Chapter Two Culture

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Chapter TwoCulture
Society, The Basics 9th Edition John J. Macionis
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What is Culture?

• Culture the values, beliefs, behavior, and
  material objects that form a peoples way of life

Only humans rely on culture rather than instinct
to ensure survival.
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What is Culture?

• Nonmaterial culture ideas created by members of
  a society.

• Material culture tangible things created by
  members of a society.

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What is Culture?

• Society refers to people who interact in a
  defined territory and share culture.

• Culture shock refers to personal disorientation
  when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life.

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The Elements of Culture

• Although cultures vary, they all have five common
  components
• (1) Symbols
• (2) Language
• (3) Values Beliefs
• (4) Norms
• (5) Ideal Real
• Culture

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Elements of CultureSymbols

• Symbols anything that carries a particular
  meaning recognized by people who share culture.

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Elements of CultureSymbols

• Symbols collective creations

• General Marketing
• Aimed at a total population
• Segmented Marketing
• Aimed at a specific population

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Human Languages A Variety of SymbolsHere the
single English word Read is written in twelve
of the hundreds of languages humans use to
communicate with one another.Figure 2.1 (p. 46)
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Elements of CultureLanguage

• Language a system of symbols that allows people
  to communicate with one another.
• Language allows for the continuity of culture.

BBC
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Elements of CultureLanguage

• Cultural transmission the process by which one
  generation passes culture to the next.
• Every society transmits culture through speech.

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The Sapir-Whorf Thesis

• Languages are not just different sets of labels
  for the same reality.
• All languages fuse symbols with distinctive
  emotions.
• The Sapir-Whorf Thesis people perceive the
  world through the cultural lens of language.

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The Sapir-Whorf Thesis

• Example
• Workman handling full barrels of gasoline very
  careful with matches
• Workman handling empty barrels of gasoline not
  very careful with matches

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The Sapir-Whorf Thesis

• Snow
• Falling
• Drifting
• Frozen
• Fresh
• Dirty
• In a cone

• Behavior
• Drive your car
• Go skiing
• Walk or play
• Eat it
• Build a snowman

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Elements of CultureValues and Beliefs

• Values culturally defined standards by which
  people assess desirability, goodness, and beauty
  and that serve as broad guidelines for social
  living.

Values are abstract standards of goodness.
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Elements of CultureValues and Beliefs

• Beliefs specific statements that people hold to
  be true.

• Beliefs are particular matters that individuals
  consider true or false.

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Elements of CultureValues and Beliefs

• Value Conflict

• Husband enjoys spending time with family
• Job demands takes him away from familystress
• Options
• Quit his job
• Take family on job trips
• Compromise on both family and job demands
• Leave his family

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Elements of Culture

• Societies show significant cultural variations in
  their favorite sports.

Canada Ice Hockey Jamaica Cricket
Thailand Kite flying China tai chi chuan
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Cultural Values of Selected CountriesHigher-inco
me countries are secular-rational and favor
self-expression. The cultures of lower-income
countries are more traditional and concerned with
economic survival.Source Modernization,
Cultural Change and Democracy by Ronald Inglehart
and Christian Weizel, New York Cambridge
University Press, 2005.Figure 2-2 (p. 49)
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Key Values of United States Culture
Robin M. Williams, Jr.

• Equal Opportunity
• Achievement and Success
• Material Comfort
• Activity and Work
• Practicality and Efficiency

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Key Values of United States Culture
Robin M. Williams, Jr.

• Progress
• Science
• Democracy and Free Enterprise
• Freedom
• Racism and Group Superiority

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Key Values of United States Culture
Winner Takes All Show Me a Good Loser and
Ill Show You a Loser
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Key Values of United States Culture

• What is good about our cultures strong emphasis
  on winning?
• Are there ways in which this value can cause
  harm?
• Discuss how each of you were taught the
  importance of winning.
• Tell how you are teaching this to children.

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Elements of CultureNorms

• Norms rules and expectations by which a society
  guides the behavior of its members.
• Most important norms in a culture apply
  everywhere and at all times.

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Elements of CultureNorms

• Mores norms that are widely observed and have
  great moral significance.

• Folkways norms for routine, casual interaction.

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Elements of CultureNorms

• Mores

• Societal taboos such as
• Murder
• Treason
• Child sexual abuse

Inspire intense reactions Punishment inevitably
follows
(Right vs. wrong)
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Elements of CultureNorms

• Folkways (polite vs. rude)
• People chew quietly with mouths closed
• Accepting ones place in line
• People avoid facing each other in elevators

No written rules No one physically harmed
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Technology Culture

• Sociocultural evolution

• Material culture also reflects a societys
  technology knowledge that people use to make a
  way of life in their surroundings.

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Technology and Culture

• hunting and gathering societies
• horticultural pastoralism
• agriculture
• industry
• postindustrial information technology

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Cultural Diversity

• Cultural diversity can involve social class.
• Many cultural patterns are readily accessible to
  only some members of a society.

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Cultural Diversity
High culture cultural patterns that distinguish
a societys elite

• Popular culture cultural patterns that are
  widespread among a population.

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Recorded Immigration to the United States, by
Region of Birth, 1891-1900 and 1991-2000
Figure 2-3
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Subcultures

• Subculture cultural patterns that set apart
  some segment of societys population.

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Multiculturalism

• Multiculturalism an educational program
  recognizing the cultural diversity of the United
  States and promoting the equality of all cultural
  traditions.

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Multiculturalism

• Afrocentrism the dominance of African cultural
  patterns.

• Eurocentrism the dominance of European cultural
  patterns.

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Counterculture

• Counterculture cultural patterns that rejects
  and opposes those widely accepted within a
  society.

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Counterculture

• Countercultures
• Hippies of the 60s
• Street Gangs
• Hare Krishna
• Extreme right-wing religious groups

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Cultural Change

• Cultural integration the close relationships
  among various elements of a cultural system.

• Some elements of culture change faster than
  others cultural lag.

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Cultural Change

• Cultural integration
• Examples
• Women in the workforce
• Later first marriages
• Change in family patterns
• Increased use of day care

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Cultural Change

• Cultural lag
• Examples
• Contraception
• Increased availability
• Use by adolescents

• Medical Advances
• No ability to provide higher quality of life

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Cultural Change

• Cultural changes
• New cultural elements
• Cell phones
• I-pods
• iPhones
• Diffusion
• Spread of objects from one society to another

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Life Objectives of First-Year College Students,
1969-2005Todays students are less interested in
developing a philosophy of life and more
interested in making money.Sources Astin et
al. (2002) and Pryor et al. (2005).Figure 2-3
(p. 57)
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Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

• Ethnocentrism the practice of judging another
  culture by the standards of ones own culture.

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Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

• Cultural Relativism the practice of evaluating
  a culture by that cultures own standards.

Cultural Universals
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A Global Culture

• Global economy the flow of goods
• Global communication the flow of information
• Global migration the flow of people

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The View from Down UnderNorth American should
be up and South America down, or so we think.
But because we live on a globe, up and down
have no meaning at all. The reason this map of
the Western Hemisphere looks wrong to us is not
that it is geographically inaccurate it simply
violates our ethnocentric assumption that the
United States should be above the rest of the
Americas. Figure 2-4 (p. 59)
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Theoretical Analysis of Culture

• The structuralfunctional paradigm depicts
  culture as a complex strategy for meeting human
  needs.
• The socialconflict paradigm suggests that many
  cultural traits function to the advantage of some
  and the disadvantage of others.
• Sociobiology explores ways in which human biology
  affects how we create culture.

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Applying Theory Culture (p. 61)