Quiz #2 - Topic 3 & 4 Flashcards
1
Q
Culture
A
- a system of behaviours, beliefs,
knowledges, practices, values, concrete materials
including buildings, tools, and sacred items - change over time
- Always contested - not everyone agrees on what specific cultures are
2
Q
Dominant culture
A
- the culture that, through its
political and economic power, is able to impose its values, language, and ways of behaving and interpreting
behaviour on a given society - dominants are those closely linked with the cultural mainstream
3
Q
Minority Cultures
A
- those that fall outside the
cultural mainstream - have two classifications:
1. countercultures
2. subcultures
4
Q
Countercultures
A
minority cultures that feel the
power of the dominant culture and exist in opposition
5
Q
Subcultures
A
minority cultures that differ in some
way from the dominant culture but don’t directly oppose it.
6
Q
High culture
A
- the culture of the elite, a distinct
minority - associated with the arts
- requires what Pierre Bourdieu called cultural capital: a set of skills and knowledge needed to acquire the sophisticated tastes that mark someone as a person of high
culture
7
Q
Popular culture
A
- culture of the majority,
especially those who do not have power - Ex. woman, the working class
8
Q
Mass culture
A
- the culture that people have little say in choosing
- Ex. companies choose much of our media intake
- Simulacra or the stereotypical cultural images produced and reproduced like material goods or commodities by the media and sometimes by scholars is present in mass culture - tends to be hyperreal - the stereotypes created and reproduced to represent a culture
9
Q
Popular culture vs Mass culture
A
- in mass culture people lose agency or the ability to choose the culture they consume
- in popular culture people are still autonomous
10
Q
Cultural Norms
A
- rules and expectations of a society/culture
- represented through ceremonies and symbols that reflect the interests and ways of the culture
- ex/ our society of weddings and white dresses
- change over time
- differ between cultures
11
Q
Sanctions
A
- rewards and punishments for behaviors
- Positive: high five, bonus
- negative: dirty look, prison
12
Q
Folkways
A
- norms that govern day-to-day
matters - best not to violate
- weakly governed
- ex, double dipping food
13
Q
Mores
A
- more serious than folkways
- formalized norms we must not violate
- violations are met with much more serious punishments
- complicated and often contested
- ex/ stealing
14
Q
Taboos
A
- norms that are so deeply ingrained in our social consciousness that the mere thought or mention of it is enough to arouse disgust or revulsion
- Ex/ insest
15
Q
Symbols
A
- cultural items that hold significance for a culture or subculture
- can be:
1. concrete (tangible) like the maple leaf
2. Abstract like a national anthem - they change overtime
16
Q
Values
A
- standards used by a culture to describe abstract qualities such as goodness, beauty, and justice and to assess the behaviour of others
17
Q
Ideal vs Actual culture
A
- Ideal culture: is what people believe in (e.g., environmentalism)
- Actual culture: what really exists(e.g., driving large SUVs)
18
Q
Ethnocentrism
A
- someone holds up one culture—usually their own—as being the standard by which all cultures are to be judged
- product of a lack of knowledge
or ignorance - played a role in the colonizing efforts of powerful nations imposing their political, economic, and
religious beliefs on the Indigenous populations of lands they “discovered.”
19
Q
Eurocentrism
A
- addressing others culturally from a european standpoint with the assumption that all cultures want to be part of it
- caused assimilation of north american indigenous peoples
20
Q
Cultural Globalization
A
- Cultural globalization is the intensification and expansion of cultural flows across the globe
- Americanization or one directional flow poses as a concern
