Chapter 4 - Culture

Question 1

What is culture?

Answer 1

Culture is the way we make sense of and give meaning to things, and it is passed on from one generation to the next.

Question 2

Who said culture is “our shared conceptual maps of meaning”?

Answer 2

Stuart Hall

Question 3

What are the two components of culture?

Answer 3

Material and non-material/symbolic.

Question 4

What is the material component of culture?

Answer 4

The material component of culture exists physically and objectively. Some examples are utensils or hair styles.

Question 5

What is the non-material or symbolic component of culture?

Answer 5

The shared symbols used to give meaning to and represent our world. It is composed of social practices and traditions that come from language, values and norms.

Question 6

What is language (in terms of non-material/symbolic culture)?

Answer 6

Language is the most important aspect of symbolic culture, without it we cant express meanings and communicate. The ways we can understand the world depend on the language and culture.

Question 7

What are values?

Answer 7

Values are the shared understandings of good and bad, related to what is considered morally right or wrong. They are an aspect of non-material/symbolic culture.

Question 8

What are norms?

Answer 8

Norms are an aspect of non-material/symbolic culture. They are the accepted rules of behaviour that develop out of values, and they vary within cultures.

Question 9

What are the different types/levels of norms?

Answer 9

Folkways, mores, and taboos.

Question 10

Order the types of norms by severity:

Answer 10

Folkways, Mores, Taboos.

Question 11

Define “folkways”.

Answer 11

The lowest level of norms, they are not strictly enforced, considered polite behaviour, the customary way of doing things. E.g. cutting the line.

Question 12

Define “mores”.

Answer 12

Are essential to core values, breaking them is often illegal, considered by most to be immoral, can result in a person to be removed from a group or position of power.

Question 13

Define “taboo”.

Answer 13

Most strongly ingrained mores, violations are repugnant and horrifying. E.g. child murder.

Question 14

What is a subculture?

Answer 14

A subculture is a distinctive culture within the larger culture. The values of this group are usually compatible with the larger culture and doesn’t challenge its cultural values.
E.g. sororities, sports teams, ethnic subcultures in Canada.

Question 15

What is a counterculture?

Answer 15

A counterculture is a subculture whose values are in opposition to the dominant culture.
E.g. hippies in the 60s, BLM

Question 16

What is the difference between a counterculture and a subculture?

Answer 16

A counterculture has values that oppose the values of the dominant culture, and may be trying to change the dominant culture, whereas a subculture does not challenge the dominant culture, and is usually compatible.

Question 17

What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 17

Ethnocentrism is judging other cultures by the standard of one’s own. Our own culture becomes a taken-for-granted view of the world, and we cant imagine other ways of viewing the world.

Question 18

What is cultural relativism?

Answer 18

Cultural relativism is understanding and judging a culture and cultural practices on their own terms.