chapter 12 Flashcards
what is culture?
- the common practices and shared understandings that bind us together in a human society
what is material culture?
- our stuff, consumer products to roads and buildings
what is symbolic culture?
- anything you cannot touch
- ex. art
what is a belief?
- reflect a general consensus about how the world works
what are values?
- convictions about how the world should be, how people should act, and what should be prioritized
what are rituals?
- actions that have a script
- ex. ceremonies
what are symbols
- function as a sort of shorthand and can range from very broad symbold that we readily identify with a culture as a whole
what is language?
- provides the means through which we communicate about various cultural components
what are subcultures?
- groups of people within a larger cultural framework that either have additional cultural practices and norms or certain cultural traits that are at odds with the surrounding society
what are countercultures?
- subcultures that orient themselves in opposition to the broader culture that surrounds them
what is pop culture?
- “of the people”
- shared points of references
what is cultural lag?
- refers to how changes in material culture can happen more quickly than the ability of a society to catch up in terms of nonmaterial culture
what is culture shock?
- happens when an individual is immersed in a new culture
what is assimilation?
- what happens when people are expected to integrate themselves into the predominant culutre by learning the major local language and perhaps even no longer using their native language, by adopting various social norms, by becoming familiar with all the culutural references of the predominant culture, etc.
what is multiculturalism?
- happens when people preserve their original cultures in local communities
what is cultural transmission?
- describes how elements of a culture are passed down from one generation to another
what is cultural diffusion?
- describes how cultural elements and practices can be passed from one culture to another
what is Westernization?
- an example of cultural diffusion
what is age?
- aging itself is associated with a broad range of physcial and psychological changes
- sociology = progressing through the life course
what is the life course perspective?
- approaches aging in light of these considerations
what are age cohorts or generations?
- people who are born and grow up in roughly the same period of time might be affected by comparable/the same historical events and social trends so we identify them using age cohorts
what is the GI generation?
- people born in the 1920-1930’s and experienced WW2 as the defining feature of their young adulthood
what is the silent generation?
the generation born between 1925 and 1945, named after their relatively muted social activism during times of great upheaval like the cold war
what are baby-boomers?
- after the end of WW2, there was a boom of babies so people born between 1946 and 1964
what is generation x?
- children born in the mid 1960’s to early 1980’s and were affected by the aftermath of the social changes from the 1960’s and 1970’s
what are millennials?
- children born from the early 1980’s till 2000 and defining moments include the aftermath of 9/11 and the 2008 economic crisis
what is generation Z?
- born around 2000 and later
- AKA post-millennials
what is generation alpha?
those born after 2010
what is sex?
- biological category that we generally subdivide into categories of male and female but intersex exists
what is gender?
- social construct that we can think of as all the social baggage that comes with any particular gender identity