Lecture: 3

CULTURE

Sociology, 15th Edition, Global Edition, Pearson Education © 2015

What is Culture?

❖ The values, beliefs, behavior, and material objects

that together form a people’s way of life.
❖ Culture refers to the ways of thinking, the ways of
acting, and the material objects that together form a
people’s way of life.
❖ In this example of commuting, culture consists of
thoughts (expectations about personal space, for
example) and realizable things (bus stops, trains, and
seating capacity).

Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis

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Culture is…

Society's entire way

of life

LO 3.1 Explain the development of culture

as a human strategy for survival.

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Terminology
• Material culture
– refers to the objects or belongings of a group of
people.
– The physical things created by members of a society;
example: homes, neighborhoods, cities, schools,
churches, automobiles and stores
• Nonmaterial culture
– consists of the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society
– The immaterial world of ideas created by members of
a society. Example:beliefs, values, rules, norms,
morals, language

Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis

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Cultural Universals

• All cultures share common elements.

• 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.

Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis

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Culture Shock

• Culture shock
– Disorientation due
to inability to make
sense out of
unfamiliar way of
life

– Often occurs with Yąnomamὃ live in villages scattered

domestic and along the border of Venezuela and
foreign travel Brazil. Their way of life could not be
more different from our own.

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Culture Differences

All societies contain

cultural differences that
can provoke a mild case
of culture shock.

This woman traveling on a British subway is not sure what to make of

the woman sitting next to her, who is wearing the Muslim full-face veil
known as the niqab.

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Elements of Culture

▪ Symbols
▪ Language
▪ Values and Beliefs
▪ Norms

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Symbols
• Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized
by people who share a culture
• Societies create new symbols all the time.
– The basis of culture; makes social life possible
– Symbols—such as gestures, signs, objects,
signals, and words—help people understand that
world.
– The world is filled with symbols. Sports uniforms,
company logos, and traffic signs are symbols.
– In some cultures, a gold ring is a symbol of
marriage

Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis

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Elements of Culture: Language

• Language is a
system of
symbols that
allows people to
communicate with
one another.
– Cultural Here the English word “read” is written in
transmission twelve of the thousands of languages
humans use to communicate with one
another.

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Elements of Culture: Language (Cont.)
❖ Language is a symbolic system through which
people communicate and through which culture is
transmitted.
❖ Some languages contain asystem of symbols used
for written communication, while others rely on only
spoken communication and nonverbal actions.
❖ Language is constantly evolving as societies create
new ideas. In this age of technology, people have
adapted almost instantly to new nouns such as “e-
mail” and “Internet,” and verbs such as
“downloading,” “texting,” and “blogging.

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Elements of Culture: Value and Beleifs

• Values are culturally defined standards that

people use to decide what is desirable, good,
and beautiful , and which serve as broad
guidelines for social living.
• Values are broad principles that underlie
beliefs, specific statements or ideas that
people hold to be true.

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Sociologist Robin Williams' Ten Values
Central to American Life
• Equal opportunity
• Achievement and success
• Material comfort
• Activity and work
• Practicality and efficiency
• Progress
• Science
• Democracy and free
enterprise How does the popularity of the television
• Freedom show American Idol illustrate many of
the key values of U.S. culture listed here?
• Racism and group
superiority

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Values Sometimes Conflict

Sometimes one key cultural

value contradicts another.
• Value conflict causes strain.
• Values change over time.

Cultures have their own values.

• Lower-income nations have cultures that
value survival.
• Higher-income countries have cultures
that value individualism and self-
expression.

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Elements of Culture: Norms

• Norms: a standard or pattern, especially of social

behavior, that is typical or expected of a group.
There are two special types of norms that were identified
by William Graham Sumner (1906):
• Mores: the essential or characteristic customs and
conventions of a community.
• Folkways: the ways of living, thinking, and acting in a
human group, built up without conscious design but
serving as compelling guides of conduct.

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Culture: What Is…?

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Material Culture and Technology

Includes a wide range of physical human creations or

artifacts
Material
culture

Contains artifacts that partly reflect underlying cultural

values

Reflects a society's technology or knowledge used to make

a way of life in particular surroundings

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 Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in
One World
• High Culture
– the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that
exist in the highest class segments of a society.
– People often associate high culture with
intellectualism, political power, and wealth
• Popular culture
– the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in
mainstream society.
– accessible to most people
– expressed commercial media such as radio, television, movies,
the music industry, publishers, and corporate-run websites
– Popular culture events might include a parade, a baseball game,
or the season finale of a television show.

Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis

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Cultural Diversity: Subcultures

• Subculture
– 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

• Countercultures
– rejects some of the larger culture’s norms and values accessible
to most people.

– countercultures might actively defy larger society by developing

their own set of rules and norms to live by, sometimes even
creating communities that operate outside of greater society.

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Culture Changes in Three Ways

Invention Discovery Diffusion

• Creating • Recognizing • Spread of

new cultural and better cultural traits
elements understanding • Jazz music
• Telephone something or much of
or airplane already the English
existing language
• X-rays or DNA

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Interdependence
• Culture integration
– The close relationships among various
elements of a cultural system
• Example: Computers and changes in our
language
• Culture lag
– The fact that some cultural elements
change more quickly than others, which
might disrupt a cultural system
• Example: Medical procedures and ethics

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Theories of Culture

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Culture: Structural-Functional Theory
• Structural-functional
– Culture is a strategy for meeting human
needs.
– Values are core of a culture.
– 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.
– Cultural norms function to support the fluid
operation of society, and cultural values guide
people in making choices.
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Social Conflict Theory: Inequality and
Culture
• Social-conflict
– Approach rooted in Karl Marx
– inherently unequal, based on power
differentials related to issues like class,
gender, race, and age.
– a society’s cultural norms benefit some
people but hurt others.Cultural traits benefit
some members at the expense of others.
– Inequalities exist within a culture’s value
system.
Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis
Copyright © 2008 Prentice Hall, a division
Sociology, 15thof Pearson
Edition, Education.
Global All rights
Edition, Pearson reserved.
Education © 2015
Evolution and Culture

Sociobiology
• Theoretical paradigm
• Exploration of ways in which human
biology affects how we create culture
• Approach rooted in Charles Darwin
and evolution

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Symbolic interactionism

• Symbolic interactionism is a sociological

perspective that is most concerned with the
face-to-face interactions between members
of society
• Interactionists see culture as being created
and maintained by the ways people interact
and in how individuals interpret each other’s
actions

Sociology, 15th Edition, Global Edition, Pearson Education © 2015

Culture and Human Freedom
Culture as Culture as
constraint freedom
• We know our world • Culture is changing
in terms of our and offers a variety
culture. of opportunities.
• Sociologists share
the goal of learning
more about cultural
diversity.
To what
extent are
human
beings, as
cultural
creatures,
free?

LO 3.5 Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom.

Sociology, 15th Edition, Global Edition, Pearson Education © 2015
Sociology, 15th Edition, Global Edition, Pearson Education © 2015