1. Chapter 2
If we compare the attitudes of people around the world, we see remarkable variation from country to country.
People living in Sweden, for example, claim that abortion is almost always justified; people living in Jordan, by contrast, almost never support this procedure.
For people living in the United States, abortion is an issue on which public opinion is fairly evenly divided.
By making such global comparisons, we see that society guides people’s attitudes on various issues, which is part of the way of life we call culture.
CULTURE

2. Culture LEARNING OBJECTIVES
LO 2.1 Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival.
LO 2.2 Identify common elements of culture.
LO 2.3 Analyze how a society’s level of technology shapes its culture.
LO 2.4 Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change.
LO 2.5 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture.
LO 2.6 Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom.

3. The Power of Society
Is how we feel about abortion as “personal” an opinion as we may think?

4. Culture: What Is…? Culture Kinds of culture
Ways of thinking, acting, and material objects that form a person’s way of life
Kinds of culture
Material
Nonmaterial
Human beings around the globe create diverse ways of life.
Such differences begin with outward appearance. Less obvious but of even greater importance are internal differences, since culture also shapes our goals in life, our sense of justice, and even our innermost personal feelings.
Material culture: Physical things created by members of a society
Nonmaterial culture : Ideas created by members of a society
LO 2.1 Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival.

5. Culture: What Is…? Culture shock
Involves personal disorientation when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life
May occur within domestic and foreign travel
Cultural relativism
Involves a more accurate understanding of cultures

6. What Is Culture? Society Thoughts to ponder
People who interact in a defined territory and share a culture
Thoughts to ponder
No particular way of life is “natural” to humanity.
Only humans rely on culture rather than to create a way of life and ensure survival.
All societies contain cultural differences that can provoke a mild case of culture shock.

7. What Is Culture? Culture and human intelligence
12,000 years ago: Birth of civilization
Today: Efficient survival scheme fashions natural environment resulting in cultural diversity
Culture, nation, and society
Culture: Shared way of life
Nation: Political entity
Society: People who interact in a defined territory and share a culture
U.S. is nation and society.
Many nations are multicultural.

8. What Is Culture? How many cultures?
Language is an indicator of culture.
Globally, experts document almost 7,000 languages.
Some languages are becoming extinct due to globalization.

9. Elements of Culture: Symbols
Humans transform elements of the world into symbols.
Symbols are anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture.
Societies create new symbols all the time.
Meanings vary within and between cultures.
Reality for humans is found in the meaning things carry with them.
Because gestures vary from culture to culture, they can occasionally be the cause of misunderstandings.
Commonplace “thumbs up” gesture we use to express “Good job!” can get a person from the United States into trouble in Greece, Iran, and a number of other countries, where people take it to mean “Up yours!”
Reality for humans is found in the meaning things carry with them
The basis of culture; makes social life possible
People must be mindful that meanings vary from culture to culture.
Meanings can even vary greatly within the same groups of people.
Fur coats, Confederate flags, etc
LO 2.2 Identify common elements of culture.

10. Language: What Is…? Language Cultural transmission
System of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another
Cultural transmission
Process by which one generation passes culture to the next
Language sparks human imagination to connect symbols in new ways, creating limitless range of future possibilities.

11. Elements of Culture: Language
Does language shape reality?
Sapir-Whorf thesis
People perceive the world through the cultural lens of language
Current view
Language does not determine reality.
People can imagine new ideas or things before devising a name for them.

12. Values and Beliefs: What Is…?
Culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good, and beautiful and that serve as broad guidelines for social living
Beliefs
Specific ideas that people hold to be true

13. Elements of Culture: Values and Beliefs
Key values of U.S. culture (Williams)
Equal opportunity
Achievement and success
Material comfort
Activity and work
Practicality and efficiency
Progress
Science
Democracy and free enterprise
Freedom
Racism and group superiority

14. Values and Beliefs Values
Are sometimes in harmony and sometimes in conflict
Change over time
Vary from culture to culture

15. Norms: What Are…? Norms Mores and folkways
Rule and expectations by which society guides member behaviors
Mores and folkways
Mores: Norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance
Folkways: Norms for routine or casual interaction

16. Norms: Ideal Versus Real Culture
Ideal culture
Is the way things should be
Involves social patterns mandated by values and norms
Real culture
Is the way things actually occur in everyday life
Involves social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations

17. Technology and Culture
Every culture
Possesses wide range of physical human creations (artifacts)
Uses artifacts that reflect underlying cultural values
Reflects societal level of technology
Determines cultural ideas and emerging artifacts from level of technology (Lenski/sociocultural evolution)
LO 2.3 Analyze how a society’s level of technology shapes its culture.

