2. A Definition of Culture
• Culture encompasses the ideas, values,
and material objects that allow a group,
even an entire society, to carry out their
collective lives in relative order and
harmony.
• Culture is relative to time, place, actor,
audience, and historical moment.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
3. Culture
• Culture (and culture change) reaffirms
rules governing behavior and establishes
the boundaries of a group who shares that
culture.
• All groups have culture, although what
culture consists of is highly variable.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
4. The Basic Elements of Culture:
Values
• Values are the general and abstract
standards defining what a group or society
considers good, right, just, and proper –
and, by definition, what is considered bad,
wrong, unjust, and improper.
• Values are the broadest elements of
culture.
• Values express a society’s ideals
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
5. The Basic Elements of Culture:
Norms
• Norms are rules that guide what people do
and how they live; they are the blueprint
for behavior that is culturally shared
• Norms tell people what to do and not do in
specific situations
• People do not follow all norms in all
situations – weak norms tend to be
ignored or only loosely followed
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
6. The Basic Elements of Culture:
Norms
• Norms are reinforced through sanctions,
which can be positive (rewards) or
negative (punishments).
• Folkways: norms that are relatively
unimportant and carry few sanctions
• Mores: important norms whose violation is
met with a severe negative sanction
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
7. The Basic Elements of Culture:
Material Culture
• Encompasses the artifacts that are
reflections or physical manifestations of
culture
• Includes clothes, homes, technology, toys,
and even weapons
• Culture shapes these objects.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
8. The Basic Elements of Culture:
Symbolic Culture and Language
• Symbolic culture refers to the non-
material aspects of culture.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWFPHW7BCCI
• Two key forms are values and norms.
• Language – a set of meaningful symbols
that facilitates communication - is an
important aspect of symbolic culture that
allows for the storage, sharing, and
development of culture.
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cczqav35aHECopyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
9. Cultural Differences: Ideal and Real
Culture
• Ideal culture: what the norms and values
of society lead us to think people should
believe and do
• Real culture: what people actually think
and do in their everyday lives
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
10. Cultural Differences: Ideology
• Ideology: set of shared beliefs that
explains the social world and guides
people’s actions
• A dominant ideology is one upon which
many people act. A dominant form of
American ideology is the belief in
meritocracy
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
11. Cultural Differences:
Subcultures
• Subculture: a group of people who accept
much of the dominant culture, but are set
apart from it by one or more culturally
significant characteristic.
• Subcultures can be grouped by interest,
entertainment, fashion, vocabulary, or
lifestyle.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
12. Cultural Differences:
Countercultures
• Counterculture: a group of people who
are set apart from the dominant culture
and their norms and values are
incompatible with it. Their actions may be
in direct opposition to those of the
dominant culture.
• Examples include the KKK, hippies, antiwar
activists, and computer hackers
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdECFRlPJCY
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
13. Cultural Differences: Culture Wars
• A conflict between a subculture or
counterculture and the dominant culture
• Can also refer to conflicts between
dominant groups who differ on ideology
• Contemporary conflicts in Congress between
conservatives and liberals
• Culture wars sometimes lead to the
disruption of the social, economic, and
political status quo.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
14. Multiculturalism and Assimilation
Multiculturalism: an environment in which
cultural differences are accepted and
appreciated by the majority dominant group
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSme8fqcDAY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7r7FU8z0ks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Nz52uYcGJs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmpjbac-IZ4
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
15. Multiculturalism and Assimilation
• Assimilation: a form of adaptation to dominant
culture by minority and subordinate groups.
• Can be forced (the Indian Education Act) or
semi-voluntary (an immigrant family changing
their last name upon entering a new country).
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T8HxKzKSOA
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1tiQB8gt5g
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwh3chWX5qM
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwAUL4Hu_9U
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
16. Cultural Differences: Identity Politics
• Identity politics: refers to any group’s use
of power to strengthen their social
position.
• Often involves tactics used by the minority
group when the dominant group is
unwilling to accept them
• Examples include the contemporary conflict
over same-sex marriage
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
17. Emerging Issues in Culture: Global
Culture
• Globalization has led to a greater
acceptance of shared values around the
world.
• Cultural Imperialism: the idea that what
affects global culture the most is the
imposition of one dominant culture on
other cultures. Cultural imperialism can
devastate local cultures, particularly
indigenous cultures.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
18. Emerging Issues in Culture:
Global Culture
• Americanization: the importation of a
variety of cultural elements that are closely
associated with American culture
• Cultural hybrids: the integration of different
cultural elements into a single local culture
• Example: sitting in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
eating green chili sushi, while listening to
reggae music with your student colleague
from Mali.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
19. Emerging Issues in Culture:
Consumer Culture
• Consumer culture: a culture in which the core
ideas and material objects relate to consumption
and in which consumption is a primary source of
meaning in life.
• The meaning of “things” - and the people who consume
those things - is found in which goods and services are
purchased and in the social aspects of consumption.
• While it can be said that consumer culture is the
culture of the West and modernity, it has been
globalized to a great degree.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
20. Emerging Issues in Culture:
Consumer Culture
• Children in a consumer culture is perhaps the
most controversial aspect of consumer
culture.
• It is the idea that children are highly valued
consumers, and are socialized into and actively
involved in consuming
• Nontraditional settings for consumption
include areas like health care (doctors,
pharmaceuticals), higher education, and the
Internet.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
21. Emerging Issues in Culture:
Consumer Culture
• Post-consumer culture: refers to losing the
ability and/or the desire to consume.
• Can be instigated by economic insecurity or even the
desire to consume less as a political orientation.
• Culture jamming: the radical transformation
of an intended message directed at
consumers.
• Typically instigated by the mass media, but much
culture jamming occurs when independent social
activists publicly take up and transform messages
related to social issues.
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
22. Emerging Issues in Culture:
Cyberculture
• The Internet is a site of an entirely new
culture---a cyberculture.
• The Internet has the characteristics of a
culture, including distinctive values
(openness and sharing) and norms (don’t
hack into websites).
Copyright 2012, SAGE Publications,
Inc.
