ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the idea of intentional socialization, starting with two assumptions. First, that children, initially at least, attune their learning of value orientations to what their parents do and say, later adding the inputs of other ideas and persons to whom they resonate. Second, that parents is influenced in their child rearing by values in their cultural environments, both immediate and remote. Families everywhere give priority to survival, fulfilling their primary task of care and nurturance. Additional insight about intentional socialization comes from studies of families as small evolving social systems within which there is a dynamic interaction between the developing child and others in the family system. Caring for family members, being honest in social relationships, seeking peace, seem to lend themselves to immediate consensus as present in all human cultures. With relation to the environment, as there is much on the environment, but little on family involvement.
