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Chapter 3 CULTURE
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Learning Objectives LO 3.1 Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival. LO 3.2 Identify common elements of culture. LO 3.3 Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change. LO 3.4 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture. LO 3.5 Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom.
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Culture is… Society's entire way of life
LO 3.1 Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival.
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Terminology Culture shock
Disorientation due to the inability to make sense out of unfamiliar way of life May occur in domestic and foreign travel
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Terminology Nonmaterial culture Material culture Cultural relativism
The intangible world of ideas created by members of a society Material culture Tangible things created by members of society Cultural relativism More accurate understanding
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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. Reality for humans is found in the meaning things carry with them. Meanings vary within and between cultures. 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 3.2 Identify common elements of culture.
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Seeing Sociology in Contemporary Everyday Life
Today, 88 percent of U.S. adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them use mobile text-messaging on a regular basis. Cell phone owners between eighteen and twenty-four years of age typically send or receive more than 100 messages a day (Pew Research Center, 2011). What does the creation of symbols such as those listed here suggest about culture? Today, 88 percent of U.S. adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them—especially those who are young—use mobile text-messaging on a regular basis. Researchers report that cell phone owners between eighteen and twenty-four years of age typically send or receive more than 100 messages a day (Pew Research Center, 2011).
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Elements of Culture: Language
Language is a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another. Cultural transmission One generation passes culture to the next Sapir-Whorf thesis People perceive the world through the cultural lens of language
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Values and Beliefs Values Beliefs
Broad guidelines for social living; values support beliefs; culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness, and beauty Beliefs Specific statements people hold to be true Matters individuals consider to be true or false
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Sociologist Robin Williams' Ten Values Central to American Life
Equal opportunity Achievement and success Material comfort Activity and work Practicality and efficiency
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Sociologist Robin Williams' Ten Values Central to American Life
Progress Science Democracy and free enterprise Freedom Racism and group superiority
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Values Sometimes Conflict
Sometimes one key cultural value contradicts another Value conflict causes strain. Values change over time. Cultures have their own values Lower-income nations have cultures that value survival. Higher-income countries have cultures that value individualism and self-expression. Williams's list includes examples of value clusters
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Norms Norms Mores and Folkways
Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members. Mores and Folkways Mores Widely observed and have great moral significance Folkways Norms for routine and casual interaction Types Proscriptive Should-nots, prohibited Prescriptive Shoulds, prescribed like medicine
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Social Control Guilt Shame A negative judgment we make about ourselves
The painful sense that others disapprove of our actions
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Ideal versus Real Culture
Ideal culture Way things should be Social patterns mandated by values and norms Real culture Way things actually occur in everyday life Social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations
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Material Culture and Technology
Culture includes a wide range of physical human creations or artifacts. A society's artifacts partly reflect underlying cultural values. Material culture also reflects a society's technology or knowledge that people use to make a way of life in their surroundings.
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Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World
Many cultural patterns are readily available to only some members of society. High culture: Cultural patterns that distinguish a society's elite Popular culture: Cultural patterns that are widespread among society's population LO 3.3 Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change
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Cultural Diversity: Subcultures
Subcultures involve difference and hierarchy. Subculture Cultural patterns that set apart some segment of society's population Counterculture Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society
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Cultural Diversity: Multiculturalism
Recognizes the cultural diversity of the United States Promotes the equality of all cultural traditions Eurocentrism: Dominance of European cultural patterns Afrocentrism: Dominance of African cultural patterns
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Perhaps the most basic human truth of this world is that “all things shall pass.”
Found on page 84
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Cultural Change Cultural integration Culture lag (Ogburn 1964)
Close relationships among various elements of a cultural system Culture lag (Ogburn 1964) Uneven change of cultural elements that may disrupt a cultural system
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Culture Changes in Three Ways
Invention: Creating new cultural elements Telephone or airplane Discovery: Recognizing and better understanding something already existing X-rays or DNA Diffusion: Spreading of cultural traits Jazz music or much of the English language
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Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism
Practice of judging another culture by the standards of one's own culture Cultural relativism Practice of judging a culture by its own standards
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Ethnocentric or not? In the world's low-income countries, most children must work to provide their families with needed income. Is it ethnocentric for people living in high-income nations to condemn the practice of child labor because we think youngsters belong in school? Why or why not?
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Is There a Global Culture?
The Basic Thesis The flow of goods: Material product trading has never been as important. The 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
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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.
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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 3.4 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture.
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Functions of Culture: Structural-Functional Theory
Evaluate Cultural diversity is ignored. Importance of change is downplayed. Cultural universals: Traits part of every known culture; family, funeral rites, jokes LO 3.4 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture.
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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.
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Inequality and Culture: Social-Conflict Theory
Critical 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.
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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
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Evolution and Culture Critical evaluation
Might be used to support racism or sexism Little evidence to support theory People learn behavior within a cultural system
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Culture and Human Freedom
To what extent are human beings, as cultural creatures, free? Culture as constraint We know our world in terms of our culture LO 3.5 Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom.
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Culture and Human Freedom
To what extent are human beings, as cultural creatures, free? Culture as freedom Culture is changing and offers a variety of opportunities. Sociologists share the goal of learning more about cultural diversity.
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