A third question dealt with by Berger and Luckmann (1966) is how the individual
is made aware of the ‘objective reality’ that has been institutionalized and is
being legitimized around this person. Their answer is through socialization.
They distinguish between primary socialization, referring to the learning
process that takes place when an individual encounters a society for the first
time, and secondary socialization, taking place when an individual becomes
part of a subgroup within a larger society that has its own particular social
order. An individual may become aware of a number of different institutionalized
orders relating to either specific parts of society or society as a whole, and consequently
being able to function in each of these different environments. An individual
is considered perfectly socialized when there is symmetry between objective
reality and that individual’s own subjective reality. However, Berger and Luckmann
expect that no individual is ever perfectly socialized.