1. What is culture?

2. Some definitions Culture as Knowledge
“Culture is the acquired knowledge people use to interpret experience and generate behavior.” -- James Spradley,l anthropologist
A word that means several different things
National / ethnic culture (meanings and behaviors groups of people develop and share over time)
Secondary or subgroup culture

3. Elements of Culture HISTORY RELIGION VALUES SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
LANGUAGE

4. Characteristics of Culture
CULTURE IS LEARNED
CULTURE IS SHARED
CULTURE IS TRANSMITTED FROM ONE GENERATION TO ANOTHER
CULTURE IS BASED ON SYMBOLS
CULTURE IS DYNAMIC
CULTURE IS AN INTEGRATED SYSTEM

5. Exercise
Using a blank sheet of paper, begin drawing as many circles as you can think where you share meanings and behaviors with a group of people. For example:
My faith group
My work place
My ethnic culture
My home country
My book group
My family

6. Once you’ve identified some cultural circles, select one that is quite defined and make a list of some of the norms, values, and behaviors that define your cultural group. Find a partner and share your list of cultural circles. Spend time describing the one circle you selected to “unpack.” Decide whether or not you would have an easy or difficult time “entering” each other’s cultural group. Why are some more “difficult” than others?

7. Nitza Hidalgo’s Concept of Culture as an Iceberg
Surface Culture
Surface level (Concrete)
Deep Culture
Unspoken Rules (Behavioral)
Unconscious Rules - Symbolic
Hidalgo, N Multicultural teacher introspection. In Perry, T. and Fraser, J. (Eds.) Freedom's Plow: Teaching in the Multicultural Classroom. New York: Routledge.

8. Deep Structure of Culture – Roots of Reality – the “how” and “why”
Deep Structure Institutions carry a culture’s most important beliefs (family, state, religion)
Deep Structure Institutions and their messages endure
Deep Structure Institutions and their Messages are deeply felt
Deep Structure Institutions supply much of a person’s identity (one of its most important roles for a culture is to assist a person in their sense of identity)

9. Deep Structures of Culture
FAMILY – definition and forms of family (nuclear, extended), changing families in the US; mixed families.
“The family is the most basic unit of government…” (Charles Colton).
Functions of Family: teach socialization; core values; worldview; identity development; communication training; gender roles; individualism vs. collectivism; aging; social skills
HISTORY -- economic, social development of a region/grouping of people

10. Surface Culture
Food, dress, music
visual arts, drama, crafts, dance, literature, language, celebrations games
Deep Culture
Courtesy, contextual conversational patterns, concept of time, personal space, rules of conduct, facial expressions, nonverbal communication, body language, touching, eye contact, patterns of handling emotions, notions of modesty, concept of beauty, courtship practices, relationships to animals, notions of leadership, tempo of work, concepts of food, ideals of childrearing, theory of disease, social interaction rate, nature of friendships
tone of voice, attitudes toward elders, concept of cleanliness, notions of adolescence, patterns of group decision-making, definition of insanity, preference for competition or cooperation, tolerance of physical pain, concept of “self,” concept of past and future, definition of obscenity, attitudes toward dependents, problem-solving, roles in relation to age, sex, class, occupation, kinship, and so forth

11. What sunk the Titanic?