Culture [ Sociology ]

1
Culture Sociology

• What is culture?
• Cultural Universals.
• Componenents of symbolic Culture.
• Many cultural Worlds Subcultures and
  Countercultures.
• Technology in Global Village

2
Chapter Overview

• What is culture?
• Cultural Universals.
• Componenents of symbolic Culture.
• Many cultural Worlds Subcultures and
  Countercultures.
• Technology in Global Village

3
What is Culture?

• Culture - the language, beliefs, values, norms,
  behaviors, and material objects that are passed
  from one generation to next.
• Material Culture the material objects that
  distinguish a group of people.
• Non-material Culture a groups way of thinking
  and doing.

4
How Culture Affects Our Lives

• The effects of our own culture generally remain
  imperceptible to us.
• These learned and shared ways penetrate our
  being.
• Culture becomes the lens through which we
  perceive and evaluate what is going on around us.

5
Cultural Orientation

• Culture shock - the disorientation that people
  experience when they come into contact with a
  different culture.
• Ethnocentrism the tendency to use ones own
  culture as a yardstick for judging the ways of
  other societies.
• It can create in group loyalties or lead to
  harmful discrimination.

6
Practicing Cultural Relativism

• To counter our tendency to use our own culture as
  a tool for judgment, we can practice cultural
  relativism.
• Practicing cultural relativism allows us to
  understand another culture on its own terms.
• We can analyze how the elements of culture fit
  together without judgment.

7
Components of Symbolic Culture

• Symbolic Culture nonmaterial culture whose
  central components are symbols.
• A Symbol something to which people attach
  meaning and which they use to communicate.
• Gestures involve ones body to communicate.
• Language a system of symbols that can be strung
  together in an infinite number of ways for the
  purpose of communicating.

8
What Language Does

• All human groups have a language.
• Language allows for experiences to be passed from
  one generation to the next.
• Language allows culture to develop by freeing
  people to move beyond their immediate
  experiences.
• Language provides us a past and a future, as well
  as shared understandings.

9
Language and Perception

• The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Language has
  embedded within it ways of looking at the world.
• Thinking and perception are shaped by language.
• Our language determines our consciousness.

10
Values, Norms, Sanctions

• Values ideas of what is desirable in life.
• Values are the standards by which people define
  good and bad.
• Norms describe rules of behavior that develop
  out of groups values.
• Sanctions positive or negative reactions to the
  ways in which people follow norms.

11
Folkways, Mores, Taboos

• Folkways norms that are not strictly enforced.
• If someone does not follow a folkway, we may
  stare or shrug our shoulders.
• Mores - norms that are considered essential to
  our core values.
• Taboos norms so strongly ingrained that even
  the thought of its violation is greeted with
  revulsion.

12
Subcultures and Countercultures

• Subcultures a world within the larger world of
  the dominant culture.
• A subculture has a distinctive way of looking at
  life.
• The values and norms tend to be compatible with
  the larger society.
• Countercultures a subculture whose values place
  its members of the broader culture.
• An assault on core values is always met with
  resistance.

13
Ideal versus Real Culture

• Ideal culture the values, norms, and goals that
  a group considers ideal, worth aspiring to.
• Success.
• Real culture - the values, and norms that people
  actually follow.
• What people do usually falls short of the
  cultural ideal.

14
Cultural Universal

• Cultural Universals values, norms, or other
  cultural traits that are found everywhere.
• Although there are universal human activities,
  there is no universally accepted way of doing any
  of them.
• Human have no biological imperative that results
  in one particular form of behavior throughout the
  world.

15
Technology

• Technology skills or procedures necessary to
  make or use tools.
• New technologies emerging technologies that
  have a significant impact on social life.
• Technology sets a framework for a groups
  nonmaterial culture.

16
Cultural Lag, Diffusion, and Leveling

• Cultural Lag not all parts of a culture change
  at the same pace.
• Material culture usually changes before
  nonmaterial culture.
• Cultural Diffusion the spread of cultural
  characteristics from one group to other.
• Travel and communication unite us.
• Cultural Leveling process in which cultures
  become similar to one another.

17
Elements of Culture
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• Language is an abstract system of word meanings
  for and symbols for all aspects of culture.
  Including speech, written characters, symbols
  gestures of non verbal communication.
• The Shapir Whorf Hypothesis
• Language precedes thought

19
Language

• Language reflects the priorities of a culture
• English many words for war
• Slave Indians 14 terms of ice
• Language is a foundation for culture
• Language can be verbal and non verbal

20
Nonverbal (Language) Communication

• The use of gestures and facial expression to
  communicate
• We are not born with these gestures and
  expressions. We learn them, just as we learn
  other forms of language, from people who share
  our same culture. This is as true for the basic
  expressions of smiling, laughter, and crying as
  it is for more complex emotions such as shame or
  distress

21
Norms

• Norms are established standards of behavior
  maintained by society

22
Norms

• Provide guidelines for behavior and expectations
  from society
• There is strong social pressure to conforms to
  norms

23

• Non conformity to certain norms may be tolerated
  but for other norms, there is very little leeway
  (space) that I permitted.
• Not bringing a gift to a wedding can be tolerated
• Physically attacking some one at the wedding will
  bring a different reaction

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• Sociologists distinguish between norms in 2 ways
  First, norms are classified as either formal or
  informal. Formal norms generally have been
  written down and specify strict rules for
  punishment of violators
• Law is considered to be governmental social
  control, establishing laws as formal norms
  enforced by the state. Laws are just one example
  of formal norms.

25

• Our society has no specific punishment or
  sanction for a person who comes to school say
  wearing a Dhoti. Making fun of the non
  conforming student is the most likely response

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• Norms are also classified by their relative
  importance to society. When classified in this
  way, they are known as mores and folkways

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Mores and Folkways

• Folkways are norms governing everyday behavior
• Mores are stronger norms deemed highly necessary
  for the welfare of a society

28
Folkways

• Norms that are expected but not insisted upon
• Wearing matching pair of shoes. Be on time for
  appointment. Not pick nose in public

29
Mores.

• Are norms considered highly necessary to the
  welfare of a society, often because they include
  the most protected principles of people. Each
  society demands obedience to its mores violation
  can lead to severe penalties. Thus, the Pakistan
  has strong mores against murder, disloyalty, and
  child abuse that have been institutionalized into
  formal norms.

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Mores.

• Are much stronger norms. People attach more
  significance to them and treat violations of them
  seriously.
• Some violation of mores are made almost
  unthinkable by taboos.

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Taboos.

• Are powerful social beliefs that the acts
  concerned are prohibited.
• Sanctions.
• Are penalties and rewards associated with a
  conduct concerning a norm.

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• Formal norms, including law
• Informal norms
• Mores
• Folkways
• Sanctions and Rewards
• Values

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Norms Sanctions Sanctions
Positive Negatives
Formal Salary bonus Demotion
Testimonial Dinner Firing from a job
Medal Jail Sentence
Diploma Expulsion
Informal Smile Frown
Compliment Humiliation
Cheers Belittling
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Dominant ideology The set of cultural beliefs
and practices that help to maintain powerful
social, economic, and political interests.
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Cultural variation develops through adaptation to
sets of circumstances.

• Climate
• Technology level
• Population
• Geography

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Aspects of cultural variation include

• Subcultures
• Countercultures
• Cultural shock
• Ethnocentrism
• Cultural Relativism