PPt_Module 3 Society and Culture.pptx

1. SOCIETY, CULTURE, AND CULTURAL CHANGE
CHAPTER 4

2. DEFINITION OF CULTURE
 Culture: total patterns of human behavior and its
products
 Embodies:
 Thought
 Speech
 Shared language
 Action artifacts

3. NATURE OF SOCIETY
 Society: shaped and changed by innovations and
people who belong to it
 Bound together by established relationships
 Must be organized

4. ROLE OF HUMAN SOCIETIES
 People’s way of life:
 Knowledge
 Beliefs
 Art
 Morals
 Customs

5. ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
 Social norms: conventions, mores, and laws
 Social institutions
 Technology
 Material products
 Language
 Social values

6. Figure 4.1: Elements of
Culture

7. EVOLUTION OF CULTURE
 Culture creates human societies
 Evolves through time
 Cultural evolution: gradual, accumulative process
 Reflective of all individuals
 Socialization: Process that shapes individuals to become
members of society

8. MULTICULTURALISM
 All individuals in culture are not exactly alike
 United States is multicultural
 Blend of overlapping cultures
 Subculture similarities hold us together
 U.S. culture is a composite of subcultures
 Challenge is finding correct mix

9. THE NATURE OF A SOCIETY
 Group of individuals living as members of a
community
 Characteristics shaped by generations
 Society: group must be bound by shared
relationships and be organized
 Not all groups are societies

10. CULTURAL INTEGRATION
 Cultural universals
 Religion
 Cultural alternatives
 Exalting of age (not in all societies)
 Cultural integration
 More diversity

11. CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND SOCIAL CHANGE
 Society is evolving:
 War-related activities
 Human social development
 Development of agriculture
 Events of industrial revolution
 The Internet: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn

12. THEORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGE
 Ideal golden age (in distant past)
 Greek philosophers
 Yielded to silver, bronze, iron ages
 Doctrine of inevitable progress
 World getting better and better
 Popular in modern U.S. and Europe
 Cyclical change
 Normal cycles of growth, climax, and decline

13. FACTORS CAUSING CULTURAL CHANGE
 Technological development
 Cultural diffusion
 Ideas and ideologies
 Collective action
 Geography and climate

14. FACTORS STABILIZING CULTURE
 Stability of social norms
 Humans conservative about change
 Habit
 Value attachment
 Mores have strong values attachment
 Vested interest: status that relies on status quo (so resist
change)

15. SOCIAL CHANGE VS. SOCIAL STABILITY
 Change in our basic institutions must be gradual
 Take place by evolution rather than by revolution
 Social revolutions are never complete
 Bring few of the results that were envisioned

16. SOCIAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL PROBLEMS
 Social problems:
 Wide recognition of adverse affects
 Belief that condition can and should change
 Large modern societies experience more complex social
problems
 Seldom a simple or complete solution

17. CULTURAL LAG THEORY
 Ogburn: cultural lag source of social
disorganization
 Culture is pattern of interrelated elements
 Change in one area creates strain in another
 Adjustments cause lag in which tension persists
 Technological change sets pace of change in
modern industrial societies

18. LIMITATIONS OF CULTURAL LAG THEORY
 Difficult to reach agreement on changes needed
 Making adjustments complex and often impossible
 Material culture changes do not always precede
nonmaterial changes

19. CULTURAL CONTRASTS
 Social problems can exist within and between societies
 Cultural relativism: all cultures of the world are equally
valid
 Examine cultures in their context
 Must be judged relative to culture’s value system
 Ethnocentrism: judging other cultures by one’s own
value system

20. Cultural Regions of the
World

21. STUDY OF SOCIETY: APPROACH
 Concerned with nature of U.S. society
 Focus on own culture and basic values
 Problems in achieving values
 General picture of U.S. society
 Explore possibilities of solving problems