2. Society is the Sociology is the study of
largest form of
group people in groups
Sociology is a way to think
about social action
Society is composed of social
actions with a group of
people who share
Culture
(and related subcultures)
Defined geography
A Specific time period
And are relatively autonomous
4. Where does culture come
from? Culture is handed down to us
through the process of
socialization.
Learning a culture is also called
aculturalization
Culture is learned
The ability to have culture is
biological but the specific culture
is learned
We are constantly socialized
We are always learning more
about our culture
Culture is shared
No one has their “own culture”
Always shared with someone
5. Culture has a material
basis
We use material “things” to support ourselves
and survive
Culture is limited by our ability to
Obtain material goods or the resources to make them
Use material goods in settings for which they were not
designed
Culture adjusts to new uses of environmental
resources through
Material change …Technology (technological change)
And through non-material adaptation (ideological
change)
6. Culture has a
non-material
basis
Knowledge
Ideas
Skills
Organized into
Philosophies
Beliefs
Customs
Institutions
Language http://commons.wikimedia.org/w
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7. Different cultures meet the
same needs differently
Cultural Universals
Every culture must provide a set of routine behaviors
that make it possible for the people in the culture to
meet their human needs.
George Murdock, an Anthropologist, compiled a list of 72
areas that are addressed by all cultures.
He found great diversity in the way in which cultures
handled the same area of human need, emotion or
behavior
Importantly, he believes that all cultures do address all these
areas; these areas of culture are the cultural Universals
8. The “Universals”
age-grading hygiene postnatal care
ethics pregnancy usages
athletic sports incest taboos
bodily adornment ethno-botany inheritance rules property rights
calendar etiquette joking propitiation of
supernatural beings
cleanliness training faith healing kin groups
puberty customs
community family feasting kinship nomenclature
organization religious ritual
language
cooking fire-making residence rules
law
co-operative labor folklore sexual restrictions
luck / superstitions
cosmology soul concepts
food taboos magic
courtship status differentiation
funeral rites marriage
dancing surgery
games mealtimes
decorative art tool-making
medicine
divination gestures trade
obstetrics
division of labor gift-giving visiting
penal sanctions
dream interpretation weather control
government personal names
education weaving
greetings population policy Source:http://home.snu.edu/~hculbert/pow
eschatology erpt/define.ppt
hair styles
hospitality
housing
List from: Howard Culverson’s summary of Murdock’s Universals
9. The same culture often meets the
same need differently at
different times and places
Cultural Resources Matter
Change
Materialism
Obviously time can
bring new Marx (who controls materials)
technologies and
techniques to solve Diamond (geographic luck)
old problems. Lenski (technology drives change)
But it may be that
ideas will change as Ideas Matter
well. This results in
changes in the social Beliefs
rules and
expectations.
Weber (Protestant Ethic)
10. Culture change
Culture Lag The rate of change can be
Sometimes culture very slow or very fast… or
changes faster than
people within the anywhere in between
culture can keep Culture changes in response to
up.
Population changes
When non-
material culture Environmental changes
falls behind Resource changes
material culture it is Discovery, Innovation, Invention
called culture lag
Ideas
11. Language
Sapir-Whorf
Hypothesis
The words that a culture
uses transmit more than
communication, they
transmit the values, what
is good/bad; right/wrong;
important/not important.
Language shapes not
only what we say, but
how we think about the The Rosetta Stone,
world. written in 3 languages
Learning a new language provide a clue to the
involves learning how the translation of
culture perceives reality, hierogyphics
in fact how it defines and
constructs what is real.
12. Dominant Ideology
Cultural Two views
Conflict Theory
beliefs that
This term is defined as the conflict
help to theorists see it
maintain Ideas that provide advantage to the
powerful and disadvantage to the less
control by powerful
Ex: bank policies
the powerful Functionalism
in society. Social stability requires consensus
“Strong values” (i.e. dominant
ideology) provides the needed
agreement
Everyone benefits when we all agree
13. Dominant Ideology… an example
Are we Christian
nation?
Would this change our
experience of living as Co
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14. The Intersection of History &
Biography
Culture is an intrinsic part of our Background image http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/show/itl05/
history and our biography
15. Societies are unique
Society emerges from the actions of all the
members of the interrelated social group
Actions take place in real time and are affected by
earlier actions
Culture is expressed
Through the norms of the actors
Through the rules of the society
Through the institutions of society
Through material objects
People are free to deviate
Deviation may or may not bring cultural change