Week 5: Culture

Question 1

What is Culture?

Answer 1

Society’s entire way of life
- ways of thinking, acting, how we eat, vote and the material objects that form together a persons way of life

Question 2

Material vs Non- Material Culture

Answer 2

Material
- the things that humans have produced to be use by us (tools, weapons, monuments, machines, clothing)
Non- Material
- non physical ideas that people have about their culture (gestures, language, values, norms)

Question 3

Travel vs Culture Shock

Answer 3

Travel
- allows people to be tourists and appreciate cultural differences to enrich the mind and the soul. Allows to experience and offer a whole new way of thinking
Culture Shock
- the impact of moving from a familiar culture to one that is unfamiliar. When you experience another persons way of life

Question 4

Humans vs Other animals

Answer 4

Humans
- culture drives human evolution; influences how humans survive. To create new ways of life we have to look at the past in order to move forward
Other animals
- to learn and transmit behaviours through processes of social or cultural learning, guided by instincts

Question 5

Evolution of Culture and Human Intelligence

Answer 5

Primates (mammals, monkeys ) —> Walking upright —> (allowed for hunting and creating clothes and tools) —> Homo Sapiens (ancestors of modern humans, “intelligent man”) —> permanent settlement (now operating based on human intellect)

Question 6

Culture

Answer 6

A shared way of life

Question 7

Nation

Answer 7

A political organization
- like how Canada is divided by it’s Territories and Provinces because of its borders

Question 8

Society

Answer 8

The organized society who typically live in the same nation or territory
- like how Canada is a nation and is multicultural, but people don’t practice the same culture, religion

Question 9

How many cultures in Canada? languages

Answer 9

• 2 official languages (French and English
• 70 Indigenous languages

Question 10

What do we all share in Elements of culture?

Answer 10

Symbols, language, values, and norms (expected behaviour morally)

Question 11

Symbols

Answer 11

Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture
- like words, wall graffiti, raised fist meaning, blm

Question 12

Cyber Symbols

Answer 12

Increased use of communication
- emojis, when someone gives you a “thumbs up” it means u did a good job
- asl, people can communicate with gestures

Question 13

Language

Answer 13

A system of symbols that allow people to communicate with each other
- each language has its own distinctive symbols, and the symbols are building blocks of a society
- shapes reality
- English is a widely spoken language

Question 14

First language

Answer 14

Refers to the language learned first as a child in the language that people typically speak at home
- Chinese, Mandarin and other Chinese diaglx is widely used for first language

Question 15

Cultural Transmission

Answer 15

The process by which one generation passes culture to the next generation
- our culture contains countless symbols that come from one generation and brought to the next

Question 16

Oral Cultural Tradition

Answer 16

Cultural knowledge and information that has been passed down through speech from one generation to the next
- link to the past and spark human imagination to connect human abilities, important connection to the past

Question 17

Sapir- Whorf Hypotheses

Answer 17

The language you speak determines or influence what you think
- like how kids understand the word “family”, before they can say the word 

Question 18

Values

Answer 18

Culturally define standards that people used to decide what is desirable, good and beautiful and that serve a broad guidelines for social living
- Broad values —> Support specific beliefs that Hass to be true, abstract standard of goodness

Question 19

Beliefs

Answer 19

Ideas viewpoints and attitudes that people hope to be true
- trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something
- for example: like how kids believe that there is a Santa Claus or how people believe that there is a God

Question 20

The values of Canadian culture

Answer 20

1. Democracy of Human Rights —> all citizens have the right to vote
2. Health care and social safety net→ we value social programs and services
3. Supports for the Environment→ across the country we support climate change
4. Importance of gender and racial equality→ charter of human rights
5. Value of immigration→ immigratration sees the positive roles that it can play to our society
6. Support for diversity→ religious diversity, sexual diversity (smae sex marriage in 2005)
7. Free market and property rights → respect for property and capitalist system.

It defines achievement and greater material comfort in Canada

Question 21

Values can..

Answer 21

Cause stress
- lead to an awkward balancing to our beliefs
Change overtime
- like the establishment of truth and reconciliation commission

Question 22

Values: Global Perspectives

Answer 22

Values we see higher income countries tend to be different from lower income countries
- lower income countries value survival, more traditional
- higher income countries focuses more of lifestyle

Secular Rational —> opposite preferences to the traditional values

Question 23

Ideal Culture

Answer 23

The way things should be, social patterns in control by values and norms (the standards)

Question 24

Real Culture

Answer 24

The way things actually occur in everyday life, social patterns that only by approximate cultural expectations

Question 25

Ethnocentrism

Answer 25

The practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture

Question 26

Cultural Relativism

Answer 26

The practice of judging culture by its own standards

Question 27

Norms

Answer 27

Rules and expectations by which society guides the behaviour of its members
- William Graham sumner said that “some norms are more important than others”

Question 28

Mores

Answer 28

Refers to the norm set by society, largely for behaviour an appearance (I,e, we don’t be children because it’s wrong)

Question 29

Folkways

Answer 29

Norms for routine or casual interaction (I.e, proper dress, greetings. Like when you go get your profit professionally or when a man doesn’t wear a tie in the suit to a formal occasion)
- draws the line between right and wrong

Question 30

Laws

Answer 30

System of rules recognized and enforced by government institutions

Question 31

Culture and human freedom

Answer 31

Culture as a limitation or restricted
- We are symbolic features, we can’t live without culture
- When we live in a symbolic world, we are the ones who experience isolation

Culture forces us to make choices as we will make the world for ourselves