CHAPTER 3: CULTURE AND SOCIETY
I. Introduction
II. What Is Culture?
III. Components of Culture
IV. Subcultures and Countercultures
V. Values in American Society
VI. Culture and Globalization
I. Introduction
A. Syllabus
B. Problems getting the textbook?
II. What Is Culture?
A. _______________: a group of people who live in a particular territory, are subject to a common system of
political authority, and are aware of having a distinct identity from other groups
B. ___________________: the values, norms, and material culture characteristic of a given group
1. _____________ Culture: the physical objects that a society creates that influence the ways in which people
live, such as their art, buildings, weapons, utensils, machines, hairstyles, clothing and jewelry
B.2. _______________________ Culture: a group’s ways of thinking (including its beliefs, values, and other
assumptions about the world) and doing (its common patterns of behavior, including language and other
forms of interaction)
C. The Role of Culture in Social Life
1. Provides a __________________________ orientation to life: What do you do when you see a line of people
at registration?
2. Provides a lens we use to ________________________________
3. Provides a _____________________________ imperative
4. Provides a ____________________ imperative: What do you think of people who cut in line?
D. _________________________: disorientation that people experience when they come in contact with a
fundamentally different culture and can no longer depend on their taken-for-granted assumptions about life
1. What would you do if you were waiting to board a plane in Brazil and no one waited their turn?
E. ______________________________: the tendency to look at other cultures through the eyes of one’s own
culture, and thereby misrepresent them
1. if you use your own culture as a yardstick for judging the ways of other individuals or societies, this typically
leads to a ____________________________________ of their values, norms and behaviors
F. ______________________________________: the practice of judging a society by its own standards
1. ___________________ marriage customs in the U.S.
2. What should the legal system do?
III. Components of Culture
A. _____________________: items used to stand for or represent another
1. Star Spangled Banner and __________________________
B. _____________________________: the primary vehicle of meaning and communication in a society, a
system of symbols that represent objects and abstract thought
1. pass on experience to the _____________________________
2. provides a shared ______________
3. provides a shared _________________
B.4. allows shared perspectives and _________________________
5. allows complex, shared, goal-directed ______________________
6. expands communication beyond immediate, face-to-face _________________
C. Linguistic Relativity (__________________________) Hypothesis: perceptions are relative to language;
language creates ways of thinking and perceiving, shaping how people see the world
1. Inuit (formerly known as Eskimos) have many words for __________________ because it is important for
them to be able to distinguish between various types for survival
2. we have only a few terms, mainly related to ______________________________
D. Shared Symbols:
1. Transportation
2. Call
3. Success
4. Party
E. _________________________: ideas held by individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good,
and bad
1. __________________________________
2. ________________________________
F. Norms: rules of conduct that specify appropriate behavior in a given range of social situations
1. Folkways: everyday habits and conventions that people obey without any thought; a type of norms that are
not strictly enforced: shaking hands
F.2. Mores: norms that are strictly enforced because they are thought to be essential to core values; often
formalized as laws: laws against child abuse
F.3. _____________________: a norm so strong that it brings revulsion if it is violated: the Donner Party
G. Values Change Over Time in the Same ___________________
1. Living together ___________________________________________ in 1950 and 2014
H. Values and Norms are Different in Different _________________________
1. political leaders ____________________ in the U.S. and in Mexico
IV. Subcultures and Countercultures
A. ____________________________: values and norms distinct from those of the majority, held by a group
within a wider society; a world within a world
1. ________________________________________
B. ____________________________________: a group whose values, beliefs and behaviors place its members
in opposition to the broader culture
1. ________________________________
V. Values in American Society
A. Twenty Core American Values
1. _____________________________
2. ___________________________
3. _____________________________
4. ________________________________
5. _________________________________
6. ____________________
A.7. _________________________
8. ________________________
9. __________________
10. ________________
11. _________________
12. _________________________________
13. ___________________
A.14. _________________
15. ________________________________
16. ___________________
17. ______________________
18. _____________________
19. _______________________
20. _______________________________________
B. Value ___________________________
1. all societies have ____________________ that contradict one another
a. ______________________________________
b. _____________________________________________
2. __________________________________________ often result from value contradictions, e.g. the abortion
debate and individual rights versus religiosity
VI. Culture & Globalization
A. ________________________: tools, and the skills or procedures necessary to make and use those tools
B. Technology and Culture: the type of technology a group has sets the framework for its ________________
C. _______________________________: nonmaterial culture lags behind changes in material culture
1. Why have a nine month school year?
D. Cultural _______________________: the spread of cultural characteristics from one group to another
1. use of ____________________ around the world in business, science, and technology
2. ___________________________ and other communications technologies developed in wealthy countries
now in use around the world
E. Cultural ______________________: the process by which cultures become similar to one another as unique
and often valuable characteristics are eliminated and homogenized
1. today, western culture is imported and diffused into other nations through increased global
interconnections of ___________________________
E.2. “_____________________________”: the world’s most popular t.v. show in the 1990s with 1.1 billion
viewers per week in 142 countries
3. for 2013, “NCIS” and “Modern Family” cited as most widely watched _____________________________