Socialization and Maturation
The process of maturation includes the changes in the tissues and organs of body of an individual, which take place as one gets older. These biological changes occur without conscious and deliberate learning efforts. Such changes do not depend upon socio-cultural environment directly, hut these changes take place as a result of heredity. For instance, a child with the passage of time will become young, adult and old in any case, whatever the general climate or geographical environment may be. There are set, standardized, uniform and universal stages of maturation for every individual. They are predetermined because the individual is a member of human species just like other species. So maturation is primarily a biological phenomenon, which takes place automatically with the change in the age of a person. These changes cannot be checked with social and cultural environments for a long period of time.
It would be of significance to note that the changes occurred in the behaviour of an individual due to this process (maturation). It becomes very difficult to identify it whether this change is due to socialization, or maturation. The existing knowledge of geneticists; sociologists, psychologists and social psychologists, does not provide accurate measurement. Anyhow, we can say that all the learning, which a person gets from his birth to his last day, either comes through socialization or maturation.
There are less geographical influences on the processes of maturation. For instance, a pers. n living either in hot or cold climate will become adult from a ‘child and then will grow old irrespective of different geographical environments. Socialization is a process of learning and not a biological phenomenon. An individual learns folkways, mores and other norms of his group and society ranging from very simple to very complicated shared expectations. He is unable to become a participating member of society without sharing these expectations
