes, cognitive strategies or a professional methodology.” In the 21st century, as in the 20th century, indoctrination is used as one of the tools, to help facilitate the socialization of youth to acquired the values and norms that are prescribed not only by the public education system, but are considered a match set prescribed by the State. Indoctrination can either be positive or negative, but as Chomsky has stated, ” Noam Chomsky remarks,“For those who stubbornly seek freedom around the world, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the propaganda system to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling or unwitting instruments.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indoctrination

Socialization and its cousin, indoctrination are part of the tools that the State uses to facilitate common values and norms in society,  and the most common vehicle that is used, are the State’s public education system. By giving the education institution, the power and authority over all things in education, the State has also granted the education institute to governed, organized themselves in accordance to the values, the ideologies, and norms of the State.

Comparing Nazi Germany, to the typical 21st century education system, regarding socialization, indoctrination and education is valid no matter what political stripe the government is. The public education system and its roots emerges from the political, economic and the values held by those in governing political systems, to controlled the industrialization processes of change, and to managed the outcomes resulting from the changes.

Why? The values are not the same, but what has remained are the tools used to instill the values - the socialization processes, the indoctrination processes and the authority of the public education system have full control on the education content and the practices.

What Nazi Germany did, was an attempt to remove all parental authority and influences of parents in education and replace it with the State now being the parent. The parents became the caretakers for the values of the State, displacing the values and culture of the parents. Still going on in Germany and other places in Europe, concerning education of youth, But that is another story for another day, where the law at the present time - under the Common European State -  ?Not only the acquisition of knowledge, but also the integration into and first experience with society are important goals in primary school education…..”
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1389

Socialization processes can either be used as negative or positive tools by the State, but the outcomes derived from the socialization processes within an education system, usually means at the expense of the parents and often the children, in favour of the public education system and its values.

“Goodness! All I meant was that because German youth had their primary attachment to their peers, rather than their family, they were easily led.”

With all due respect, that may be what you meant, but unless I missed it, it is not found in what you wrote or referenced.  The notion that Nazi youth were easily lead is extremely naive - and largely discredited.  By all accounts of what they were subjected to - the intense and continual indoctrination - was brainwashing.  It’s not like one teenager cajoling another teenager to go to a party instead of doing homework.  We are describing a process where some people were turned into stone cold killers.  To make light of it by misapplying the lessons of history is to denigrate the victims of these atrocities.

Nancy, I’m glad you mentioned that socialization and indoctrination are cousins - cousins are not interchangeable.  Education systems all over Europe and all over the world are used to socialize young people into their culture.  Also, many other nations of Europe had histories of antisemitism as long or longer than Germany.  So, you then have to ask yourself: if socialization was present in all European education systems, and there was also anti-jewish sentiment as well, then why was it Germany alone that produced such a racist regime?  By logic, it can’t be socialization.

To truly understand, the complexity of socialization versus indoctrination versus the education of the youth, the answers can be found within the education files, under education philosophies, the education theories, and under the education sociology field.

The complexity of socialization and its cousin indoctrination are the tools of any government no matter the political stripe to instill common values that the State would want their citizens to aspire to, and follow. I read one paper, rather long treatise on the merits of socialization and indoctrination tools,have on the training of teachers to the biases and cultural values of the individual teachers. Interesting way of looking how an education system can indoctrinate and socialized teachers where the teachers are voluntarily with much enthusiasm to abide and followed the curriculum standards outlined by their superiors, and even if the outcomes of students are negative, or in the best interests of students and their education.

It is just one of the numerous and diverse papers within the education files. The only common feature that I found, on the few that I had read, is the debate of the processes of socialization and when it becomes indoctrination.

Is it indoctrination, that out of act of educating students in a classroom environment, students quickly learned to associate students that do not represent the norm values of the majority, with the attached labels that have either negative or positive values attached to them? Anything within the norm has positive values, and anything outside of the norm has negative or positive values or a combination of the two.

The 21st century education system, is teeming with contradictions, biases and anti-culture values that does not reflect the values and culture of the education system and in turned does not reflect the values and culture being desired by the State or the governing party. The main duty of a public education system is to managed the contradictions, biases and anti-culture values that is not a reflection of the desired values held by the political and economic systems.

I would say since as a parent and my youngest child, I have been on the receiving end of the biases and values held by those within the public education system. LD students are conditioned to think of themselves as not being academically inclined,  but more importantly they are socially conditioned as being less capable then their classmates without LD. in numerous ways and reinforcing it daily to LD students via through the socialization processes of an education system and its structure.

What is never talked about, are the children who became instant orphans, and wards of the Nazi German state. What is never talked about, are the children with disabilities including the intellectual kind, and encompassing learning disabilities and the low achievers,where parents signed on the dotted line willingly because of the promise of the local education officials and the Nazi officials.  That their children will be taken to a boarding school run by the government through the public education system, to improved their learning so they too can participate in the building of Nazi Germany.

The children whose parents were reported as being resistance to Nazi ideologies and dogma, were never seen again. The parents who eagerly signed on the dotted line so their children could attend the new State boarding school, never saw their children again. As for parents who resisted signing on the dotted line, they were killed on the spot, along with their children. 

This is how a government - a State - controls the actions and behaviours of their citizens, by using the tools of socialization and indoctrination and its processes via through the social institutions run by the government. It is a powerful and both processes can be used for a two-prong approach. Nazi Germany it is obvious they corrupted the socialization and indoctrination processes to accomplished and advance the Nazi ideology and dogma of Nazism.

The processes of socialization and indoctrination is the current debate taking place within the ivory towers of education. I just wish they get their act together,  and finally agreed to politely disagree with the State, and move to the one end, where the public education will educate all children to their academic potential, along with the values, abilities and skills needed to navigate in the adult world, with ease. The socialization and indoctrination processes will still be present, but will be acting for the best interests of the individual students, respecting their values and cultures and safeguarding their futures as adults.

Somehow, receiving lectures from the school board officials trying to convinced parents that they need to downgrade their values and cultural values to match the values of the public education system, is not working out well in the 21st century public school setting.