School

Chapter 3: Culture
____________: The values, beliefs, behavior, and material objects that together form a people’s way of life
Terminology
* ____________: The intangible world of ideas created by members of a society * ____________: The tangible things created by members of a society * ____________: Disorientation due to the inability to make sense out of one’s 
surroundings; domestic and foreign travel * ____________: A biased “cultural yardstick” * ____________: More accurate understanding 
Symbols * Anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture * ____________ create new symbols all the time. * Reality for humans is found in the ____________ things carry with them. * The basis of culture; makes social life possible * People must be mindful that meanings vary from ____________ * Meanings can even vary greatly within the same groups of people. 
Language: A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another * ____________: The process by which one generation passes culture to the next * _sapir whorf thesis___________: People perceive the world through the cultural lens of language. 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; artpicular matters that individuals consider to be true or false.

Sullivan 1
Sociologist Robin Williams’ Ten Values That are Central to American Life
Equal opportunity
Achievement and success
Material and comfort
Progress
Science
Freedom
Are some of these values inconsistent with one another? Values sometimes conflict * Williams’ list includes examples of value clusters * Sometimes one key cultural value contradicts another * Value conflict causes ____________ * Values ____________ over time 
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 
____norms________: Rules and expectations by which society guides its members’ behavior Types * _____proscriptive_______: Should-nots, prohibited * ______prescriptive______: Shoulds, prescribed like medicine
Mores and Folkways * ______mores______: 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 
Ideal versus Real Culture
__ideal culture__________: The way things should be; social patterns mandated by values and norms
Sullivan 2
___real culture________: They way things actually occur in everyday life; social patterns that only approximate cultural expectations
Material culture and technology * ____cultue________ 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. 
Cultural diversity * ____high cultue________: 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. * _____conterculture_______: Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a 
society. multiculturalism 
____________: An educational program recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting the equality of all cultural traditions * ____________: The dominance of European (especially English) cultural patterns * ____________: The dominance of African cultural patterns 
Interdependence * ___culture integration_________: The close relationships among various elements of a cultural system 
Example: * ____________: The fact that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, which might disrupt a cultural system 
Example: 
Culture changes in three ways
Sullivan 3 * 1) __invention__________: Creating new cultural elements Example: * 2) ____discovery________: Recognizing and better understanding of something already in existence Example: * 3) _____diffusion_______: The spread of cultural traits from one society to another Example:
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 
Is there a Global Culture? The Basic Thesis * ___the flow of goods_________: Material product trading has never been as important. * ____flow of information________: Few, if any, places are left where worldwide communication isn’t 
possible. * _______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 ____cultural 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

Sullivan 4
____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 evaulation_________:
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. 
___________: * Might be used to support racism or sexism * Little evidence to support theory; people learn behavior within a cultural system 
Culture and Human Freedom
___constraint_________: We only know our world in terms of our culture. 
_Freedom___________: Culture is changing and offers a variety of opportunities; sociologists share the goal of learning more about cultural diversity.