Chapter 3 Flashcards
What is culture?
-System of behaviours, beliefs, knowledges, practices, values, concrete materials including buildings, tools, and sacred items
-Dynamic and change over time
-Elements, such as authenticity, are contestation points when agreeing upon who/what belongs to and represents a culture
What is dominant culture?
-A culture that is able to impose its values, language and ways of behaving and interpreting behaviour in a given society through political and economic power
-Dominants are people who are closely linked with cultural mainstream
What is minority culture and its two subcategories?
-Those that fall outside the cultural mainstream
1. Countercultures: Minority cultures that feel the power of the dominant culture and exist in opposition to it (I.e. clothing styles, sexual norms)
2. Subcultures: Minority cultures that differ in some way from the dominant culture but don’t directly oppose it (I.e. groups organized around ethnicities, occupations or hobbies)
What is high culture?
-Culture of the elites, a distinct minority
-Often associated with the arts (E.g., theatre opera, ballet, and classical music)
What is cultural capital?
-A set of skills and knowledge needed to acquire the sophisticated tastes that mark someone as a person of high culture
-Coined by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu
What is social capital?
-Consists of the economic resources garnered from human interaction
-Inlude tangible and non-tangible assets such as information, innovative ideas, financial support and social networks of connection
What is popular culture and how does it differ from mass culture?
-Culture of the majority, especially those who do not have power
-Differs from mass culture due to agency (ability to be creative or productive with materials given to them by dominant culture)
What is mass culture?
-Refers to groups who have little or no agency in the culture they consume (big companies dictate what people watch, buy, value or believe), created by those in power for the masses
Define simulacra
-Feature of mass culture
-Stereotypical cultural images produced and reproduced like material goods or commodities by the media and sometimes scholars (Jean Baudrillard)
-Hyperreal, likely to be considered more real than what actually exists
What are cultural norms?
-Rules or standards of behaviour that are expected of a group, society, or culture
-Change over time and differ from culture to culture
-Expressed through various means
What are sanctions? Positive and negative
-Rewards and punishment in response to a particular behaviour
-Positive: rewards for “doing the right thing or a good thing” (e.g., smiles, high fives or bonus)
-Negative: Reactions designed to tell offenders they have violated a norm (e.g., a glare, eye roll, parking ticket, library fine)
What are the three norms distinguished by William Graham Sumner?
- Folkways: norms that govern day-to-day matters. Should not be violated but are weakly sanctioned (no double-dipping chips, take hat off at dinner/church)
- Mores: more serious than folkways, often formalize norms we must not violate and are met with serious sanctions. Complicated and may be disputed (stealing, lying, bullying)
- Taboos: Norms that are so deeply ingrained in our social consciousness that the mere thought or mention is disgusting/revolting (incest, child porn)
What are cultural symbols?
-Cultural items that hold signifigance for culture or subculture
-Can be tangible (material) such as flags, wedding rings, etc.
-Can be intangible (non-material) such as songs or events, rituals and ceremonies
What are values?
-Standards used by a culture to describe abstract qualities such as goodness, beauty, and justice to assess the behaviour of others
-Value and behaviour are not always congruent (Ideal culture vs actual culture)
What is ethnocentrism?
-Occurs when someone holds up one culture as being the standard by which all cultures are to be judged
-Often the product of a lack of knowledge or ignorance
-Played a role in the colonizing efforts of powerful nations imposing their beliefs on Indigenous populations of lands they “discovered”