Understanding Culture: The Foundation of Society and Identity

1. Culture • The knowledge, language, values, customs, and material objects that are passed from person to person and from one generation to the next in a human group or society

2. Reflection • Why is culture important?

3. Material World • Material Culture • The physical or tangible (see, touch) that members of a society make, use, and share • Raw Materials → Technology → Stuff • Non-Material Culture • The abstract or intangible human creations of society that influences people’s behavior • Language, beliefs, values, rules of behavior, family patterns, political systems

4. Cultural Universals • Customs and practices that occur across all societies

5. Components of Culture • Symbols • Anything that meaningfully represents something else • Language • A set of symbols that expresses ideas and enable people to think and communicate with one another • Values • Collective ideas about what is right or wrong, good or bad, and desirable or undesirable in a particular culture • Norms • Established rules of behavior or standards of conduct

6. Come Up with Your Own • With a partner, generate a list of the following components of culture • Symbols • Language • Values • Norms

7. Terms of culture • Culture shock • Disorientation due to the inability to make sense out of one’s surroundings • Domestic and foreign travel • Cultural relativism • More accurate understanding, find meaning of what we need to know

8. Essential to American life? Williams list: • Equal opportunity • Achievement and success • Material comfort • Activity and work • Practicality and efficiency • Progress • Science • Democracy and free enterprise • Freedom • Racism and group superiority Do any of these contradict the other?

9. Values sometimes conflict! • Williams's list includes examples of value clusters. • Sometimes one key cultural value contradicts another. • Value conflict causes strain. • Values change over time. • Examples of this today?

10. Global perspective • Cultures have their own values. • Lower-income nations have cultures that value survival. • Higher-income countries have cultures that value individualism and self-expression. • Agree? Disagree?

11. Norms: • Types • Proscriptive • Should-nots, prohibited • Prescriptive • Shoulds, prescribed like medicine • Mores and Folkways • Mores (pronounced "more-rays") • Widely observed and have great moral significance • Folkways • Norms for routine and causal interaction

12. 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

13. Things change, heres how: • Invention–Creating new cultural elements • Telephone or airplane • Discovery–Recognizing and better understanding of something already in existence • X-rays or DNA • Diffusion–The spread of cultural traits from one society to another • Jazz music or much of the English language

14. Building blocks • Culture is a set of values, norms, and behaviors shared by a social group. • Values are those ideals that a society holds above all others (e.g., honesty, honor). • These values are the building blocks of norms, which are basic rules of social conduct.

15. Think of it this way: • Culture encapsulates the way of life of a social group. • Culture can be described as a “toolkit” from which we can choose the appropriate tools—values, norms, practices—for any social situation. • Key point: culture is learned, not instinctual or inherited.

16. Cultural Variation • Culture varies both across and within societies. • What is important and seemingly “normal” in one society may not be in another. • Even within a society, the dominant values and norms change over time.

17. Society? Culture builds it: • Societies are systems of relationships between people. • Societies consist of members that share some sense of common identity and be small (like a family) or large (like a nation-state). • Shared culture is important in holding a society together by defining its purpose. • Defines past, present and future. We understand what this all looks like.

18. We Conform……… • Societies need a significant degree of conformity to function smoothly. • Members learn norms through the process of socialization. • Because people accept the norms and values of their societies as natural, they largely conform. • Those who do not conform are subject to measures of social control. They are not in the larger acceptance of society.

19. You are exceptional… • Culture versus instinct • The ability to reason, to think in the abstract, allowed for the development of culture. • What do I mean by abstract? Why is this essential? • This causes the development of complex systems of communication and future-oriented thought and planning. • Complex thinking also makes us innovators. Humans. Why is this important? What does it do?

20. No, you did not build this  • Sociologists today largely agree that the social environment interacts with biology. • Even so, sociology, psychology, anthropology along with others all strongly resist the idea that genetics predetermine an individual’s social life and potentialities. • So……. arguments for it? Against it?

