European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

286 EUROPEAN IDENTITY. INDIVIDUAL, GROUP AND SOCIETYauthentic stereotypes and reflections of beliefs that act as authenticsocial codes.Various investigations carried out over recent decades havedocumented in detail the significance of socialization in the process ofsocial teaching and conclude that socialization is the main product ofteaching, even when the teaching body has other objectives. McNeilldemonstrated that the main concern when it comes to social studies isthat of maintaining and reinforcing the students’ positive attitudestowards the institutions in their country, limiting the access (by carefullyselecting the materials and texts) to other information that couldpromote a more critical vision of society. Other authors affirm thatduring the process of the acquisition of social information, the studentslearn about norms and values first, so that, once they are solidlyimplanted, they can construct notions that will give these normsmeaning, thus converting them into initial beliefs that are notsusceptible to change.All indicators seem to suggest that the main objective of socialeducation and the education of citizens has been, and still is, thesocialization of pupils so that they accept, without protest, theideologies, institutions and practices that exist in their society andstate, whilst promoting passive attitudes over political action. Weshould accept that during the period of compulsory education, socialand citizenry education has been reduced to a teaching process thathas allowed each society to reinforce their specific characteristics inrelation to or in opposition to other societies, instead of treatingcommon problems from a global perspective.