1. BR: What changes can you think of that have occurred in culture in the U.S.? Explain how those changes have occurred.
Cultural Change

2. Globalization
Due to increased technologies, like the internet, cell phones, etc., communication is faster and quicker than ever. This has led to international companies, and we have seen these all over the world:
Examples:
McDonalds
Walmart
Pizza Hut, etc. VID
Because of these changes, we also have a change occurring known as diffusion, aka the spread of material and nonmaterial culture. Technology, like TV and Youtube have made it easy for, say, a farmer in China to watch an American sitcom in their own home. Thus, language, culture and ideas are spreading and mixing much faster than ever before.
Do you believe this is a good thing, or a bad thing? Turn and chat with your neighbor for the next minute, and write down three reasons it is either good or bad.
Ok, let’s share our thoughts!

3. Theoretical Perspectives on Culture
Of course, the three basic theoretical perspectives all lead us to look at culture in different ways:
Functionalism says that society is a giant system that works together for everything to function as it does.
So, a functionalist would say that the different parts of culture are vital for a society to function. What examples can you think of where this would be true?
Cultural norms help people know how to behave, what to say, etc.
Values are also reflected in how a society works. Education is important and even a huge industry in the U.S. because of the inherit American value of education.
Thus, material culture like school buses, pencils, textbooks, libraries, etc., all reflect this value.

4. Conflict Theory
Conflict Theorists on the other hand would focus on the inherent inequalities in society, and how culture often reinforces issues of privilege, based on things like sex, race, class, etc.
Thus, conflict theorists would see how issues like women striving for equality in a male dominated society are part of culture, or how groups like the ACLU strive to treat everyone equally and fairly.
The truth is, there are inequalities in most every cultural value system. Thus, cultural norms will help some people, but hurt others, whether they are informal or formal norms.
We see examples of this today: until recently, gay couples could not get married in most states. And even now, polygamists in American culture are still seen as weirdos and not allowed to marry, though polygamy is the norm in some cultures.

5. Symbolic Interactionism
Interactionists of course see things differently as well. They are more concerned with how individual members of a society interact.
Thus, culture to interactionists is created and maintained by people’s interactions and how we interpret other’s actions. So to the interactionist, culture is fluid and constantly changing .
Every object and action has a symbolic meaning, and interactionists focus on these differences. For example, while one word may not be overtly offensive to one person, it may be deeply offensive to another, because of what it symbolizes. This would be the focus of an interactionist.

6. End of Class
For the rest of class, you will be researching a social issue, and then analyzing it from one of the three main sociological perspectives:
Social Conflict
Functionalism
Symbolic Interactionism
Feel free to grab a chromebook, and get started! You have the rest of class to use for this assignment 