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Chapter 2 Culture
Sociology
Mrs. Chambers
What is Culture ?
• Culture is defined as the language, beliefs, values, norms behaviors and even material passed from one generation to another
Material v Non Material
• Material culture includes– Jewelry– Art– Buildings– Weapons– Machines– Clothing– hairstyles
• Non material culture – a group’s way of thinking (beliefs, values and assumptions)
• Common patterns of behavior (language, gestures, forms of interaction
Culture Provides a taken for granted orientation to life
• Culture becomes our lens
• Our own culture is normal or natural
• Implicit instructions, moral imperatives
• Internalizing culture - ethnocentrism
Culture Shock
• Coming into contact with a radically different culture produces “culture shock” challenging our basic assumptions about life
Culture Shock
Cultural Relativism
• Trying to appreciate other groups way of life in the context in which they exist
Robert Edgerton
• We should develop a scale to evaluate cultures
• Cultural practices that result in exploitation should be judged morally inferior to those that enhance peoples lives
Components of Symbolic Culture
• Symbol – something to which people attach meaning, that people use to communicate
• Symbols include language, gestures, values, norms, sanctions, folkways and mores
Definitions related to symbolic culture
• Norms expectations or rules of behavior
• Sanctions positive or negative reactions to how people follow norms
• Folkways norms not strictly enforced
• Mores norms that are essential, we insist on compliance
Folkways and mores are different types of norms
• Folkway – holding the door for others
• Failure to do so results in mild negative sanctions – dirty look, sucking teeth etc
• Mores are critical to maintaining values of a culture– Someone who rapes,
murders, steals will meet with formal sanctions
Norms, folkways and mores vary
• What is a folkway to one group is a more to another– A man walking around without a shirt may be
violating a folkway, a woman doing the same is violating a more
– Context of the behavior is often critical
Taboos
• Norms so strongly ingrained that even the thought of them is greeted with revulsion– Cannibalism– Incest
Subcultures
• Groups whose values and related behaviors set them apart from the dominant culture
• Members are distinctive but remain compatible with mainstream culture
• US has thousands – Ethnic groups, body builders, occupations,
even age groups
Countercultures
• Groups whose values set their members in opposition to dominant culture– Negative – Satanism other groups that
promote cruelty– Challenge core values – Mormonism and
Islam both challenge the core value of monogamy
Roman Catholicism
• Are devout, practicing Roman Catholics members of a subculture or a counterculture ?
• What subcultures are you a part of ?
• Are you countercultural ? Would you like to be ?
Values in U.S. society
• Identifying core values in the US is difficult because of pluralism
• Williams identified several core values held by the majority of Americans– Achievement and success - individualism– Activity and work - efficiency– Science & tech - progress– Material comfort - humanitarianism– Freedom, democracy, equality
Core Values
• In addition to the values identified by Williams, Henslin added– Education– Religiosity– Romantic love (esp as a basis for marriage)– Monogamy
Value Clusters
• Values are not independent units
• Related core values come together around a larger whole
» Success
Values : Conflict and Revision
• We cannot hold conflicting values for long
• Democracy, racism, sexism
• Values change over time• Emergent values today include leisure, physical
fitness, self-fulfillment, concern for the environment
Core Values
• Core Values do not change without meeting strong resistance
• Today’s clash of values is so severe it is referred to as a Culture war
Ideal vs Real Culture
• Ideal culture refers to the norms and values we would follow in a perfect world or the values we claim to hold
• Real culture refers how people actually behave, the values we reflect and our actual behavior
Technology and Culture
• Central to material culture is its technology. In its simplest terms this refers to tools. In a broader sense this can refer to skills and procedures to make and use tools
Cultural Lag
• William Ogburn first used the term cultural lag to refer to situations where not all parts of the culture changed at the same pace.– Material culture generally changes first, non
material culture lags behind– We hold onto forms that were once needed
but are now superfluous • Example hand written thank you notes
Cultural Diffusion
• Transmission of cultural characteristics
• Material culture in more likely to be transmitted and adopted than non material culture
• Occurs more rapidly today because communication and travel
Cultural Leveling
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