Cultural Variation, Subcultures, and Countercultures

1. Cultural Variation, Subcultures, and Countercultures Dr. Urban

2. Arts and Leisure • Athletic sports, dancing, decorative art, games, music • Basic Needs • Clothing, cooking, housing • Beliefs • Folklore, funeral rites, religious ritual • Communication & Education • Education, language • Family • Kinship, marriage • Government & Economy • Division of labor, law, rights, trade, calendar • Technology • Medicine, tools Cultural Universals

3. Cultural diversity, pluralism, and multiculturalism • Subcultures – groups whose values and related behaviors are so distinct that they set their members off from the general culture. • 1,000s of subcultures in U.S. • Examples - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_subcultures • Countercultures – groups whose values set their members in opposition to dominant culture. • Challenge dominant culture’s core values Cultural Variation

4. Ethnocentrism – tendency to view one’s own culture and group as superior. • Leads to discrimination, cultural stagnation • Cultural Relativism – belief that cultures should be judged by their own standards rather than by applying the standards of another culture. • Understand cultural practices from points of view of members of a particular society. • But, cultural practices that result in exploitation should be judged as morally inferior Responses to Cultural Variation

5. Cultural Diffusion – spreading of cultural traits from one society to another • Cultural Lag – time between cultural change, when ideas and beliefs are adapting to new material conditions. • Material culture changes more readily than nonmaterial culture • Cultural Leveling – process in which cultures become more and more alike • E.g., McDonald’s, Starbucks, NY Yankees, etc. Cultural Change