18. Technology and Culture: Hunting and Gathering Societies
Sociocultural evolution involves four major levels of development.
Hunting and gathering societies
Use simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation for food
Have no formal leaders
Provide important sociocultural history .

19. Technology and Culture: Horticulture and Pastoralism
Horticultural societies
Hand tool use to raise crops
Material surplus that allows expansion of societal roles
Increased belief in one God
Pastoralism societies
Domestication of animals
Nomadic lifestyle
More unequal social structure; ruling elites

20. Technology and Culture: Agrarian and Industrial Societies
Agrarian societies
More powerful energy sources and large food supplies; use of money as common exchange
Social life more individual and impersonal; more social inequality
Industrial societies
More advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery
Higher living standard and life expectancy; more individualism but less sense of community

21. Technology and Culture: Postindustrial Information Technology
More economic production use new information technology
Changes in skills that define way of life
Capacity to create symbolic culture increases

22. Cultural Diversity: What Is…?
High culture
Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite
Popular culture
Cultural patterns that are widespread among a society’s population
High culture better? NO!
First, neither elites nor ordinary people share all the same tastes and interests; people in both categories differ in many ways.
Second, do we praise high culture because it is inherently better than popular culture or simply because its supporters have more money, power, and prestige?
LO 2.4 Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change.

23. Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World
Subculture
Culture patterns that set apart some segment of a society’s population
Multiculturalism
Perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting equal standing for all cultural traditions
Eurocentrism
Afrocentrism
Subcultures involve not just difference but also hierarchy.
Some sociologists therefore prefer to level the playing field of society by emphasizing multiculturalism.

24. Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World
Counterculture
Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society
Cultural change
Change in one societal dimension of cultural system usually precipitates changes in others.
Cultural integration
Cultural lag (Ogburn)
Subcultures involve not just difference but also hierarchy.
Some sociologists therefore prefer to level the playing field of society by emphasizing multiculturalism.

25. Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World
Causes of cultural change
Invention
Discovery
Diffusion

26. Is There a Global Culture?
The Basic Thesis
Flow of goods: Material product trading has never been as important.
Flow of information: Few places left where worldwide communication is not possible.
Flow of people: Knowledge means people learn about places where life might be better.
Global economy -> global communications -> global migration

27. Is There a Global Culture?
Limitations to the global culture thesis
All the flows have been uneven.
Premise assumes affordability of goods.
People do not attach the same meaning to material goods.

28. Functions of Culture: Structural-Functional Theory
Culture is a strategy for meeting human needs.
Values are core of a culture.
Every culture has cultural universals.
Cultural universals: Traits part of every known culture; family, funeral rites, jokes
LO 2.5 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture.

29. Functions of Culture: Structural-Functional Theory
Evaluation
Cultural diversity is ignored.
Importance of change is downplayed.
Cultural universals: Traits part of every known culture; family, funeral rites, jokes

30. Inequality and Culture: Social-Conflict Theory
Cultural traits benefit some members at the expense of others.
Cultural values of competitiveness and material success are tied to our country's capitalist economy.
This theory is rooted in Karl Marx and materialism.
Society's system of material production has a powerful effect on the rest of a culture.

31. Inequality and Culture: Social-Conflict Theory
Evaluation
Understates the ways cultural patterns integrate members into society
This theory is rooted in Karl Marx and materialism.
Society's system of material production has a powerful effect on the rest of a culture.

32. Evolution and Culture Sociobiology Theoretical paradigm
Explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture
Is rooted in Charles Darwin and evolution
Proposes living organisms change over long periods of time based on natural selection

33. Evolution and Culture Evaluation
Might be used to support racism or sexism
Little evidence to support theory
People learn behavior within a cultural system

34. Culture and Human Freedom
Culture as constraint
We know our world in terms of our culture
Culture as freedom
Culture is changing and offers a variety of opportunities
Sociologists share the goal of learning more about cultural diversity
LO 2.6 Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom.