Sociology SIXTEENTH EDITION Chapter 3 Culture Copyright 2017

Sociology SIXTEENTH EDITION Chapter 3 Culture Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Learning Objectives (1 of 2) 3. 1 Explain the development of culture as a human strategy for survival. 3. 2 Identify common elements of culture. 3. 3 Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Learning Objectives (2 of 2) 3. 4 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding of culture. 3. 5 Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Culture is… (1 of 2) • Society's entire way of life Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Culture is… (2 of 2) • No particular way of life is natural to humanity, even though most people around the world view their own behavior that way. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Culture Shock • Culture shock – Disorientation due to inability to make sense out of unfamiliar way of life – Often occurs with domestic and foreign travel • Yąnomamὃ live in villages scattered along the border of Venezuela and Brazil. Their way of life could not be more different from our own. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Kinds of Culture: What Is…? • Cultural Relativism – More accurate understanding Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Descriptive Statistics: What Is…? • Nonmaterial culture – The intangible world of ideas created by members of a society • Material culture – Tangible things created by members of society Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Culture Differences • All societies contain cultural differences that can provoke a mild case of culture shock. • This woman traveling on a British subway is not sure what to make of the woman sitting next to her, who is wearing the Muslim full-face veil known as the niqab. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Elements of Culture: Symbols • Humans transform elements of the world into symbols. – Symbols are 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. – Meanings vary within and between cultures. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Seeing Sociology in Contemporary Everyday Life • About 88 percent of U. S. adults own cell phones and three-quarters of them use mobile textmessaging on a regular basis. • Cell phone owners between eighteen and twentyfour years of age typically send or receive more than 100 messages a day (Pew Research Center, 2011). • What does the creation of symbols such as those listed here suggest about culture? Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Elements of Culture: Language (1 of 2) • Language is a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another. – Cultural transmission – Sapir-Whorf thesis • Here the English word “read” is written in twelve of the thousands of languages humans use to communicate with one another. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Elements of Culture: Language (2 of 2) • Chinese (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 capital). Cantonese, the language of Canton, is the second most common Chinese dialect; it differs in sound from Mandarin roughly the way French differs from Spanish. • English is the native tongue or official language in several world regions (spoken by 5 percent of humanity) and has become the preferred second language in the world. • The largest concentration of Spanish speakers is in Latin America and, of course, Spain. Spanish is alsothe second most widely spoken language in the United States. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Descriptive Statistics: What Is…? • Values – Broad guidelines for social living; values support beliefs; culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness, and beauty • Beliefs – Specific statements people hold to be true – Matters individuals consider to be true or false Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Sociologist Robin Williams' Ten Values 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 How does the popularity of the television show American Idol illustrate many of the key values of U. S. culture listed here? Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Values Sometimes Conflict • Sometimes one key cultural value contradicts another. – Value conflict causes strain. – Values change over time. • Cultures have their own values. – Lower-income nations have cultures that value survival. – Higher-income countries have cultures that value individualism and self-expression. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Norms • Norms – Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members • Mores – Widely observed and have great moral significance • Folkways – Norms for routine and casual interaction Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Descriptive Statistics: What Is…? • Guilt – A negative judgment we make about ourselves • Shame – The painful sense that others disapprove of our actions Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Culture: What Is…? • deal culture – Way things should be – Social patterns mandated by values and norms • Real culture – Way things actually occur in everyday life – Social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Material Culture and Technology • Material culture – Includes a wide range of physical human creations or artifacts – Contains artifacts that partly reflect underlying cultural values – Reflects a society's technology or knowledge used to make a way of life in particular surroundings Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Values and Standards of Beauty • Standards of beauty—including the color and design of everyday surroundings—vary significantly from one culture to another. • This Ndebele couple in South Africa dresses in the same bright colors they use to decorate their home. • Members of North American and European societies, by contrast, make far less use of bright colors and intricate detail, so their housing and clothing appear much more subdued. