1. Society The Basics
FOURTEENTH EDITION
Chapter 2
Culture

2. Learning Objectives
2.1 Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival. 2.2 Identify common elements of culture. 2.3 Analyze how a society’s level of technology shapes its culture. 2.4 Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change. 2.5 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture. 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 (1 of 7) Learning Objective 2
Culture (1 of 7) Learning Objective 2.1 Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival.
Culture
Ways of thinking, acting, and material objects that form a person’s way of life
Kinds of culture
Material
Nonmaterial

5. Culture (2 of 7) Culture shock Cultural relativism
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. Culture (3 of 7)
Some 12,000 Yąnomam live in villages scattered along the border of Venezuela and Brazil.
Do you think you could interact with people from this culture?

7. Culture (4 of 7) 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.

8. Culture (5 of 7)
This woman traveling on a British subway is not sure what to make of the woman sitting next to her, who is wearing the Muslim-face veil known as the niqab.

9. Culture (6 of 7) 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

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

11. Elements of Culture: Symbols Learning Objective 2
Elements of Culture: Symbols Learning Objective 2.2: Identify common elements of culture.
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.
People throughout the world communicate not just with spoken words but also with bodily gestures.

12. Language 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

13. Elements of Culture: Language (1 of 2)
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.

14. Elements of Culture: Language (2 of 2)
Chinese (including Mandarin, Cantonese, and dozens of other dialects) is the native tongue of one-fifth of the world’s people, almost all of whom live in Asia.
English is the native tongue or official language in several world regions (spoken by 5 percent of humanity) and has become the preferred second language in most of the world.
The largest concentration of Spanish speakers is in Latin America and, of course, Spain. Spanish is also the second most widely spoken language in the United States.

15. Values and Beliefs (1 of 2)
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

16. Values and Beliefs (2 of 2)
Are sometimes in harmony and sometimes in conflict
Change over time
Vary from culture to culture

17. Elements of Culture: Values and Beliefs (1 of 2)
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

18. Elements of Culture: Values and Beliefs (2 of 2)
How does the popularity of the television show American Idol illustrate many of the key values of U.S. culture listed in the earlier slide?

19. Cultural Values of Selected Countries

20. Norms 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

21. 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

22. Technology and Culture Learning Objective 2
Technology and Culture Learning Objective 2.3: Analyze how a society’s level of technology shapes its 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)

23. An Example to Consider
Standards of beauty—including the color and design of everyday surroundings—vary significantly from one culture to another.
This Ndebele couple in South Africa dresses in same bright colors they use to decorate their home.
Members of North American and European societies, by contrast, make far less use of bright colors and intricate detail, so their housing and clothing appear much more subdued.

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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

28. Cultural Diversity (1 of 2) Learning Objective 2
Cultural Diversity (1 of 2) Learning Objective 2.4: Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change.
High culture
Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite
Popular culture
Cultural patterns that are widespread among a society’s population

29. Cultural Diversity (2 of 2)
Reality television is based on popular culture rather than high culture. Here Comes Honey Boo Boo follows seven- year-old Alana Honey Boo Boo Thompson and her parents, who live in rural Georgia. While some critics object to the show as “low-brow,” others applaud the portrayal of a “real” low-income family.

30. Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World (1 of 4)
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

31. Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World (2 of 4)
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?

32. Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World (3 of 4)
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)

33. Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World (4 of 4)
Causes of cultural change
Invention
Discovery
Diffusion

34. National Map 2-1: Language Diversity across the United States

35. Figure 2-3 Life Objectives of First-Year College Students, 1969 and 2012

36. Is There a Global Culture? (1 of 2)
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.

37. Is There a Global Culture? (2 of 2)
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.

38. Structural-functional
Functions of Culture: Structural-Functional Theory (1 of 2) Learning Objective 2.5: Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture.
Structural-functional
Culture is a strategy for meeting human needs.
Values are core of a culture.
Every culture has cultural universals.

39. Functions of Culture: Structural-Functional Theory (2 of 2)
Evaluation
Cultural diversity is ignored.
Importance of change is downplayed.

40. Inequality and Culture: Social-Conflict Theory (1 of 2)
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.

41. Inequality and Culture: Social-Conflict Theory (2 of 2)
Evaluation
Understates the ways cultural patterns integrate members into society

42. Evolution and Culture (1 of 2)
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

43. Evolution and Culture (2 of 2)
Evaluation
Might be used to support racism or sexism
Little evidence to support theory
People learn behavior within a cultural system

44. Applying Theory Culture Structural-Functional Approach
Social-Conflict and
Feminist Theories
Sociobiology Theory
What is the level of analysis?
Macro-level
Micro-level
What is culture?
Culture is a system of behavior by which members of societies cooperate to meet their needs.
Culture is a system that benefits some people and disadvantages others.
Culture is a system of behavior that is partly shaped by human biology.
What is the foundation of culture?
Cultural patterns are rooted in a society’s core values and beliefs.
Marx claimed that cultural patterns are rooted in a society’s system of economic production.
Feminist theory says cultural conflict is rooted in gender.
Cultural patterns are rooted in humanity’s biological evolution.
What core questions does the approach ask?
How does a cultural pattern help society operate?
What cultural patterns are found in all societies?
How does a cultural pattern benefit some people and harm others?
How does a cultural pattern support social inequality?
How does a cultural pattern help a species adapt to its environment?

45. Culture and Human Freedom Learning Objective 2
Culture and Human Freedom Learning Objective 2.6: Critique culture as limiting or expanding 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.