Socialization is the process where humans learn and take on the behavioral patterns of the society they live in.  The communication between people is influential to all parties involved and goes toward shaping the community around us.  Applying the functionalist theory to socialization we find that people learn how conduct themselves from interactions with school, family, peers, and the media.  This theory is influenced by the internalization model.

The conflict theory application to socialization states there exists a correlation between social status and participation in sports and looks at the effect of sports participation on the economy.  This theory is also influenced by the internalization model.  A new approach to deciphering socialization is found with the interactionist model.  The interactionist model actively looks at why people participate in a particular sport, stay participating in a sport, change sports, etc.  This model gains information from interviews and observation whereas the internalization model gathers information from surveys.

Whether or not a person stays participating in a sport depends on his/her personality, ability, the influence of friends and family, and positive feedback from playing the sport.  Changing social conditions affect sport-related decisions.  Sports may not build character since the people who have certain traits to play a particular sport end up getting picked or choose to play that sport.  Also, the same social factors that affect those who play sports also affect other activities in life, therefore sport does not necessarily build character exclusive to sport participation.