CH 4 Cultures (TERMS) Flashcards
Culture
The social environment within which we are raised and are socialized during our lifetime; includes objects, ideas, customs, behaviours, and practices
“Old Stock Canadians”
White settlers from Britain and France
Material culture
All physical items that people have created that are imbued with social meanings in a given culture, e.g. food, art, tools, clothing, buildings, etc.
Non-material culture
Ideas and behaviours associated with a given culture, e.g. values, beliefs, language, knowledge, symbols, etc.
Language
A system of cultural representations where words are connected with images
Norms
Societal expectations for how we are supposed to think, act, and look; they develop from a culture’s value system
Folkways
Informal rules based on accepted traditions (right vs rude)
Sanctions
A way to enforce social norms
- The result of the failure to follow Folkways
Mores
Norms that carry greater moral significance; often codified into laws (right vs wrong)
Taboos
The most serious norm and carry greatest moral significance (right vs forbidden)
Law
(right vs illegal)
Ethnocentrism
When you use your own culture as the standard by which to evaluate other cultures.
Cultural relativism
Principle of understanding cultures on their own terms; reflects Weber’s concept of Verstehen (understanding).
Elite/High culture
Physical items, beliefs, ideas, practices shared by the social elite (people with higher wealth and education)
- Includes status symbols like designer clothes and luxury cars, listening to and understanding classical music and opera, eating at Michelin starred restaurants.
- Also includes an understanding of the informal norms around appropriate ways of consuming high culture.
Mass culture
Refers to the physical items, beliefs, ideas, and practices shared by the masses and are mass-produced.
- Mass-produced toys, food, culture, novels, blockbuster movies, clothes
Subcultures
Cultures within a culture that have their own norms, values, beliefs, and practices that are often different from those of elite or mass culture.
E.g. music subcultures (rap, punk), fan subcultures (fans of Taylor Swift), food subcultures (slow food movement), sports subcultures (roller derby)
Cultural consumption
The process by which cultural goods are consumed; this reveals a great deal about your social class location.
Countercultures
Cultures within a culture that aim to challenge existing norms, values, beliefs, and practices of elite and mass culture.
- E.g. many social movements in the 1960s: the feminist movement, Civil Rights Movement, American Indian Movement, Gay Liberation, etc. - Contemporary: Black Lives Matter
Social reproduction
The process by which social class is passed on from one generation to the next, thus reinforcing inequality.
Economic capital
Money and Wealth
Social capital
Social connections and Networks
Symbolic capital
Honour, Prestige, Recognition
Cultural capital
“What you know”; knowledge and proficiency in artistic and cultural styles that are valued by society
- Embodied, Objectified, Institutionalized.
Habitus
The physical embodiment of cultural capital