21. A little more • Sociologists now study how nature and nurture interact to produce particular behaviors. • The interest in nurture has led to an ongoing focus on the importance of socialization. • Examining cultural variation offers evidence of the role of the social in explaining human behaviors and values.

22. Diversity • Studying diversity is very important for sociologists; comparative research is common. What s comparative research? • Things to be aware of: • Ethnocentrism—viewing one’s own culture as normal and, oftentimes, superior or defining • Cultural relativism—judging other cultures based on their own norms and standards • Good or bad….needed?

23. More diversity • Diversity within societies is also important. • There are the obvious kinds of social groups (e.g. race, gender, religion) that constitute a society, but there are also subcultures. • A subculture is a group whose norms and values differ from those of the “mainstream.”

24. Diversity and how it affects us • In diverse societies like the United States, studies of assimilation and multiculturalism are common. • These studies attempt to understand how diverse societies (and the individuals in them) can best function. • Globalization has led to increased diversity in most countries.

25. How many of the following words or phrases can you identify? The United States is a melting pot, where many cultures live side- by- side. Americans often share in the cuisines, music, holiday traditions, and even language of cultures that are very different from their own family heritages. Yet even within a single ethnic or religious subculture, further subcultures exist, such as generational subcultures— where people born in the 1990s experience culture in very different ways than their parents or grandparents.

26. bhangra: A type of music and dance that originated in the Punjab region of India, especially among Sikhs. American music fans may recognize bhangra melodies and rhythms from hip- hop artists including Beyonce and Beenie Man. • bocce: Bocce is a sport similar to bowling, although it takes place outside— usually on one’s lawn or on a court made of stones or shells. The sport originated in Italy, and literally means “bowls.” • acupuncture: A form of Chinese medicine that has grown in popularity in the United States over the past decade. It involves inserting fine needles into specific points on the body to relieve pain. • futon: A thick mattress with a cloth cover, used for sleeping. Although futons are common in college dorm rooms, they originated as beds in Japan.

27. tah deeg: A much- sought- after delicacy in Persian cooking; it is the crispy layer of browned rice at the bottom of a pan of cooked rice. • pierogi: A boiled dumpling of unleavened dough stuffed with ingredients such as potatos or cheese. Pierogis can be found at American grocery stores, but originally are from eastern European nations such as Poland. • jumping the broom: A common custom at African American wedding ceremonies. The bride and groom end their ceremony by jumping together or separately over a broom that is lying in front of the altar. • chuppah: A canopy traditionally used in Jewish weddings. It symbolizes the home the couple will build together. • ushanka: A fur cap with ear flaps that can be tied under the chin to protect the ears from the cold. The ushanka originates from Russia.

28. sarape: A colorful shawl or poncho worn in Mexico. • djembe: A large drum from West Africa. Djembe literally means “everyone gather together.” American popular musicians Ben Harper, Paul Simon, and the Grateful Dead have added the djembe to their percussion lines. • sitar: A long- necked stringed instrument that is plucked. It is used primarily in music from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. Sitar music was widely introduced to the Western world when Ravi Shankar performed with the Beatles in the 1960s.

29. LP: a long- playing record, also known as a 33 1/3 rpm vinyl record. In the 1960s through the mid 1980s, this is how most people listened to recorded music. The LP has since given way to CDs and downloaded music stored in iPods. • kaffeeklatsch: An informal gathering of friends to drink coffee and chat, like on the television show Friends. This is a German word, although the idea is very familiar to Americans. • getting pinned. In the 1940s and 1950s, when a dating couple decided they wanted to be “exclusive,” the boy would present the girl with a “pin”— typically earned for his athletic or academic achievements.

30. What do you think you know about what you think you know? • What does culture do for you, right now? • How does it impact you? Think past, present, future. • How has your socialization lead to your culture?