Culture
Culture represents the beliefs, practices and artifact of a group.
Almost every human behavior, from shopping to marriage to expressions of feelings, is learned.
Material culture & Nonmaterial culture
Material culture refers to the objects or belongings of a group of people. Metro passes and bus tokens are part of material culture, as are automobiles, stores, and the physical structures where people worship. Nonmaterial culture, in contrast, consists of the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society. Material and nonmaterial aspects of culture are linked, and physical objects often symbolize cultural ideas.
Clothing, hairstyles, and jewelry are part of material culture, but the appropriateness of wearing certain clothing for specific events reflects nonmaterial culture
Cultural universal
Cultural universals are patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies. One example of a cultural universal is the family unit: every human society recognizes a family structure that regulates sexual reproduction and the care of children.
Anthropologist George Murdock first recognized the existence of cultural universals while studying systems of kinship around the world.
Murdock found that cultural universals often revolve around basic human survival, such as finding food, clothing, and shelter, or around shared human experiences, such as birth and death, or illness and healing
Ethnocentrism
Graham Sumner (1906) described the term, involves a belief or attitude that one’s own culture is better than all others
A high level of appreciation for one’s own culture can be healthy; a shared sense of community pride, for example, connects people in a society. But ethnocentrism can lead to disdain or dislike for other cultures, causing misunderstanding and conflict.
culture shock
Ethnocentrism can be so strong that when confronted with all the differences of a new culture, one may experience disorientation and frustration. In sociology, we call this “culture shock.
Culture shock may appear because people aren’t always expecting cultural differences.
Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism is the practice of assessing a culture by its own standards rather than viewing it through the lens of one’s own culture
Cultural relativism requires an open mind and a willingness to consider, and even adapt to, new values and norms.
Androcentricism
Feminist sociology is particularly attuned to the way that most cultures present a male-dominated view of the world as if it were simply the view of the world. Androcentricism is a perspective in which male concerns, male attitudes, and male practices are presented as “normal” or define what is significant and valued in a culture. Women’s experiences, activities, and contributions to society and history are ignored, devalued, or marginalized.
Values & Beliefs
Values are a culture’s standard for discerning what is good and just in society. Values are deeply embedded and critical for transmitting and teaching a culture’s beliefs. Beliefs are the tenets or convictions that people hold to be true. Individuals in a society have specific beliefs, but they also share collective values.
Ideal culture & Real culture
Values portray an ideal culture, the standards society would like to embrace and live up to. But ideal culture differs from real culture, the way society actually is, based on what occurs and exists. In an ideal culture, there would be no traffic accidents, murders, poverty, or racial tension. But in real culture, police officers, lawmakers, educators, and social workers constantly strive to prevent or repair those accidents, crimes, and injustices.
High culture
Sociologists use the term high culture to describe the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in the highest class segments of a society. People often associate high culture with intellectualism, aesthetic taste, political power, and prestige.
Popular culture
The term popular culture refers to the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in mainstream society. Popular culture events might include a parade, a baseball game, or a rock concert.
A subculture is just as it sounds—a smaller cultural group within a larger culture; people of a subculture are part of the larger culture, but also share a specific identity within a smaller group.
Cultures change
Cultures change when something new (say, railroads or smartphones) opens up new ways of living and when new ideas enter a culture (say, as a result of travel or globalization).
Culture is always evolving.
Culture lag
Sociologist William F. Ogburn coined the term culture lag to refer to this time that elapses between when a new item of material culture is introduced and when it becomes an accepted part of nonmaterial culture. Culture lag the gap of time between the introduction of material culture and nonmaterial culture’s acceptance of it.
Functionalists
Functionalists view society as a system in which all parts work—or function—together to create society as a whole. In this way, societies need culture to exist
Talcott Parsons Culture functions to ensure that the “meaning of life” remains stable.
Critical sociologist
a critical sociologist, culture is seen as reinforcing and perpetuating those inequalities and differences in power.
beliefs tenets or convictions that people hold to be true.
Counter cultures
counter cultures groups that reject and oppose society’s widely accepted cultural patterns.
Cultural imperialism
Cultural imperialism the deliberate imposition of one’s own cultural values on another culture.
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