Chapter 4 - Recognizing Culture Flashcards
Culture
- The way of life of a particular group of people, including the characteristics that make it distinct from other groups.
- Ways of thinking, acting and material objects that form a person’s way of life (a design for living)
- Socially constructed because its meaning is created through social interaction
Nonmaterial Culture
Includes concepts such as norms, values and beliefs, symbols, and language.
Material Culture
Consists of artifacts ranging from tools to products designed for leisure like flat-screen TVs or Xboxes. Reflects the values and beliefs if the people who live in a culture.
Constructing Culture
Sociologists see culture as socially constructed, created through interactions among people.
Social Norms
Expectations about the appropriate thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of people in a variety of situations
Generalized Other
Our perceptions of the attitudes of the whole community
Agency
The ability to act and think independently of social constraints.
Mores
Widely held beliefs about what is considered moral and just behavior in society.
Folkways
Rules of behavior for many routine interactions, which if violated might lead to annoyance nut would not threaten society
Status
Refers to our relative position in society. About relative power and respect.
Values
Culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good, and beautiful and that serve as broad guidelines for social living
Beliefs
- What we deem to be true
- All values are beliefs, but not all beliefs are values.
- Beliefs reflect the culture you were raised in and may be traced to the social construction of reality.
Symbol
Anything that has the same meaning for two or more people
Language
Series of symbols used to communicate meaning among people.
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
Also known as linguistic relativism, notes that language influences our understanding of reality above and beyond the meaning of its symbols
Gerhard Lenski
- Argued that technology is the driving force in the driving force in the development of societies, from hunter-gatherer to postindustrial
Horticultural
- Maintain basic sustenance in one geographic location.
- Do not have much of any excess food stores, they can attain food without constantly moving, develop homes and common areas, better care of sick.
- Begin the process of specialization.
- Not a lot of free time and do not have access to more than what they need to survive.
- Hand tool use to raise crops
- Increased belief in one God
Pastoral Societies
- Pastoral society is the one that relies on the domestication of animals into herds as a major source of support.
- Basically, the term ‘pastoral’ is derived from the Latin word ‘Pastor’, which means shepherd.
Domestication of animals
- Nomadic lifestyle
- More unequal social structure; ruling elites
Agrarian
- Large, more diverse pop with excess food and resources among wealthier classes
- Extension of horticultural and pastoral societies
- Raise crops and domesticate animals
- Tools are more advanced
- Higher level of production and larger pops
- Today much of the world still lives in such as South America and Africa
High culture
Culture of the elie
Popular Culture
Culture that exists among common people in a society
Industrial Societies
- Very large populations
- Lots of diversity
- Growth of middle class
- A larger number of wealthy people
- Rely on the use of technology to produce goods as well as food
- All classes have more access to items
- Development of consumer culture
- More advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery
- Higher living standard and life expectancy; more individualism but less sense of community
Postindustrial information technology
◦More economic production use new information technology
◦Changes in skills that define way of life
◦Capacity to create symbolic culture increases
Subcultures
Cultural groups that exist within another, larger culture. Accept many of the values and beliefs of the larger culture while maintaining some unique ways of life.
Multiculturalism
- People respect different cultures in society and honor their unique contributions to a larger “umbrella” culture that incorporates multiple subcultures
- Often difficult to live out because differences in cultures often lead to conflict among groups
Counterculture
One group in a society that espouses rules, values or beliefs that conflict with the mainstream culture
Cultural Relativism
- Franz Boas
- The idea that cultures cannot be ranked as better to worse than others
Cultural Universals
- Geoge Murdock 1945
- Cultural practises that exists in most or all societies, such as social structures, tool making, art, song, dance, religion, etc.
- The implication is that people naturally develop certain elements of culture no matter their unique histories or backgrounds
- All human groups do some of the same things, but each does them in different ways
Cultural Capital
- Type of capital related to education, style, appearance and dress that promotes social mobility
- Wealthier families are able to provide more cultural capital to their children, which in turn leads to more opportunities for financial success.
- Cultural capital provides information to people when they decide whether to let others into their social groups.
Social intelligence
- Psychologist Daniel Goleman popularized in the 1990s
- Our ability to understand social relationships and get along with others
- Requires cultural capital
- Know the appropriate cultural cues in their society and can read cues given off by others
Sanctions
Rewards or punishments that encourage conformity to cultural norms
Cultural Relativism and Global Culture
- Cultural relativism is the idea that cultures cannot be considered better or worse than others.
- Cultures are viewed as simply different from each other.
- Cultural universals are practices that exist in most or all societies, such as social structures, tools, families, and politics.
- Cultural attributes can spread throughout the world when societies spread out and dominate others
Hunter-Gatherers
- Use simple tools to gather and hunt
- Only a few exist today
- Nomadic
- Food supply is limited
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