Chapter 3

CULTURE
Learning Objectives

• LO 3.1 Explain the development of culture as a

human strategy for survival.
• LO 3.2 Identify common elements of culture.
• LO 3.3 Discuss dimensions of cultural difference
and cultural change.
• LO 3.4 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to
gain greater understanding of culture.
• LO 3.5 Critique culture as limiting or expanding
human freedom.
 Culture is…

Society's entire way of life

LO 3.1 Explain the development of culture

as a human strategy for survival.
Terminology

• Culture shock
– Disorientation due to the inability to make
sense out of unfamiliar way of life

– May occur in domestic and foreign travel

Terminology

• Nonmaterial culture
– The intangible world of ideas created by members of
a society

• Material culture
– Tangible things created by members of society

• Cultural relativism
– More accurate understanding
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.

LO 3.2 Identify common elements of culture.

Seeing Sociology in Contemporary
Everyday Life
• Today, 88 percent of U.S. adults own cell phones and
three-quarters of them use mobile text-messaging on a
regular basis.

• Cell phone owners between eighteen and twenty-four

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?
Elements of Culture: Language

• Language is a system of symbols that allows

people to communicate with one another.

• Cultural transmission
– One generation passes culture to the next

• Sapir-Whorf thesis
– People perceive the world through the cultural
lens of language
Values and Beliefs

• 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
Sociologist Robin Williams' Ten Values
Central to American Life
1. Equal opportunity
2. Achievement and success
3. Material comfort
4. Activity and work
5. Practicality and efficiency
Sociologist Robin Williams' Ten Values
Central to American Life
6. Progress
7. Science
8. Democracy and free enterprise
9. Freedom
10.Racism and group superiority
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.
Norms

• Norms
– Rules and expectations by which a society
guides the behavior of its members.

• Mores and Folkways

– Mores
• Widely observed and have great moral significance
– Folkways
• Norms for routine and casual interaction
Social Control

• Guilt
– A negative judgment we make about
ourselves

• Shame
– The painful sense that others disapprove of
our actions
Ideal versus Real Culture

• Ideal 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
Material Culture and Technology

• Culture includes a wide range of physical

human creations or artifacts.

• A society's artifacts partly reflect underlying

cultural 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: 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

LO 3.3 Discuss dimensions of cultural difference and cultural change

Cultural Diversity: Subcultures

Subcultures involve difference and

hierarchy.
•Subculture
– Cultural patterns that set apart some segment
of society's population

•Counterculture
– Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those
widely accepted within a society
Cultural Diversity: Multiculturalism

• Recognizes the cultural diversity of the

United States

• Promotes the equality of all cultural traditions

– Eurocentrism: Dominance of European
cultural patterns
– Afrocentrism: Dominance of African cultural
patterns
Perhaps the most basic human truth of this
world is that “all things shall pass.”
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
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: Spreading of cultural traits

– Jazz music or much of the English language
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
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 because we think youngsters belong
in school?

Why or why not?

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 places left

where worldwide communication is not
possible.

– Flow of people: Knowledge means people

learn about places where life might be better.
Is There a Global Culture?

• 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.
 Functions of Culture: Structural-Functional
Theory
• Structural-functional
– Culture is a strategy for meeting human
needs.
– Values are core of a culture.
– Every culture has cultural universals.

LO 3.4 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding

of culture.
 Functions of Culture: Structural-Functional
Theory
• Evaluate
– Cultural diversity is ignored.
– Importance of change is downplayed.

LO 3.4 Apply sociology's macro-level theories to gain greater understanding

of culture.
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.
Inequality and Culture: Social-Conflict
Theory
• Critical evaluation
– Understates the ways cultural patterns
integrate members into society
Evolution and Culture

• Sociobiology
– Theoretical paradigm

– Explores ways in which human biology affects how

we create culture

– Is rooted in Charles Darwin and evolution

– Proposes living organisms change over long periods

of time based on natural selection
Evolution and Culture

• 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

To what extent are human beings, as

cultural creatures, free?
•Culture as constraint
– We know our world in terms of our culture

LO 3.5 Critique culture as limiting or expanding human freedom.

Culture and Human Freedom

To what extent are human beings, as

cultural creatures, free?
•Culture as freedom
– Culture is changing and offers a variety of
opportunities.
– Sociologists share the goal of learning more
about cultural diversity.