Culture & Social Structure

1. Culture & Social Structure Chapter 2 Sociology 10 Spring 2013

2. Chap 2 Discussion Outline • Components of Culture • Cultural Unity and Diversity • Social Structure

3. What is Culture? What identifies culture? • Society? • Is our classroom a society? Does it have it’s own culture?

4. Culture and Society • Culture • Learned patterns • Customs, meanings, interpretations • Society: group of people who live within the same territory and share a common culture • Networks of social relations

5. Types of Culture • Material vs. Non-material? What are the material and nonmaterial cultures of …? • Football • Eating in a restaurant • Fraternities

6. Components of Culture • Norms: Social Rules • Social Expectations • “Should”, “ought”, and “must” (Not?)=Social Control • Sex, Property, and Safety • Are norms subjective or objective features of society?

7. Components: Types of norms • Folkways • Mores • Laws • How are these types of norms enforced in society?

8. Components • Values: broad ideas regarding what is desirable, correct, and good that most members of a society share • How we evaluate and make important choices in the social world and culture in which we live • Can values change overtime? • What are some American values? • Beauty?

9. Components • Symbols • Different forms • Gestures • Language • The linguistic relativity hypothesis

10. Cultural Unity and Diversity • Are there aspects of life that appear in all known societies? • Can you think of any values, beliefs, and aspects of American culture that are contradictory? • I.e.: Historical example-A founding American belief in “human equality” and the practice of slavery

11. Cultural Unity and Diversity • Ethnocentrism • Is it functional? • Cultural Relativism • Value free and neutral • Which Founding father?

12. Cultural Unity and Diversity • Subcultures and Countercultures

13. Social Structure • Socialstructure: interweaving of people’s interactions and relationships in more or less recurrent, stable patterns • Provides organized and focused quality to group experiences and members to achieve collective purposes

14. Social Structure • Status:a position within group or society • Ascribedstatus: assigned by group or society • Achievedstatus: secured on basis of individual choice and competition • Masterstatus: core status that carries primary weight in person’s interactions and relationships with others

15. Race Class, And Gender • Pat Hill Collins • The Matrix of Domination

16. Social Structure • Roles: sets of culturally defined rights and duties • Role performance: actual behavior of the person who occupies a status • Roleset: multiple roles attached to a single status • Duties: actions others can legitimately insist we perform • Rights: actions we can legitimately insist others perform • Role Conflict and Role Strain

17. Social Structure • Institutions: principal social structure that organizes, directs, and executes essential tasks of living • Examples: family, economy, religion • Encompasses cultural patterns and social structure

18. Social Structure • Society: group of people who live in same territory and share a common culture • Classification scheme by livelihood • Hunting/gathering • Horticultural • Agrarian • Industrial • Postindustrial