Culture

Question 1

What is culture?

Answer 1

• Totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behaviour. Includes ideas, values, customs, and artifacts of groups of people
• Culture is the language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviours and materials objects that are important enough to pass on to future generations of society

Question 2

What is the difference between material and non-material culture?

Answer 2

Material culture:

• All things that humans make or adapt from the raw stuff of nature
• Made up of artifacts (by-products of human behaviour)
• Physical or technological aspects of our daily lives, including food, houses, factories, and raw materials.

Non-material culture:

• Refers to ways of using material objects, as well as to customs, beliefs, philosophies, governments, and patterns of communication.
• We can divide non-matrerial culture into 5 basic categories. These 5 basic categories are symbols, language, norms, values and beliefs.
• It is made up on intangible things

Question 3

What is ethnocentrism?

Answer 3

Tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way of life represents the norm or is superior to others

Ethnocentrism occurs when a person uses his or her own culture to judge another culture.

Our view of the world is dramatically influenced by the society in which we were raised

Question 4

Define cultural relativism.

Answer 4

People’s behaviors from the perspective of their own culture

Cultural relativism consists of a deliberate effort to appreciate a group’s way of life in its own context, without prejudice.

Different social contexts give rise to different norms and values

Question 5

Elaborate on non-material culture: symbols.

Answer 5

Anything that represents something else to more than one person

• Symbols are social things
• Powerful things in the interactions between human beings
• Because we react to them as if they were real things
• Convey information
• Invoke emotions

If an object has meaning to only 1 person, then it is not a symbol. A symbol is anything that at least two people agree represents something other than itself.

Question 6

Elaborate on non-material culture: language.

Answer 6

Without language there can be no culture.

• Language is an abstract system of word meaning and symbols for all aspects of culture.
• You need a language before you can transmit what your culture stands for from 1 person to another.
• In fact, language is the foundation of every culture.
• Best way of conveying meanings between people
• Organised set of symbols (spoken or written words and gestures) and rules (grammar and syntax) for using these symbols
• Language rules are important as words alone cannot convey complex meanings clearly
• Verbal and non-verbal

Question 7

Elaborate on non-material culture: norms.

Answer 7

Established standards of behaviour maintained by a society

• In sociology, all rules about behaviours are called norms
• Some norms are more important that others
• The way to judge the importance of a norm is to observe how people respond to the behaviour

Question 8

What is the difference between formal and informal norms?

Answer 8

Formal Norms:

• Written down and specify strict punishments for violators
• Example: laws are examples of formal norms.In the US, laws were developed from norms. They were written down.

Informal Norms:

• Generally understood but not precisely recorded
• Example: if a person comes to class dressed as a pirate or a monkey, there are no formal rules to state that this is not acceptable. However, the person will gather stares from others and might even hear remarks being passed about how he has been dressed.

Question 9

Elaborate on non-material culture: norms (folkways).

Answer 9

• Norms governing everyday behaviour
• Violations are not often taken very seriously
• E.g. walking up the down escalator in the shopping mall

Question 10

Elaborate on non-material culture: norms (mores).

Answer 10

• Norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of a society
• Embody most cherished principles of a people
• Society would insist on conformity

Question 11

Elaborate on non-material culture: norms (taboo).

Answer 11

Norms that are so deeply held that even the thought of violating them upsets people

Question 12

What are sanctions?

Answer 12

Penalties and rewards for conduct concerning a social norm

Question 13

What are the differences between positive and negative formal or informal sanctions?

Answer 13

Positive formal sanctions could be medals

Negative formal sanctions could be fines or imprisonment

Positive informal sanctions could be gratitude

Negative informal sanctions could be threats

Question 14

Elaborate on non-material culture: norms (values).

Answer 14

• Norms are one way that people express their values
• Values are the collective conceptions of what is considered good, desirable, and proper in a culture
• General or abstract ideas about what is good and desirable as opposed to what is bad and undesirable in society.
• Thus when you observe a negative sanction for someone who has cheated, you will suspect that honesty is a value. Or perhaps not getting caught is the thing that is valued.
• Values may be general (health, love and democracy are examples) or specific (owning a home or honouring one’s parents).

Question 15

Elaborate on non-material culture: norms (ideas and beliefs).

Answer 15

• People’s ideas about what is real and what is not real

- Have to do with what people accept as factual

Question 16

Elaborate on non-material culture: norms (ideology).

Answer 16

• Knowledge that has been distorted by social, economic, or political interests
• The set of ideas found in law, religion, literature and art that the upper class use to maintain their economic superiority

Question 17

Elaborate on culture as product of action.

Answer 17

Culture systems (total package of material and nonmaterial cultural things) – created by humans; product of human action and interaction

Expects different groups of humans to have different cultures

Example: Language and Gestures

Question 18

Elaborate on Cultural Conditioning as element for further action.

Answer 18

• Once problem is solved satisfactorily, we tend to stick with that solution
• Children repeat these solutions, as do their children.
• A track is established; people tend to stay on that track

Question 19

Elaborate on Social Change: Cultural Diffusion.

Answer 19

Process by which cultural things are adopted
spread of cultural characteristics from one group to another

McDonaldization: Process through which principles of fast-food industry dominate certain sectors of society

• Efficiency
• Calculability (quantity over quality)
• Predictability
• Technology

Question 20

Elaborate on Social Change: Cultural Levelling

Answer 20

• As cultural diffusion increases, the difference between culture decreases
• Process in which cultures become similar to one another

E.g. see someone eating a Big Mac, drinking Coke, and talking on i-phone while in China, France, India
E.g. see someone drinking a Starbucks coffee

Question 21

Elaborate on sub-cultures.

Answer 21

• Groups of people within society whose shared values, norms, beliefs or use of material culture sets them apart from other people in that society
• Culture is a powerful force in shaping people’s behaviour, thoughts and emotions
• May be based on shared ethnic or racial heritage, age, social class, sexual orientation, political beliefs, hobbies

Example: CCAs in school or interest group in Facebook

Question 22

Elaborate on countercultures.

Answer 22

• A special form of subculture
• A group who’s values and norms deviate from or are at odds with those of dominant culture
• Not only set them apart from the larger culture
• Perceived to threaten the dominant culture

Question 23

Elaborate on culture shock.

Answer 23

• Occurs when a person encounters a culture foreign to his or hew own and has an emotional response to the differences between the cultures

E.g. Visiting China for the first time and being offered the local delicacy for dinner would be a shock when you realise that the local delicacy is roasted dog meat

Question 24

Elaborate on culture lag.

Answer 24

• Occurs when social and cultural changes occur at a slower pace than technological changes
• Is often the case when new technology enters and changes a culture