Culture and Identity Flashcards
High Culture?
- linked with the elite, upper class in society, those families/individuals with an ascribed status position.
- associated with the arts such as opera, ballet and classical music and sports such as polo and lacrosse.
Folk Culture?
- the culture of ordinary people (pre-industrial societies)
- traditional folk songs, traditional stories handed down from generation to generation.
Mass Culture?
- seen as inferior
- created by commercial organisations.
- passive - consumers lack critical judgement of the society in which they live.
- often ‘dumbed down’ with simple goodies and baddies stereotypes associated with industrial societies.
- produced for profit - false needs are created through advertising inauthenticity.
e. g TV soap opera, popular feature films.
Popular Culture?
- associated with activities enjoyed and accessed by the masses.
- argued that popular culture at times borrows an idea from high culture and popularises it making it available to the masses.
e. g. Vanessa May, Burberry check. - STRINATI (1995) argues that the media are largely responsible for creating popular culture in the contemporary UK and that the material goods people buy and use plays a key role in popular culture.
- reflects the norms/values/institutions/activities of the majority culture of the working class than the ruling class.
Global Culture/Globalisation?
- process by which events in one part of the world come to influence what happens elsewhere in the world.
- world has become increasingly interconnected , socially/politically/economically.
- trends and fashions in large cities socially spread quickly to other cities.
- emerged due to migration, international travel and the media.
- concept of McDonaldisation have been used to raise possibility that global culture is basically American culture.
Socialisation?
- babies born into pre existing world.
- way of thinking, feeling, behaving and being.
- new members need to learn this in order to interact.
- life long process
- uses family, peers, institutions and different cultures.
- family socialisation provides us with an identity - young person has no life apart from its role in the family.
- social roles by parents provide a blueprint for action (copy).
Primary socialisation?
- first few years
- how to interact
- learn roles: mum, dad, siblings
- acquire human skills: love, sadness, humour, appropriate emotional response in certain situations
- empathy and self awareness
- profound effect on child’s learning
Secondary socialisation?
- takes place outside the home.
- uses school, peer, media and religion.
Socialisation and social control?
- socialisation involves social control and conformity.
- sanctions: parents reinforce and reward ‘appropriate’ behaviour, discipline and punish deviant behaviour
- praise : sweets, toys
- punish : smacking, grounding, threat of withdrawal of love.
- children internalise cultural expectations.
Functionalism?
- claims that gender identity reflects the norms and values of the society we live in
- value consensus and that we learn roles through primary/secondary socialisation
- family make a significant contribution to the development of gender identity e.g girls copy mum’s behaviours.
Functionalism (family) ?
- “personality factory” Parsons
- moulds the child: blank canvas
- shared cultural norms/value consensus
- internalise these values
- sense of belonging to society
Functionalism (education) ?
- secondary socialisation
- transmits shared cultural values
- produces conformity
- sense of pride in historical and religious achievement of their nation
- reinforces their sense of belonging to society.
Marxism? (family)
- critical of functionalist view that socialisation is a benefit to society as a whole.
- socialisation serves the interests of the ruling class
- family is used by the capitalist class to instil values such as obedience and respect for authority (both useful for capitalist class)
- ensures individuals can be exploited
- people are socialised in the view that power, authority and inequality are normal/natural.
Nature/Nurture Debate?
NATURE!
- Sociobiologists claim that people inherit characteristics such as intelligence, personality, gendered behaviour, aggressive tendencies.
- e.g., many biologists believe that males and females have a biologically determined predisposition to behave in masculine/feminine ways due to hormonal differences.
Nature/Nurture Debate?
NURTURE!
- feminists are critical of sociobiology, argue that if gender roles are bio determined, men/women would behave the same way in all societies.
- HOWEVER, this is not the case, significant cultural variations across the world in gender behaviour
- people are not born with cultural values/social skills. they’re learned and differ over time and across world.
- socialisation within the same society may differ according to social class, ethnicity, religion and gender.
Nature/Nurture Debate?
argument between sociobiologists who believe that human behaviour is the product of nature, particularly people’s genetic make-up and sociologists who argue that the society or social environment in which individuals live in, is more important in nurturing and shaping human behaviour.
Prejudice?
someone who is prejudiced holds certain attitudes and belief, stereotypes about person, group, thing.
- discrimination is prejudice in action.
- police, media.
The law?
Functionalist- law reflects shared values: value and consensus
Marxist - law making and enforcement are only serving interests of the ruling class.
Law which protects private property is the foundation of the capatalist economy w which favours the bourgeoisie.
Health and safety laws: appear to benefit the workers but some argue that it benefits the ruling class too: keeping workers fit for work/ free from injury/absence/sick pay.
Marxism?
- 2 classes
- relationship between classes is based on exploitation.
- false class consciousness, proletariat unaware of their situation, they are exploited.
the house/superstructure and the base: bourgeoisie uses its ownership of the means of production (the base) to justify/consolidate its dominance over the proletariat.
superstructure: education, the media, religion and the law.
Feminism? Status of women
- gender based violence
- representation of women, especially media related.
- low paid, gender pay gap
- victimisation
- sexually represented in the media.
Marxism? Education
education system privilege the bourgeoisie
- material deprivation
- reproducing inequalities in society, reducing the bourgeoisie and proletariat of the next generation
- educational achievement, university, qualifications gained
- cultural capital
power and status
different groups have different levels of power
