Week 5: Culture Flashcards
What is Culture?
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
Material vs Non- Material Culture
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)
Travel vs Culture Shock
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
Humans vs Other animals
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
Evolution of Culture and Human Intelligence
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)
Culture
A shared way of life
Nation
A political organization
- like how Canada is divided by it’s Territories and Provinces because of its borders
Society
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
How many cultures in Canada? languages
- 2 official languages (French and English
- 70 Indigenous languages
What do we all share in Elements of culture?
Symbols, language, values, and norms (expected behaviour morally)
Symbols
Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture
- like words, wall graffiti, raised fist meaning, blm
Cyber Symbols
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
Language
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
First language
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
Cultural Transmission
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
Oral Cultural Tradition
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
Sapir- Whorf Hypotheses
The language you speak determines or influence what you think
- like how kids understand the word “family”, before they can say the word 
Values
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
Beliefs
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
The values of Canadian culture
- Democracy of Human Rights —> all citizens have the right to vote
- Health care and social safety net→ we value social programs and services
- Supports for the Environment→ across the country we support climate change
- Importance of gender and racial equality→ charter of human rights
- Value of immigration→ immigratration sees the positive roles that it can play to our society
- Support for diversity→ religious diversity, sexual diversity (smae sex marriage in 2005)
- Free market and property rights → respect for property and capitalist system.
It defines achievement and greater material comfort in Canada
Values can..
Cause stress
- lead to an awkward balancing to our beliefs
Change overtime
- like the establishment of truth and reconciliation commission
Values: Global Perspectives
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
Ideal Culture
The way things should be, social patterns in control by values and norms (the standards)
Real Culture
The way things actually occur in everyday life, social patterns that only by approximate cultural expectations
