Focus Questions

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Focus Questions

• 1. Why is it important for you to understand
  another countrys culture?
• 2. Why is it important for you to understand the
  major cultures of Western Europe?

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Elements of Culture
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Culture

• The way of life of a group of people who share
  similar beliefs and customs

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Examples of American Culture

• Jeans
• Baseball
• Video games
• Rap Music

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Symbols

• Something that stands for something else
• Anything that has been given representational
  meaning by the members of a cultural group

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Symbols

• Flag of Great Britain

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Language

• Ways people communicate with each other.
• This includes slang, stories, myths, legends,
  jokes, histories

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Language

• English
• Spanish
• Ebonics
• Japanese
• Sign Language

• Chinese
• Swahili
• Arabic
• Poetry

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Values

• Cultural standards or judgments of what is right,
  good, or desirable
• Society decides what is right and wrong and these
  are their values

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Values
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Norms

• The rules of a culture that tell the members of a
  culture how they are expected to behave in a
  given situation

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Norms
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Artifacts

• The physical things that the members of a society
  make when they apply their technology to the
  physical environment

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Artifacts
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Other Parts of Culture

• Rituals
• Religion

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Rituals

• A formal and customarily repeated act or series
  of acts
• Shaking hands when you meet someone new

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Religion

• Buddhism

• Christianity