Culture and cultural Studies

1. Dubai International School
Academic Year 2016/17
Subject: Cultural Studies Grade:9
Culture:
 Culture: everything that makes up a person’s entire way of life.
 Culture: the ideas, customs, and socialbehaviorof a particular people
or society.

Elements of Culture:
These are thingsthat all cultureshave in common.
What mightsome of those thingsbe?
1. SocialOrganization
-When a culture organize its members into smaller groups
 What might some smaller groups be in a culture?
 Families
 Friends
 Religious groups
 Socialclasses
 Occupation
 Interest groups
2. Language
1. Important for communication and passing on traditions and
beliefs.

2. Dubai International School
Academic Year 2016/17
2. There is some debate about making English the official
language ofthe United States.
3. Religion
1. Monotheism: belief in one god
2. Polytheism: belief in more than one god
2. MajorWorld Religions
1. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism
4. Forms of Government
 People form governments to provide for their common
needs

3. Dubai International School
Academic Year 2016/17
 Types
 Democracy:people have supreme power
 Republic: people choose leaders to representthem
 Dictatorship: a ruler or group holds power by force
5. Economic Systems
Is system of production, resource allocation, and distribution of goods and
services within a society or a given geographic area.
Ways Cultures Change
1. Technology
 Cars, telephone, computers, TV dinners
2. Environment Changes
3. New Ideas (like recycling)
4. Diffusion: movement of customs and ideas from one place to
another

4. Dubai International School
Academic Year 2016/17
Cultural Studies: is an innovative interdisciplinary field of research and
teaching that investigates the ways in which “culture” creates and
transforms individual experiences, everyday life, social relations and
power.
 Deals the daily activity of culture.
 It is a theory and practices.
 cultural studies draws on methods and theories from literary studies,
sociology, communications studies, history, cultural anthropology, and
economics.
 Cultural Studies addresses new questions and problems of the today’s world.
 Culturalstudieswasinitiallydeveloped byBritishacademicsin the late
1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and hasbeen subsequentlytaken up and
transformed by scholars from manydifferent disciplinesaround the world.
 The aim of cultural studies is to examine cultural practices and
their relation to power.