Chapter 3 - Culture

Question 1

Culture

Answer 1

the language, beliefs, values, behaviours, material objects, and symbols that define a people’s way of life passed from 1 generation to the next

• humans turn to culture to make sense of the world (but many modern societies are multicultural)

Question 2

High culture vs popular culture

Answer 2

high = restricted to upper classes (ex. opera, ballet)
pop = consumed by many people in all social classes (movies, pop music)

Question 3

Dominant vs subordinate culture

Answer 3

dom = culture that helps rich and powerful categories of people exercise control over others
sub = culture that contests dominant culture to varying degrees

Question 4

Elements of culture

Answer 4

1. abstraction - general concepts that organize concrete sensory information
2. cooperation - capacity to create a complex social life by establishing norms and values
3. Production - human capacity to make and use tools and thereby improve our ability to take what we want from nature
4. Social organization - orderly arrangement of social interraction, understanding, interpreting, and putting this blueprint into coordination action is the key to community survival

Question 5

Symbols

Answer 5

concrete objects or abstract terms that represent something
- mean something to people who share the culture

Question 6

Material vs non-material culture

Answer 6

material = comprises the tools and techniques that enable people to accomplish tasks

non-material = comprises symbols, norms, and other intangible elements

Question 7

Language

Answer 7

a system of symbols strung together to communicate thought

Question 8

Saphir-Whorf thesis

Answer 8

we experience things in the environment, form concepts about those things, and develop language to express these concepts, and that language influences how we see the environment

Question 9

Ethnocentrism

Answer 9

the tendency for people to judge other cultures exclusively by the standards of their own culture

Question 10

Multiculturalism

Answer 10

promotes and funds the maintenance of culturally diverse communities thus strengthening culture diversity

Question 11

Symbolic interactions

How do people decide their culture?

Answer 11

people do not accept culture passivley
- we are able to choose what culture to accept
- decline of consensus around core values within Canada and other parts of the world in the current century

Question 12

Marxian Perspective

Answer 12

• Rights revolution (only very recently did all women get the right to vote - 1960s)
• the socially excluded groups have historically struggled to win equal rights under the law and practice

Question 13

Consumerism

Answer 13

the tendency to define ourselves in terms of the goods we purchase

• created a consumerism culture where we consume what society wants you to consume (ex. buy what others value)

Question 14

Weber and Rationalization

Answer 14

rationalization is the most effective means to achieve given goals and the unintended negative consequences of doing so
- culture is like living in an ‘iron cage’
-culture gives rise to:
- loss of individuallity
loss of autonomy
obsession with bigger and better positions
- lack of personal freedom
- specialization
loss of community

Question 15

Pierre Bourdieu and cultural capital

Answer 15

• distinction: beliefs, tastes, norms, and values that people draw upon in everyday life
• differences in cultural capital is connected to your social class (ex. what is considered high class/what is “in” right now)
• cultural capital is symbolic, not material and plays into how we shape ourselves in society
• ex. financial classes, ect.