Culture
A deeper look into culture…
What Is Culture?
• Culture refers to the beliefs,
values, behavior and material
objects that forms a persons way of
life.
• For Example: Clothes, Attitudes,
and Religion
Components of Culture
• Symbols are defined as anything
that carries a particular meaning
recognized by people who share
culture. The meaning of the same
symbols varies from society to
society, within a
Two Essential Components
• Non Material Culture which are abstract
intangible creations of human society.
• Ex. Ideals, Philosophy, Attitudes
• Material Culture are tangible products of
society
• Ex. American Culture = Cars, Cell
phones, 5 bedroom homes with three
baths
The Role Of Culture
• The Role Of Culture Culture is a learned
aspect of our lives.
• We are not born with culture.
Culture plays an important role on
shaping the human personality.
Culture is a learned aspect
of our lives!!!!!
• Culture is a learned aspect of our lives.
We are not born with culture.
Culture plays an important role on
shaping the human personality.
Have you ever experienced
Culture shock?
This occurs when an individual suffers from
personal disorientation when experiencing
an unfamiliar way of life.
• Ex: food portions, Cosco and Sams Club
• Ex: Clothing, language (idioms)
What is Culture?!?!?!
• Only humans depend on culture rather than instincts to
ensure the survival of their kind.
• Culture is very recent and was a long time in the making.
• What set humans off on a distinct evolutionary course,
making culture their primary survival strategy.
• The concept of culture ( a shared way of life) must be
distinguished from those of nation (a political entity) or
society ( the organized interaction of people in a nation
or within some other boundary). Many modern societies
are multicultural meaning that their people follow
various ways of life that blend and sometimes clash.
The Components of Culture
A. Symbols are defined as anything that carries a
particular meaning recognized by people who
share culture. The meaning of the same symbols
varies from society to society, within single
society, and over time.
B. Language is a system of symbols that allows
people to communicate with one another.
1. APPLYING SOCIOLOGY-The New CyberSymbols
Components of Culture
(continued)
2. Cultural Transmission- the process by which one
generation passes culture to the next. Through
most of human history, cultural transmission has
been accomplished through oral tradition.
Components of Culture
(continued)
3. WINDOW ON THE WORLD-Language in
Global Perspective. Chinese is the native
tongue of 1/5 of the world’s people.
English has become the second preferred
language in most of the world. Spanish is
the preferred second language of the
United States.
Components of Culture
(continued)
4. Only humans can create complex
systems of symbols, but some other
animal have the ability to use
symbols in communicating.
Components of Culture
(continued)
5. The Sapir-Whorf thesis holds that
people perceive the world through
the cultural lens of language.
Cultural Standards
C. Values are culturally defined standards
by which people judge desirability,
goodness, and beauty, ad which serve as
broad guidelines for social living Values
are broad principles that underlie
beliefs, specific statements that people
hold to be true.
Sociologist Robin Williams identified
10 key values of U.S. Culture:
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
Equal opportunity
Achievement and Success
Material comfort
Activity and work
Practicality and efficiency
Progress
Science
Democracy and free enterprise
Freedom
Racism and group superiority
Values
2. Values within one society are
frequently inconsistent and even
opposed to one another
Who is responsible?
3.CRITICAL THINKING BOX-Don’t
Blame Me! “The new culture of
Victimization.” Americans may be
becoming increasingly unwilling to
accept personal responsibility for
their failings and misfortunes.
Norms
• Norms- rules and expectations by
which a society guides the behavior
of its members, they may be either
proscriptive or prescriptive
• Two types of norms…
1. Mores- norms that are widely
observed and have great moral
significance.
2. Folkways- norms for routine,
casual interaction
Sanctions are a central mechanism
for…
• Social control- various means by
which members of a society
encourage conformity to norms
• Sociologists distinguish between
ideal culture, social patterns
mandated by cultural values and
norms, and real culture, actual
social patterns, that only
approximate cultural expectations.
• Technology- the knowledge that
people apply to the task of living in
their surroundings
• CRITICAL THINKING BOX- Virtual Culture:
Is it Good For us? Today’s children are
bombarded with cultural culture, images
that spring from the minds of
contemporary culture-makers and that
reach them via screen . Some of these
cultural icons embody values that shape
our way of life. But few of them have
any historical reality and almost all have
come into being to make money.
Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life
in One World.
• The U.S. is the most multicultural
of all industrial countries. Japan is
the most monocultural of all
industrial nations.
• High Culture- cultural patterns that
distinguish a society’s elite
• Popular Culture- designates cultural
patterns that are widespread
among a society’s population. High
culture is not inherently superior to
popular culture.
• SEEING OURSELVES- What’ll You
Have? Popular Beverages Across the
U.S. What people consume is one
mark of their status as a
“highbrow” or “lowbrow.”
• Subcultures- cultural patterns that
distinguish some segments of a
society’s population. They involve
not only difference but also
hierarchy.
• Multiculturalism- an educational program
recognizing the cultural diversity of the
U.S. and promoting the quality of all
cultural traditions.
• Eurocentrism- the dominance of
European cultural patterns.
• SEEING OURSELVES- Language diversity
across the US. The 2000 U.S. Census
reports tat 18% of people over the age of
five speak a language other than English
in their home.
Afrocentrism- The dominance of
African culture patterns in people’s
lives.
Counterculture
Refers to cultural patters that
strongly oppose those widely
accepted with a society.
Cultural Change
1. Cultural integration- the close relationship
among various elements of a cultural system.
2. William Ogburn’s concepts of cultural lag
refers to the fact that cultural elements
change at different rates, which may disrupt
a cultural system.
3. 3 phenomena:
a. Invention, the process of creating new
cultural elements.
b. Discovery, rec. and understanding an idea
not fully understood before.
c. Diffusion, the spread of cultural traits
from one cultural system to another.
Ethnocentrism and cultural
relativity
Ethnocentrism- The practice of judging
another culture by the standards of
one’s own culture.
Cultural relativism- The practice of
judging a culture by its own standards.
Discouraged by sociologists.
Global Culture
3 key factors…
a. Global economy: the flow of goods
b. Global communications: the flow of
information.
c. Global migration: the flow of
people.
Three Limitations
a.
Global culture is much more advanced in
some parts of the world than in others
b. Many people cannot afford to participate
in the material aspects of a global
culture.
c. Different people attribute different
meanings to various aspects of the global
culture.
Cultural Universals
Traits that are found in every known
culture.Critical Evaluation
a.The strength of the structural-functional
analysis is showing how culture operates
to meet human needs.
b.The weakness of the structuralfunctional paradigm is that it ignores
cultural diversity and downplays the
importance of change