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SOCIOLOGY

SOCIOLOGY. Culture. Culture and Society. Culture : totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behavior. Culture includes ideas, values, customs, and artifacts of groups of people. Culture and Society. Society is largest form of human group.

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SOCIOLOGY

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  1. SOCIOLOGY Culture

  2. Culture and Society • Culture: totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behavior • Culture includes ideas, values, customs, and artifacts of groups of people

  3. Culture and Society • Society is largest form of human group • Society members learn culture and transmit from generation to generation • Common culture simplifies many day-to-day interactions • Language a critical element of culture that sets humans apart from other species

  4. Development of Culture Around the World • Cultural Universals • Societies develop common practices, including: • Athletic sports • Music • Funeral ceremonies • Medicine • Sexual restrictions

  5. Development of Culture Around the World • Innovation • Process of introducing new idea or object to a culture • Discovery: making known or sharing existence of an aspect of reality • Invention: when existing cultural items are combined into a form that did not exist before

  6. Development of Culture Around the World • Globalization, Diffusion, and Technology • Diffusion: process by which a cultural item spreads from group to group or society to society

  7. Development of Culture Around the World • Material culture: physical or technological aspects of our daily lives • Food items • Houses • Factories • Raw materials

  8. Technology: information about how to use the material resources of the environment to satisfy human needs and desires

  9. Development of Culture Around the World • Nonmaterial Culture: ways of using material objects as well as: • Customs • Customs • Beliefs • Philosophies • Customs • Beliefs • Philosophies • Governments • Customs • Beliefs • Philosophies • Governments • Patterns of communication • Customs • Beliefs • Culture Lag: period of maladjustment when nonmaterial culture is still struggling to adapt to new material conditions

  10. Elements of Culture • Language • Nonverbal Communication • Use of gestures, facial expressions, and other visual images to communicate • Nonverbal communication is learned • Nonverbal communication varies by culture.

  11. There are an estimated 3,000-5,000 different languages on earth today. • Chinese is the official language of one fifth of the humanity. English is second (10%) and Spanish third

  12. :-) :-( ;-) :’-( :-o :-P }:( 8-) Internet Communication

  13. Development of Culture Around the World Figure 3-1. Languages of the World Source: J. Allen 2005:330

  14. Elements of Culture • Norms • Established standards of behavior maintained by a society To be significant, norms must be widely shared and understood

  15. Elements of Culture • Norms • Types of Norms • Formal norms • Generally written; specify strict punishments • In U.S., often formalized into laws • Informal norms • Generally understood but not precisely recorded • Mores • Norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of a society • Folkways • Norms governing everyday behavior

  16. Elements of Culture • Sanctions • Penalties and rewards for conduct concerning a social norm` • Positive sanctions include pay raises, medals, and words of gratitude • Negative sanctions include fines, threats, imprisonment, and stares of contempt

  17. Elements of Culture Table 3-1. Norms and Sanctions

  18. Elements of Culture • Values • Collective conceptions of what is good, desirable, and proper—or bad, undesirable, and improper Influence people’s behavior Criteria for evaluating actions of others Values may change

  19. Figure 3-2: Life Goals of First-Year College Students in the United States, 1966-2005 Sources: UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, as reported in Astin et al. 1994; Pryor et al. 2005; Sax et al. 2005.

  20. Culture and the Dominant Ideology • Dominant Ideology Describes the set of cultural beliefs and practices that help maintain • powerful social, • economic, • and political interests

  21. Functionalists view culture as stabilizing agent for sociology • Conflict theorists view culture as serving the privileges of powerful groups.

  22. Cultural Variation • Aspects of Cultural Variation • Each culture has unique character • Subculture: Segment of society that shares distinctive pattern of mores, folkways, and values that differs from the larger society

  23. Cultural Variation • Aspects of Cultural Variation • Counterculture: subculture that conspicuously and deliberately opposes certain aspects of the larger culture • Hippies • Terrorist cells

  24. Cultural Variation • Aspects of Cultural Variation • Culture shock: Feeling disoriented, uncertain, out of place, or fearful when immersed in an unfamiliar culture

  25. Cultural Variation • Aspects of Cultural Variation • Each culture considers its own ways of handling basic societal tasks to be natural • Ethnocentrism: Tendency to assume that one’s own culture and way of life represent the norm or is superior to all others • Cultural relativism: people’s behaviors from the perspective of their own culture

  26. Cultural Variation Table 3-2. Major Theoretical Perspectives on Culture

  27. Social Policy and Socialization • Bilingualism • The Issue • Bilingualism refers to use of two or more languages in a particular setting, such as the workplace or schoolroom • Program of bilingual education may instruct children in their native language while gradually introducing the language of the host society

  28. Social Policy and Socialization • Bilingualism • The Setting • Languages know no political boundaries • Minority languages common in many nations • Schools throughout the world deal with incoming students speaking many languages

  29. Social Policy and Socialization • Bilingualism • Sociological Insights • For a long time, people in the United States demanded conformity to a single language • Challenges to this forced obedience to our dominant ideology

  30. Social Policy and Socialization • Bilingualism • Policy Initiatives • Bilingualism has policy implications in efforts to maintain language purity and programs to enhance bilingual education • Nations vary dramatically in tolerance for a variety of languages

  31. Social Policy and Socialization Figure 3-3. States with Official English Laws Source: U.S. English 2005

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