Introduction of Culture Flashcards
- It comes from the Latin word “colere”,meaning to ( )
to build on, to cultivate, and to foster
- It is a set of accepted behaviour patterns, values, assumptions, and shared common experiences.
- It defines social structure, decision making practices, and communication styles.
- It refers to the beliefs, values, behavior and material objects that, together, form a people’s way of life.
- It determines how we view the world around us
- It includes the traditions we inherit and pass on to the next generation
- It is the totality of our shared language, knowledge, material objects, and behavior
Culture
Culture is a very board term that includes:
- Our ways of life and modes of behavior
- Our philosophers and ethics
- Our morals and manners
- Our customs and tradition
- Our religious, political, economic, and other types of activities.
According to him, Culture refers to that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society
EDWARD TYLOR
According to him, Culture is an organized body of conventional understanding manifest in art and artifacts, which persisting through tradition, characterizes a human group.
ROBERT REDFIELD
According to him, Culture is social heredity, which is transmitted from one generation to another with the accumulation of individual experiences.
LINTON
According to him, Culture is the way of life which is transmitted from generation to generation.
JOHN BEATTEE
According to him, Everything that people have, think, and do as members of a society.
FERRARO, 2008
External influences that help to shape culture include:
- The environment
- Wealth
- Technology
- It is the lifelong process, often unconscious, through which we learn our culture.
Socialisation or Socialization
A person’s culture:
- Mass Media
- Leaders (e.g. government)
- Family
- Education
- Religious group
- Workplace
- Also through: peer pressure, role models, laws, observation.
What are the structure of culture?
Trait
Complexes
Pattern
Cultural institutions
Smallest unit of culture, (e.g. shaking hands)
Trait
- Traits combine to form “( )” (e.g. dance group consists of dancers, choreographer, production house, manager, audience, etc.)
Complexes
- Cultural Complexes combines to form ( ) (e.g. industrial township has a way of life different from agricultural society)
PATTERN
- It is a series of complexes and patters acentering around a configuration of needs (e.g. a family: matchmaking complex, wedding pattern, child rearing pattern, husband-wife relation pattern, etc.)
CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS
- It is the structure of relationships within which culture is created and shared through regularized patterns of social interaction.
- It provides the context within which our relationships with the external world develop
Society
- It is the organized set of social institutions and patterns of institutionalized relationships that together compose society.
- It is a product of social interaction and directly determines it.
- These are not immediately visible to the untrained observer, however, they are always present and affect all dimensions of human experience in society.
Social structure
- It is our relative social position within a group
Status
- It is the part our society expects us to play in a given status.
Role
What are the two types of status?
Achieved Statuses
Ascribed Statuses
- These are ones that are acquired by doing something.
For instance,
- someone becomes a criminal by committing a crime.
- A soldier earns the status of a good warrior by achievements in battle and by being brave.
- A woman becomes a mother by having a baby. She also can acquire the status of widow by the death of her husband.
Achieved status
- These are the result of being born into a particular family or being born male or female.
Being a prince by birth or being the first of four children in a family are ascribed statuses. We do not make a decision to choose them
Ascribed status
What are the two types of culture?
Material culture and Non-material culture
- It refers to the concrete and tangible things that man creates and uses. They range from the prehistoric stone tools of primitive man to the most advanced computer of the modern man
Material culture
- It consists of words people use; the habits they follow; the ideas, customs and behavior that any society professes and to which they strive to conform. Laws, techniques, lifestyle, and knowledge are included, too.
Non-material culture