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Cultural Diversity: Many Ways of Life in One World • Many cultural patterns are readily available to only some members of society. – High culture: Cultural patterns that distinguish a society's elite – Popular culture: Cultural patterns that are widespread among society's population Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Cultural Diversity: Subcultures (1 of 3) • Subcultures involve difference and hierachy – Subculture § Cultural patterns that set apart some segment of society's population – Counterculture § Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Cultural Diversity: Subcultures (2 of 3) • Reality television is based on popular culture rather than high culture. • Here Comes Honey Boo follows seven-yearold Alana Honey Boo Thompson and her parents, who live in rural Georgia. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Cultural Diversity: Multiculturalism • Multiculturalism – Recognizes the cultural diversity of the U. S. – Promotes the equality of all cultural traditions – Eurocentrism: Dominance of European cultural patterns – Afrocentrism: Dominance of African cultural patterns Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

National Map: Language Diversity across the United States Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Cultural Diversity: Subcultures (3 of 3) • Perhaps the most basic human truth of this world is that “all things shall pass. ” Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Cultural Change • Cultural integration – Close relationships among various elements of a cultural system • Culture lag (Ogburn 1964) – Uneven change of cultural elements that may disrupt a cultural system Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Life Objectives of First-Year College Students, 1969 and 2012 Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Culture Changes in Three Ways • Invention – Creating new cultural elements – Telephone or airplane • Discovery – Recognizing and better understanding something already existing – X-rays or DNA • Diffusion – Spread of cultural traits – Jazz music or much of the English language Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism • Ethnocentrism – Practice of judging another culture by the standards of one's own culture • Cultural relativism – Practice of judging a culture by its own standards Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Ethnocentric or not? • In the world's low-income countries, most children must work to provide their families with needed income. • Is it ethnocentric for people living in high-income nations to condemn the practice of child labor? Why or why not? • This young boy works long hours carrying firewood in Laos. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Is There a Global Culture? (1 of 2) • The Basic Thesis – The flow of goods: Material product trading has never been as important. – The flow of information: Few places left where worldwide communication is not possible – Flow of people: Knowledge means people learn about places where life might be better Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Is There a Global Culture? (2 of 2) • Limitations to the global culture thesis – All the flows have been uneven. – Premise assumes affordability of goods. – People do not attach the same meaning to material goods. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Functions of Culture: Structural. Functional Theory (1 of 2) • Structural-functional – Culture is a strategy for meeting human needs. – Values are core of a culture. – Every culture has cultural universals. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Functions of Culture: Structural. Functional Theory (2 of 2) • Evaluation – Cultural diversity is ignored. – Importance of change is downplayed. • From a structural-functional point of view, we might ask if this universal character reflects the fact that families carry out important tasks not easily accomplished in other ways. What tasks do families perform? Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Inequality and Culture: Social-Conflict Theory • Social-conflict – Cultural traits benefit some members at the expense of others. – Cultural values of competitiveness and material success are tied to our country’s capitalist economy. • Evaluation – Understates the ways cultural patterns integrate members into society. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Evolution and Culture (1 of 2) • Sociobiology – Theoretical paradigm – Exploration of ways in which human biology affects how we create culture – Approach rooted in Charles Darwin and evolution – Contends living organisms change over long periods of time based on natural selection Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Evolution and Culture (2 of 2) • Evaluation – Might be used to support racism or sexism – Little evidence to support theory – People learn behavior within a cultural system Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Culture and Human Freedom • To what extent are human beings, as cultural creatures, free? – Culture as constraint § We 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. Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Applying Theory Culture Structural-Functional Approach Social-Conflict and Feminist Theories Sociobiology Theory What is the level of analysis? Macro-level Micro-level What is culture? Culture is a system of behavior by which members of societies cooperate to meet their needs. Culture is a system that benefits some people and disadvantages others. Culture is a system of behavior that is partly shaped by human biology. What is the foundation of culture? Cultural patterns are rooted in Marx claimed that cultural Cultural patterns are rooted in a society’s core values and patterns are rooted in a humanity’s biological beliefs. society’s system of economic evolution. production. Feminist theory says cultural conflict is rooted in gender. What core questions How does a cultural pattern does the approach ask? help society operate? What cultural patterns are found in all societies? How does a cultural pattern benefit some people and harm others? How does a cultural pattern support social inequality? Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved How does a cultural pattern help a species adapt to its environment?