Final answer:
The learning of culture from school, church, media, and family that Mike experienced is called socialization. This process involves acquiring the values, norms, and behaviors necessary to function in society and forms an essential part of both individual identity and societal continuity.
Step-by-step explanation:
Mike grew up learning a great deal about his culture from his school, the church, the mass media, and his family. This kind of learning of culture is called socialization. Socialization is the process through which individuals acquire the values, norms, and behaviors necessary to function as members of a society. This learning can be both formal, through settings like schools and churches, and informal, through family and media interactions. Mike's exposure to his culture through these agents has played a crucial role in shaping his understanding of the world and his sense of identity.
Family is often considered the first agent of socialization, teaching children how to use objects, relate to others, and understand how the world works through both direct instruction and incidental learning. This process includes the transmission of cultural values related to democracy, proper etiquette, and other societal norms necessary for a society to survive and perpetuate itself. In the United States, the media also plays a significant role in socializing people to the country's culture and politics.
Through the socialization process, people also learn the rules and norms of the society as a whole, which may include a diversity of cultural norms, not just those of the dominant culture. Socialization is critical for individual identity formation and the continuation of a society's way of life, involving everything from material culture, such as how to dress and use a stove, to nonmaterial culture, such as language and etiquette.