ABSTRACT
THAT education is socialization cannot be refuted and only a barbarian or a philistine would attempt to do so. But this is not to say that all those who assert that the school is a socializing agency, that the teacher should be a socializer or a resocializer and so on, are necessarily right. For the word 'socialization' is often employed merely to give an argument a semblance of irrefutability. I want to suggest that talk about 'socialization' constitutes a trap for the educator; it may lead him to adopt quite spurious aims, seemingly supported by an indubitable conceptual truth; or, in seeking to avoid these spurious aims, he may well neglect aims which no educator can afford to ignore.
