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