Socialization in Context

Abstract

This study investigated the relation to school grades, feelings of depression, and antisocial behavior of youth perceptions of three central dimensions of socialization (connection with significantothers, regulation of behavior, andpsychological autonomy) as they are experienced infour social contexts: family, school, neighborhood, ndpeers. Analyses of a random sample of 900 fifth and eighth-grade youth included both descriptive accounts of youth experience in these contexts and testedfor various models predicting independent and interactive effects among contexts on youth functioning. Findings showed that connection, regulation, and autonomy were meaningful dimensions of socialization experience in the four contexts, thatfamily and peers were primary socialization domains, and that discrete aspects of youth functioning were related to specific contexts. There was some evidence that deficits in experience in one context can be compensatedfor by experience in other contexts.