Today: Rurality and Culture
• Elements of culture
• Theoretical perspectives on culture
• Understanding cultural change and
cultural variation
• Why cultural “capital”
• Elements of rural culture
Summing up last time:
• You now have a basic toolkit for conducting your
own social science research, and critically
evaluating the findings of others.
• You should know:
– The steps of the scientific method and hw they work
– The advantages and disadvantages of different types
of research methods
– The difference between reliability and validity
– The advantages and disadvantages of different types
of sampling strategies
Culture and Society
Society
Constituted of a number of people
Live in the same territory
Exists relatively independently of other
societies
Participate in a (relatively) common culture
Culture
Learned, socially transmitted customs,
knowledge, material objects and behavior
Material vs. Nonmaterial
Culture
• Material Culture – physical or technological
aspects of daily lives
• Nonmaterial Culture – ways of using material
objects, customs, beliefs, governments,
patterns of communication
• Cultural Lag – period of maladjustment when
the nonmaterial culture is still adapting to
new material conditions
Elements of Culture
1. Language
 Abstract system of word meanings and
symbols
 Foundation of every culture
 Permeates all parts of society
 A Cultural Universal: practices and
beliefs common to most societies
•
Other examples?
Elements of Culture
2. Norms (about behavior)
 Established standards of behavior
maintained by society
 Formal norms – written down and
enforced
 Informal norms – understood by not
precisely recorded
 Mores – highly necessary to the welfare
of a society
 Folkways – govern everyday behavior
Elements of Culture
3. Sanctions
 Penalties and rewards for conduct
concerning a social norm
 Positive Sanctions
 Negative Sanctions
Elements of Culture
4. Values
 Collective conceptions of good vs. bad,
proper vs. improper, morally right vs.
wrong
Theoretical Perspectives
Functionalist Perspective
Cultural ‘competency’ helps an individual
function well in society.
Social stability requires consensus.
Socialization into expected standards of
behavior.
All cultures are legitimate: recognize
cultural uniqueness.
Can this actually be dysfunctional?
Theoretical Perspectives
Conflict Perspective
The role of power in defining what is
mainstream, and what is deviant: whose
interests are supported?
Dominant Ideology – set of cultural beliefs
and practices that help maintain powerful
social, economic, and political interests
US: individual achievement, self reliance,
rather than cooperative behavior support
Capitalism
Theoretical Perspectives
Symbolic interactionist
Culture is a set of shared symbols
(language, practices) that reflect basic
values and have been:
Constructed though social interaction
Agreed-upon by members of the culture
May be difficult to understand by non-members
and can be used to define cultural boundaries
Cultural Variation
• Subculture – segment of society that shares
a distinctive pattern of mores, folkways, and
values different from the larger society.
Sometimes associated with deviance.
• Counter Culture – subculture that
conspicuously and deliberately opposes
certain aspects of the larger culture
• Culture Shock – feeling of disorientation,
uncertainty, or fear when immersed in an
unfamiliar culture
Attitudes Toward Cultural
Variation
• Ethnocentrism – perceive one’s culture and
way of life as the norm or superior
Functionalist vs. Conflict Perspective
• Cultural Relativism – view people’s behavior
from the perspective of one’s own culture
Xenocentrism – belief that the products,
styles, or ideas of one’s society are
inferior
Cultural Change
• Innovation – process of introducing a new
idea or object to culture
Discovery – making known or sharing the
existence of an aspect of reality
Invention – existing cultural items are
combined into a form that did not
previously exist
• Diffusion – process by which a cultural item
is spread from group to group
• Technology, communication
Thinking about cultural change /
variation:
• Theory perspectives:
– Functional:
• differences fill specialized roles, can exist within.
Change is adaptive.
– Conflict:
• differences due to power imbalances or
struggles. Change represents challenges to the
status quo.
– Interactionist:
• new cultural forms are shaped through social
interaction or agreement
Thinking about rural culture
• Is there a “rural culture” in the US and what
might it look like?
• Should we care about it?
• What might the different theoretical
perspectives have to say about it?
• How might we recognize and measure it?
• Change versus stability in rural places / people
Elements of a rural culture:
•
•
•
•
Specialized language
Unique values (ideas of right and wrong)
Unique norms (standards of behavior)
Material culture products
Theoretical perspectives
• Functionalist
– How does rural culture keep things running smoothly
for the culture and for society as a whole (filling roles)
• Conflict
– How are stereotypes of rural people and
environments used to reinforce existing power
structures and distribution of resources
• Symbolic Interactionist:
– How is rural culture ‘created’ within the culture and in
larger society through interactional patterns
How might we recognize and
measure rural culture?
• Prevalence of certain practices / interactional forms
– Typical behaviors, attitudes, values
– has been suggested that we define rural this way at least
partially
• But: would it vary by
– Region?
– Race?
– Gender?
• Who would count as ‘real rural’?
Do rural / urban values and
behaviors differ?
• Behaviors: examples?
• Attitudes
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–
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More politically conservative?
Rural less supportive of env movement ?
Rural more utilitarian values toward nature?
Rural less concerned about environmental quality?
• BUT: what about
– cause-effect relationship
– control variables?
How do we define “real rural”
• Official definitions of rural places are
based on population / density
• Other choices: cultural practices,
occupations
• These may or may not have little to do
with each other:
– people versus places as ‘rural’
– How much change are we willing to accept
Rural cultural change:
• Links to urban areas, outside world
– Exchange of goods / resources
– Exchange of ideas (non material culture)
– New people physically present
– New types of employment
• May be seen as a threat to tradition
• May be seen as an opportunity to innovate
“The small town death wish”
• An example of negative aspects of rural
culture:
– Resistance to change, new ideas
– Tendency to look back, not forward
– Resistance to outsiders more generally
– Lack of recognition of dependence on
‘outside’ world or larger social forces that
affect well being
– Poor community self image
– Lack of cooperation for the common good
The Small Town Death Wish, Cont.
• Functional within, but dysfunctional in a
changing world (can’t view cultures in isolation)
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–
–
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Community stagnation / decline
Out-migration of best and brightest
Alienation of those who would help
Mediocrity and “dumbing down”
• The response:
– “emotion, rather than reason”
– “prairie society does not belong to those who can
come and go”
How do we think about
cultural “capital”
• Remember our definitions of Capital—resources
that can be invested to create other
resources/profit
• Theoretical perspectives on cultural capital
– Functionalist: knowing how to behave “profits” the
person in his/her context (note the dysfunctionality of
small town death wish)
– Conflict: cultural capital can be used to maintain
inequality / class differences
– Interactionist: how is what counts as cultural capital
socially agreed on, and what are the rules that govern
this?
What about Legacy?
• We inherit cultural capital (values,
attitudes, norms, materials) from…
– Family
– Other institutions
• This inheritance is shaped by our personal
characteristics:
– Gender, race, ethnicity, class, place
Next time
• Continue to talk about socialization to rural
life and the institutions that foster it.
• Readings
– Re-skim Flora and Flora Ch. 2 for
socialization
– Elder, King, Conger. 1996. (on web)
– Recommended: Schaefer Ch 4