Overview
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Slide 1
What is Culture?
Culture Lag
Elements of Culture
Process of Culture Change
Aspects Cultural Diversity/Variation
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
What is culture?
 Culture
has been called "the way of
life for an entire society."
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It refers to the total lifestyle of a people,
including all of their ideas, values,
knowledge, behaviors, & material objects
that are passed from one generation to the
next in a society.
Slide 2
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Culture determines…
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Food we eat
Clothing we wear
Music
Games we play
How to express
emotions
What is good or bad
Cooking style
Funeral ceremonies
Sexual restrictions
Slide 3
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Characteristics of Culture
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Slide 4
Culture is learnt; it is not inherited biologically.
Culture is social. It is a product of the society.
Culture is shared; it is not something that an
individual alone can possess.
Culture is transmissive; it is passed from one
generation to the next by means of language.
Culture is dynamic & variable; it is subject to slow
but constant changes. Culture varies not only
from time to time but also from one society to
another & even within a society.
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
An indigenous person of Australia wears
traditional ornaments
Slide 5
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Culture of Indigenous Peoples in
Bangladesh
Slide 6
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Material Vs. Nonmaterial
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Material culture: physical or technological aspects of our daily
lives (hardware)
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Food items
Houses
Factories
Raw materials
Nonmaterial culture: abstract or intangible human creations of
society, people's way of thinking (software)
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Customs
Beliefs
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values
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Philosophies
Governments
Patterns of communication
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Slide 7
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Culture Lag
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American sociologist William F. Ogburn developed the concept of
culture lag, a period of maladjustment when nonmaterial culture is
still struggling to adapt to new material conditions.
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According to Ogburn, when culture change occurs, the change is
usually not evenly distributed across material and non-material
dimensions of culture.
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Material culture may change at a faster rate than non- material
culture.
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For example, the growth in science and technology in western
industrialized societies, does not seem to be matched by the
necessary changes in adaptive culture.
Slide 8
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Elements of Culture
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Symbols
- Language
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Values
Norms
Sanctions
Slide 9
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Symbols
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Symbol: Anything that meaningfully represents
something else. The meaning of the same
symbols varies from society to society, within a
single society, & over time.
- Language: a system of symbols that allows people to
communicate with one another. It can be either written or spoken
or both. Language is the key to cultural transmission, the process
by which one generation passes culture to the next.
Slide 10
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Non-Verbal Gestures
Slide 11
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Non-Verbal Gestures
Slide 12
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Non-Verbal Gestures
Slide 13
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Values
Slide 14
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Values are the collective ideas about what is right or
wrong, desirable or undesirable, acceptable or
unacceptable, ethical or unethical in a particular
culture.
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They can be positive or negative. For example,
honesty, truth-telling, respect for others, hospitality,
helping those in need, etc. are positive values.
Examples of negative values include theft,
indecency, disrespect, dishonesty, falsehood,
frugality, etc.
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Norms (formal & informal)
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Norms are derived from values. They are the social rules
that provide guidelines for appropriate behavior for specific
situations. They tell us how to do something, what to do,
what not to do, when to do it, why to do it, etc. In other
words, norms are established standards of behavior
maintained by a society.
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Formal norms have been written down & involve strict rules or
punishment of violators.
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Examples: laws are the formal norms of the society.
Informal norms are generally understood but are not precisely recorded.
 Examples: standards of proper dress.
Slide 15
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Example of an informal norms of greeting
maintained in Bhutan
According to
the informal
norms of
culture of
Bhutan,
people greet
each other by
extending
their tongues
& hands
Slide 16
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Norms (contd.)
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Mores are norms considered as highly necessary to the welfare of a
society. Each society demands obedience to its mores (violation can
lead to severe penalties)
Examples: Incest, violations of laws such as child abuse, murder
etc.
Folkways are norms guiding everyday behavior whose violation
might cause a dirty look or disapproving comment. Folkways are
distinguished from mores in that they are designed, maintained &
enforced by public sentiment, whereas laws are institutionalized,
designed, maintained & enforced by the political authority of the
society.
Examples: Correct manners, appropriate dress, proper eating
behavior etc.
Slide 17
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Picture: violation of mores
A man wearing
nothing on the lower
half of his body is
violating one of
mores in many
societies
Slide 18
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Process of culture change
Most human cultures change & expand through
innovation & diffusion
Diffusion: process by which a cultural item spreads from
group to group or society to society.
Innovation: process of introducing a new idea or object to a
culture. Innovation may take the form of either discovery
or invention.
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Slide 19
Discovery: making known or sharing existence of an aspect of
reality
Invention: when existing cultural items are combined into a
form that did not exist before
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Aspects of Cultural Variation
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Subcultures consist of certain
segments of the population who
share certain beliefs, lifestyles,
values & norms which are
distinctive from the larger society.
Subculture of
Chakma
indigenous
group
Bangladeshi
Culture
The notion of subculture does not
Relationship
suggest an inferior culture—
between culture &
rather, that it is a distinctive
subculture
culture within a larger culture
Slide 20
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Counter culture
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Counter-culture: It describes the values
and norms of behavior of a cultural group,
or subculture, that run counter to those of
the mainstream culture.
Subculture that deliberately opposes
certain aspects of the larger culture &
seeks alternative lifestyles.
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Slide 21
Terrorists
JMB group in Bangladesh
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Aspects of Cultural Variation
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Culture shock- is the disorientation that people
experience when they come in contact with a
fundamentally different culture & can no longer
depend on their taken-for-granted assumptions about
life
Slide 22
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Segments of the populations of Australia, Asia, & Africa
consume protein-rich insects. In the photograph, a woman
enjoys a dry-roasted insect
Slide 23
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
An American tourist who goes out to dinner in Seoul, Korea and
learns that a local specialty is dog meat might well experience
cultural shock
Slide 24
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Slide 25
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.
Attitudes Toward Cultural Variation
Ethnocentrism
 The belief that one’s own group or culture is
superior to all other groups or cultures.
 The tendency of most people to use their own
way of life as a standard for judging others
Cultural relativism: The belief that the behaviors &
customs of any culture must be viewed from the
perspective of their own culture.
Xenocentrism: Belief that products, styles, or ideas
of one’s society are inferior to those that originate
elsewhere.
Slide 26
© 2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education. All rights reserved.