 What is the main idea of the sociological imagination?
 What is an example of debunking sociology?
 Is the complex system of meaning and behavior that defines the way of life for a
given group or society.
 It is both material and non-material:
 Material: its buildings, art, tools, toys, print and broadcast media, and other artifacts.
 Non-material: norms, laws, customs, ideas, and beliefs.
 Culture is shared:
 Although it often includes great diversity
 Culture is learned:
 The process of learning a culture is called socialization
 Culture is taken for granted:
 It is what members of the culture consider “normal”
 Lack of communication across cultures about these taken-for-granted features can have neg.
consequences.
 Culture is symbolic:
 Symbols are things or behaviors to which people give meaning.
 Culture varies across time and place: (cultural relativism)
 Is the perspective that allows people to understand and judge cultural practices in context.
 Is There a Difference?
 Language:
 Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: maintains that language determines what people think and perceive
because language forces people to perceive the world in certain terms.
 Norms:
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Are the specific cultural expectations that govern behavior in situations. (Implicit or Explicit)
Folkways: general standards of behavior adhered to by a group
Mores: strict norms that control moral and ethical behavior help held through laws and rules.
Social Sanctions: are mechanisms of social control that enforce norms.
 Beliefs:
 Stemming from religion, myth, folklore, or science, provide a meaning system around which
culture is organized.
 Values:
 The abstract standards in a society or group that define ideal principles, can be basis for
cultural cohesion or a source of conflict.
 Dominant Culture:
 The culture of the most powerful group in society, the cultural form that receives the most
support from major institutions and that constitutes the major belief.
 Subcultures:
 Whose values and norms of behavior differ from those of the dominant culture, share
some elements of the dominant culture and co-exist with it.
 Countercultures:
 Subcultures created as a reaction against the values of the dominant culture.
 Ethnocentrism:
 The habit of seeing things only from the point of view one’s own group.
 The Globalization of Culture:
 The diffusion of a single culture throughout the world.
 Includes the beliefs, practices, and objects that are part of everyday traditions.
 Influence of the Mass Media:
 Has the power to shape public perceptions
 Racism and Sexism in the Media:
 Mass media promote narrow definitions of who people are and what they can be.