1. 8/21 (Thursday) TOTD: How would you describe American culture? Agenda:
Culture Notes
Ch.3
Lost Boys
Facts
Essay
assignment
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis

2. Culture
The values, beliefs, behavior, and material objects that together form a people’s
way of life
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
All rights reserved.

3. Terminology Nonmaterial culture Material culture
The intangible world of ideas created by members of a society
Material culture
The tangible things created by members of a society
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

4. Terminology Culture shock Ethnocentrism Cultural relativism
Disorientation due to the inability to make sense out of one’s surroundings
Domestic and foreign travel
Ethnocentrism
A biased “cultural yardstick”
Cultural relativism
More accurate understanding
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

5. Symbols
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.
The basis of culture; makes life possible
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

6. Symbols
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.
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

7. 8/22
TOTD: What is the difference b/w material culture & non-material culture? Give an example of both for the USA.
Agenda:
Turn in your Common
Sense essay
Lost Boys
Culture Notes
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

8. Language
A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another
Cultural transmission
The process by which one generation passes culture to the next
Sapir-Whorf thesis
People perceive the world through the cultural lens of language.
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

9. 8/25 Monday
TOTD: Do you think that a person who speaks Cherokee, an American Indian language, experiences the world differently from other Americans who think in English or Spanish? Explain your answer.
Agenda:
CH 3 Notes
Culture Review
Culture Assignment

10. http://www. huffingtonpost

11. Values and Beliefs Values Beliefs
Culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness, and beauty, which serve as broad guidelines for social living. Values support beliefs.
Beliefs
Specific statements that people hold to be true.
Particular matters that individuals consider to be true or false.

12. Are some of these values inconsistent with one another?
Sociologist Robin Williams’ Ten Values That Are Central to American Life
Equal opportunity
Achievement and success
Material comfort
Activity and work
Practicality and efficiency
Progress
Science
Democracy and free enterprise
Freedom
Racism and group superiority
Are some of these values inconsistent with one another?

13. Values Sometimes Conflict
Williams's list includes examples of value clusters.
Sometimes one key cultural value contradicts another. (Ex: people in US may believe in equality but also may degrade others b/c of their sex or race)
Value conflict causes strain.
Values change over time.
A Global Perspective
Cultures have their own values.
Lower-income nations have cultures that value survival.
Higher-income countries have cultures that value individualism and self-expression.

14. Norms: Types Mores and Folkways
Rules and expectations by which society guides its members’ behavior (Ex: applauding after a musical performance; not applauding after a classroom lecture)
Types
Proscriptive
Should-nots, prohibited
Prescriptive
Shoulds, prescribed like medicine
Mores and Folkways
Mores (pronounced "more-rays")
Norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance (tell us what is right vs wrong)
Folkways
Norms for routine and causal interaction (tell us what is right vs rude) .

15. 8/28 *thursday
For 8/27 write: NO TOTD. Today’s is: Thinking about the article yesterday, do you think your generation values the “right” things? Explain.
Agenda:
TOTD
Culture Notes: Finish
Culture Review Sheet
Culture Mini-
Project

16. Cultural Diversity
High culture–Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite.
Popular culture–Cultural patterns that are widespread among society’s population.
Subculture–Cultural patterns set apart some segment of society’s population. (surfers, athletes, computer nerds, wilderness campers, emo…)
Counterculture–Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society.(hippies in the 1960s, doomday-preppers,)
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

17. Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism
Whenever someone believes that their own culture is superior over another culture or the practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture
Cultural relativism
The practice of judging a culture by its own standards

18. Xenocentrism-
This means to think that another culture is better than your own.
For example, you might think that the math skills of students in Singapore are better than those of American students or food in France is better than your Spanish cuisine.
This can create distress among a society when its individuals do not feel that their own culture is up-to-par.
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

19. Culture Collage Project
Fun online collage makers:
glogster.com
postermywall.com
collage.com
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

20. Social Control How we evaluate our own behavior: Guilt Shame
Attempts by members of society to regulate/encourage conformity to norms
How we evaluate our own behavior:
Guilt
A negative judgment we make about ourselves
Shame
The painful sense that others disapprove of our actions

21. Ideal Versus Real Culture
Ideal culture
The way things should be
Social patterns mandated by values and norms
Real culture
They way things actually occur in everyday life
Social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations
“Do as I say, not as I do”
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

22. Material Culture and Technology
Culture includes a wide range of physical human creations or artifacts.
A society's artifacts partly reflect underlying cultural values.
In addition to reflecting values, material culture also reflects a society's technology or knowledge that people use to make a way of life in their surroundings.

23. Multiculturalism
An educational program recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting the equality of all cultural traditions.
Eurocentrism– The dominance of European (especially English) cultural patterns
Afrocentrism–The dominance of African cultural patterns

24. Interdependence Culture integration Culture lag
The close relationships among various elements of a cultural system
Example: Computers and changes in our language
Culture lag
The fact that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, which might disrupt a cultural system
Example: Medical procedures and ethics

25. Culture Changes in Three Ways
Invention–Creating new cultural elements
Telephone or airplane
Discovery–Recognizing and better understanding of something already in existence
X-rays or DNA
Diffusion–The spread of cultural traits from one society to another
Jazz music or much of the English language
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis

26. 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, if any, places are left where worldwide communication isn’t possible.
The flow of people–Knowledge means people learn about places where they feel life might be better.
Limitations to the thesis
All the flows have been uneven.
Assumes affordability of goods
People don’t attach the same meaning to material goods.
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis .

27. Theoretical Analysis of Culture
Structural-functional
Culture is a complex strategy for meeting human needs.
Cultural universals–Traits that are part of every known culture; includes family, funeral rites, and jokes
Critical evaluation
Ignores cultural diversity and downplays importance of change
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis .

28. Inequality and Culture
Social-conflict
Cultural traits benefit some members at the expense of others.
Approach rooted in Karl Marx and materialism; society’s system of material production has a powerful effect on the rest of a culture.
Critical evaluation
Understates the ways cultural patterns integrate members into society
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis .

29. Evolution and Culture Sociobiology Critical evaluation
A theoretical paradigm that explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture.
Approach rooted in Charles Darwin and evolution; living organisms change over long periods of time based on natural selection.
Critical evaluation
Might be used to support racism or sexism
Little evidence to support theory; people learn behavior within a cultural system
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis .

30. Culture and Human Freedom
Culture as constraint
We only 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.
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis

31. 8/29 Friday
TOTD: What is the term for the cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society? Agenda: TOTD Culture Chapter 3 Research/Online study

32. 9/4 Thursday NO TOTD today! Agenda:
Review—follow the directions below!
Get your laptops out, go to kahoot.it and put in this code: 66377
Test: Culture

33. Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright  2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.