This document discusses how families shape cultural perceptions and communication behaviors. It explores how the family is the primary transmitter of a culture's deep structures and important messages about right and wrong, power, loyalties, expectations in life, and preparing for death. The family teaches social communication skills and plays a key role in socializing children and perpetuating a culture. Different types of families like nuclear, extended, and new configurations are discussed as well as factors influencing changes in family structures. Cultural gender roles and influences of individualism vs collectivism on families are also summarized.

1. The deep structure of culture
lessons from the family
Chapter 3

2. social Organizations
and deep structures
Deep structure: conscious and unconscious assumptions
of how the world works
Influenced by social organizations
which regulate norms of personal,
familial, social conduct. Most influential:
• Family
• State/Government
• Religion

3. It’s the deep structure, the conscious
and unconscious assumptions of how
the world works, that unifies a culture,
makes each culture unique and
explains the “how” and “why” of a
culture’s collective action.
vs.

4. How do our families
shape our social
perceptions and
communication
behaviors?
The Influence of Family

5. “The people of different
civilizations have different views
on the relations between God and
man, the individual and the group,
the citizen and the state, parents
and children, husband and wife, as
well as differing views of the
relative importance of rights and
responsibilities, liberty and
authority, equality and hierarchy”
- Huntington
Family, State, & Religion

8. Transmit a culture’s most important messages
• Right and wrong
• Fate of power or free choice
• Loyalties
• What to expect from life
• Preparing for death
Carry enduring messages
Carry messages that are deeply felt
Carry messages the deal with personal identity
social institutions
and deep structures

10. culture and the elderly
US Asia La(no Arab
Prefers youth to old age,
resul1ng in age bias.
Excep1ons:
Na#ve American elders
safe-keepers, carriers of
tribal oral tradi#ons
African American
grandmothers most
central role in family
Devo1on, obliga1on
to past, elders,
ancestors
Elderly respected and
cared for
Compadrazgo
(godparents) held in
high esteem, integral
to family structure
Young people
encouraged to listen
to and learn from
elders

11. What message
does this ritual
Transmit?
• Family is important
• Respect for elders
• Patriarchy & gender roles
• Gratitude
• Manners
• Social conversation skills:
appropriate topics, interrupting

12. What
is A
Family?

13. family
The importance of family
• First and chief socializing agent
• Oldest, most fundamental of
all human institutions
• Most basic unit of society
• Universal
•

14. functions of families
• Reproduction - allows a culture to perpetuate itself
• Economic - providing for practical needs
• Socialization - teaching important traditions
and social skills as well as values and morals
• Language acquisition - learning words & meaning
• Identity - most important social identity;
precursor to all others

15. Family and social comm. skills
• When/how to self-disclose
• Starting and stopping a
conversation
• Turn taking
• When not to interrupt
• Using silence
• Appropriate topics
• Using humor
• Use of nonverbal communication

16. Family and social comm. skills
• Sharing feelings
• Arguing
• Expressing affection
• Adjusting to others
• Dealing with conflict
• Learning gender roles
• Expressing anger

17. Family and social comm. skills
Role of self-expression
Role of aggression: Encourage/Avoid
Decision making
• How to make choices
• How to come to conclusions
• Verbally expressive child or spouse may
play a larger role in decision making

20. Nuclear - two-generation: parent/child
• common in developed nations
• elderly reside in retirement communities,
nursing homes; to take in aged parents
regarded as economic burden, threat to
household’s privacy, independence
• child rearing practices: exploration and
creativity encouraged, less emphasis on
obedience
forms of family

21. forms of family
Extended - includes grandparents, relatives
• common in developing and underdeveloped nations
• collection of relatives gathered for economic
reasons
• share workload of raising the children
• more obedience, more organized around rules

22. What are some new
family configurations
in the u.s.?

23. what are some factors
that lead to these
new types of families?

24. Redefining families
Social Changes
• Economic changes
• Gender roles & opportunities for women
Mass media
• New technologies offer different sets of values
Migration
• To escape poverty, wage-earners separated
• Personal closeness of family deteriorates
• Core family values affected

25. cultural gender roles
US Asia La(no Indian Arab
Males socialized to
be successful,
aggressive, sexual,
self-reliant
Confucianism
made men
relevant
members of
society
Male
undisputed
authority
(oldest son
assumes role
when father
absent)
Hinduism
posi1ons
masculinity and
femininity as
opposi1onal
Islam
characterizes
males as
physically,
mentally, morally
stronger;
Females:
nurturing,
sensi1ve,
interdependent,
appearance
conscious
Women
relegated to
social
dependence;
social/cultural
func1on
Motherhood
sacred; women
homemakers
Males superior;
females devoted
to husband’s
welfare
Koran addresses
men only;
women obey
husbands;
Men valued;
women viewed
through family,
honor, chas1ty

26. communication
culture and family
The family is both the product of
communication and the context in which
communication takes place
The family teaches many communication
skills
• Introduces people to language
• Tells people how to employ language

27. cultural gender roles

28. cultural gender roles

29. individualism
and collectivism
Individualism and the family
• Emphasis on independence and
individual autonomy
• Mother and child are distinct
• Child is encouraged to leave the nest
• Child encouraged to think for themselves

30. individualism
and collectivism
Collectivism and the family
• Family interdependence is stressed
• Extended families rely on each other for
care of children, friendship and support
• The family is ahead
of the individual

31. How to find love