Introduction to Sociology

Introduction to Sociology Chapters 3 and 4

Competencies and Methodologies • Main Competencies Covered • 2. Analyze the importance of cultures within societies. • Methodologies • Lecture, Large Group Discussion, Interaction

Culture The values, beliefs, behavior, and material objects that together form a people’s way of life

Terminology • Nonmaterial culture • The intangible world of ideas created by members of a society • Material culture • The tangible things created by members of a society

Terminology • Culture shock • Disorientation due to the inability to make sense out of one’s surroundings • Domestic and foreign travel • Ethnocentrism • A biased “cultural yardstick” • Cultural relativism • More accurate understanding

Have you ever experienced culture shock?

An example of ethnocentrism…. “Natives who beat drums to drive off evil spirits are objects of scorn to smart Americans who blow horns to break up traffic jams.” -Mary Ellen Kelly

Elements of Culture • Symbols • Language • Values and Belief • Norms • Material Culture • Including technology

Symbols • Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture • Societies create new symbols all the time. • Reality for humans is found in the meaning things carry with them. • The basis of culture; makes social life possible

Symbols • People must be mindful that meanings vary from culture to culture. • Meanings can even vary greatly within the same groups of people. • Fur coats, Confederate flags, etc.

Figure 3.1Human Languages: A Variety of SymbolsHere the English word “read” is written in twelve of the hundreds of languages humans use to communicate with each other.

Language • A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another • Cultural transmission • The process by which one generation passes culture to the next • Sapir-Whorf thesis • People perceive the world through the cultural lens of language.

Global Map 3.1aLanguage in Global Perspective–ChineseChinese (including Mandarin, Cantonese, and dozens of other dialects) is the native tongue of one-fifth of the world’s people, almost all of whom live in Asia. Although all Chinese people read and write with the same characters, they use several dozen dialects. The “official” dialect, taught in schools throughout the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of Taiwan, is Mandarin (the dialect of Beijing, China’s historical capital city). Cantonese, the language of Canton, is the second most common Chinese dialect.

Global Map 3.1bLanguage in Global Perspective–EnglishEnglish is the native tongue or official language in several world regions (spoken by one-tenth of humanity) and has become the preferred second language in most of the world.

Global Map 3.1cLanguage in Global Perspective–SpanishThe largest concentration of Spanish speakers is in Latin America and, or course, Spain. Spanish is also the second most widely spoken language in the United States.

Values and Beliefs • Values • Culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness, and beauty, which serve as broad guidelines for social living. Values support beliefs. • Beliefs • Specific statements that people hold to be true. • Particular matters that individuals consider to be true or false.

Sociologist Robin Williams’ Ten Values That Are Central to American Life • Equal opportunity • Achievement and success • Material comfort • Activity and work • Practicality and efficiency • Progress • Science • Democracy and free enterprise • Freedom • Racism and group superiority Are some of these values inconsistent with one another?

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.

Customs and Courtesies • Greetings • Visiting • Eating • Gestures

The People • General Attitudes • Personal Appearance • Population • Language • Religion

Lifestyle • Family • Dating and Marriage • Diet • Business • Recreation

Robert Bellah Cultures are dramatic conversations about things that matter to their participants.

A 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.

Figure 3.2Cultural Values of Selected CountriesHigher-income countries are secular-rational and favor self-expression. The cultures of lower-income countries are more traditional and concerned with economic survival.Source: Modernization, Cultural Change and Democracy by Ronald Inglehart and Christian Weizel, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Norms • Rules and expectations by which society guides its members’ behavior • Types • Proscriptive • Should-nots, prohibited • Prescriptive • Shoulds, prescribed like medicine

Norms - Types • Mores and Folkways • Mores (pronounced "more-rays") • Widely observed and have great moral significance • Folkways • Norms for routine and casual interaction

Social Control Various means by which members of society encourage conformity to norms • Guilt • A negative judgment we make about ourselves • Shame • The painful sense that others disapprove of our actions

Material Culture and Technology • Culture includes a wide range of physical human creations or artifacts. • A society's artifacts partly reflect underlying cultural values. • In addition to reflecting values, material culture also reflects a society's technology or knowledge that people use to make a way of life in their surroundings.

Ideal Versus Real Culture • Ideal culture • The way things should be • Social patterns mandated by values and norms • Real culture • They way things actually occur in everyday life • Social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations

Cultural Diversity • High culture–Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite. • Popular culture–Cultural patterns that are widespread among society’s population. • Subculture–Cultural patterns that set apart some segment of society’s population. • Counterculture–Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society.

National Map 3.1Language Diversity across the United States

Multiculturalism An educational program recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting the equality of all cultural traditions. • Eurocentrism–The dominance of European (especially English) cultural patterns • Afrocentrism–The dominance of African cultural patterns

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

Life Objectives of First-Year College Students, 1969-2008

Culture Changes in Three Ways • 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

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism • Ethnocentrism • The practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture • Cultural relativism • The practice of judging a culture by its own standards

Figure 3.4The View from “Down Under”North America should be “up” and South America “down,” or so we think. But because we live on a globe, “up” and “down” have no meaning at all. The reason this map of the Western Hemisphere looks wrong to us is not that it is geographically inaccurate; it simply violates our ethnocentric assumption that the United States should be “above” the rest of the Americas.

Is There a Global Culture? • The Basic Thesis • The flow of goods–Material product trading has never been as important. • The flow of information–Few, if any, places are left where worldwide communication isn’t possible. • The flow of people–Knowledge means people learn about places where they feel life might be better. • Limitations to the thesis • All the flows have been uneven. • Assumes affordability of goods • People don’t attach the same meaning to material goods.

Theoretical Analysis of Culture • Structural-functional • Culture is a complex strategy for meeting human needs. • Cultural universals–Traits that are part of every known culture; includes family, funeral rites, and jokes • Critical evaluation • Ignores cultural diversity and downplays importance of change

Inequality and Culture • Social-conflict • Cultural traits benefit some members at the expense of others. • Approach rooted in Karl Marx and materialism; society’s system of material production has a powerful effect on the rest of a culture. • Critical evaluation • Understates the ways cultural patterns integrate members into society

Evolution and Culture • Sociobiology • A theoretical paradigm that explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture. • Approach rooted in Charles Darwin and evolution; living organisms change over long periods of time based on natural selection. • Critical evaluation • Might be used to support racism or sexism • Little evidence to support theory; people learn behavior within a cultural system

Culture and Human Freedom • Culture as constraint • We only know our world in terms of our culture. • Culture as freedom • Culture is changing and offers a variety of opportunities. • Sociologists share the goal of learning more about cultural diversity.

Applying Theory: Culture

Finley Peter Dunne “To most people a savage nation is one that wears comfortable clothes.”

Society People who interact in a defined territory and share culture

Edmund Burke “Society is indeed a contract between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born.”

Visions of Society • Gerhard Lenski • Society and technology • Karl Marx • Society in conflict • Max Weber • The power of ideas shapes society • Emile Durkheim • How traditional and modern societies hang together

Gerhard Lenski • Sociocultural evolution–The changes that occur as a society gains new technology • Societies range from simple to the technologically complex. • Societies simple in technology tend to resemble one another. • More technologically complex societies reveal striking cultural diversity.

Sociocultural Evolution • Technology shapes other cultural patterns. Simple technology can only support small numbers of people who live simple lives. • The greater amount of technology a society has within its grasp, the faster cultural change will take place. • High-tech societies are capable of sustaining large numbers of people who are engaged in a diverse division of labor.

Lenski’s Five Types Of Societies • Hunting and gathering • The use of simple tools to hunt animals and gather vegetation • Horticultural and pastoral • Horticulture–The use of hand tools to raise crops • Pastoralism–The domestication of animals

Introduction to Sociology