Culture can be defined as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, customs, and habits that are shared and learned by people in a society. It provides implicit instructions on what is right and wrong and shapes how people perceive and evaluate things. For a pattern of behavior or idea to be considered part of a culture, it must be shared with other individuals in that society. Cultures are dynamic and change over time in response to discoveries, inventions, and influence from other cultures through processes like diffusion and assimilation.

2. Definition of Culture
“That complex whole which include
knowledge, belief, arts, morals, laws,
customs and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by a man as a
member of a society.”
-Sir Edward Burnett Tylor

3. What Culture do ?
It provides implicit instructions that tell us what we ought to do and
a moral imperative that defines what we think is right and wrong.
It penetrates our lives so deeply that it is taken for granted and
provides the lens through which we perceive and evaluate things.
Culture is the way of life.

4. Characteristic of a Culture
Culture
Shared
Learned
Dynamica Symbolic
Integrated

5. Culture is Shared
 If only one person thinks or does a certain things, that thought or action only represents
personal habits, not a pattern of culture.
 For a thoughts or actions to be considered as part of the culture, it must be shared with
other individuals in the particular societies.
 Usually culture are the fundamental elements that what make a society exist.
 For example in Indian culture in India, the caste system is what make them as whole, as
‘truly’ Indians while Indians in other countries no longer practice this belief.
 We can conclude that, to create a culture, its ‘contents’ must be shared by group of people,
maybe hundreds, maybe thousand and so on. But what’s are the shared contents ? Its
ideology, customs, belief , practice etcetera. In other words, sharing the same way of life.

6. Culture is Learned
 Not everything shared generally by a group is a cultural based. For example hair colours,
having a same hair colour doesn’t mean it is related to certain culture as it is determined
genetically, unless dyed to represent a culture.
 Culture is not biological, we do not inherit it, we are born ‘plain’ and unconscious of our self.
However much of learning culture is done unconsciously.
 We learn culture from our environment, such as families, peers, institution and media. This
learning process known as enculturation.

7. Culture is based on Symbols.
 Every culture must have a symbols to represent itself. This is because every society have their own
unique culture thus its automatically create a symbol for it.
 And a symbol will only become effective when the members of particular society agree on their use.
For example, money , arts , language these are important symbols to represent a culture.
 Language is the chief vehicle of culture. A man not only lives in the present, but in the past and future
as well. This happen because through language wisdom of the past and the accumulated skills of
culture inherited from a generation to next generation. Thus make language the most powerful
symbolical component in culture even though culture can be transmitted in various ways.

8. Culture is Dynamic.
 When we look through the history of a society, it is clear that its culture has changed over time.
 Some of the shared behaviours and ideas that were common at one time are modified or replaced at
another time. Usually the culture changed slowly even though some culture seems to be fixed.
 Wrong it does change. This happens because most cultures are in contact with other cultures, they
exchange ideas and symbols.
 Changes in culture must be done in order to adapt with new challenges and overcome it.

9. Culture is Integrated.
 Anthropologist have always known that culture is not a hodgepodge of unrelated behaviours and ideas
– that a culture is mostly integrated.
 The traits or the elements that make up culture is not a random assortment of customs but are mostly
adjusted to or consistent with one another.
 This also known as holism, which is various part of culture being interconnected.
 Thus we should know that all aspect of a culture related to one another, so to truly understand a
culture, one must learn all of its part not only a few.

10. Type of culture.
Dominant
• The culture that the majorities of a society adapt with.
• Considered as normal , as it is accepted by the society.
Sub Culture
• Subcultures are groups whose values and related behaviours are so
distinct that they set their members off from the dominant culture.
• a world within the larger world of the dominant culture and has a
distinctive way of looking at life, but remains compatible with the
dominant culture.
Counter
Culture
• set their members in opposition to the dominant culture.
• associated with negative behaviour, some countercultures are not
• Countercultures are often perceived as a threat by the dominant
culture because they challenge the culture's values

11. Why Culture Change.
 Discoveries and inventions which may originates from inside or outside a society are ultimately the
sources of all culture change, but not everything will lead to change.
 If an discovery or invention is ignored it will leave no marks in culture. Changes only happen when a
society accept it and use it regularly
 The new things discovered or invented, the innovation may be an object – the wheel, the plow, the
computer – or it may involve behaviour and ideas – buying and selling, political ideologies such as
democracy, pattern of marriage etcetera.
 According to Ralph Linton, a discovery is any addition to knowledge.

12. How Culture Change.
Diffusion.
 The source of new cultural elements in a society may also be another society. Different groups must
somehow have learned from one another.
 The process by which cultural elements are borrowed from another society and implemented into the
culture of a certain society.
 Borrowing sometimes can enable certain society bypass stages or mistakes in development of a
process.

13. Diffusion
Direct
Contact
Intermediate
Contact
Stimulus
diffusion

14. Direct contact
Elements of a society’s culture may first be taken up by neighbouring
societies and then gradually spread father and farther across the
world. For example the technology of making papers.
Intermediate contact
This diffusion occurs through the agency of the third parties. Regardless of the
entity, they carry their cultural traits and directly or indirectly spread it among
other societies as they interact. For example, during the Crusaders Era.
Stimulus diffusion
In this theory, knowledge or traits belonging to another culture stimulates the
invention or development of a local equivalent. In other words, certain
knowledge of a culture gave an idea to another culture, they utilize it to create
their own ‘knowledge’.

15. Acculturation
Force and
pressure
Indirect
Contact
Assimilation

16. Force and Pressure.
This process can be done by force or pressure. Through war –
conquest and colonialization – the dominant group uses force
or threat to bring culture change to other group.
Indirect Contact.
Dominated group or the less dominant group assumed that the dominating
group have more secure living condition, and they identify it with a hope that
they can gain the same benefits by doing so.
Assimilation.
Assimilation is a concept very similar to acculturation, but more often
used by sociologist to describe the process by which individuals
acquire the social roles and culture of the dominant group.

17. Cultural Relativism.
Cultural relativism consists of trying to appreciate
other groups' beliefs and ways of life in the context in
which they exist, without judging them as superior or
inferior to one's own. This view helps to avoid
"cultural smugness” and ethnocentrism.

19. Conclusion.
We can conclude that culture it truly way of life in all society, as mentioned every society’s have their own
culture because culture what made society exist.
Despites individual differences, the members of a particular society share many behaviours and ideas that
constitute their culture.
Also Culture can be defined as the set of learned behaviors and ideas that include beliefs, attitudes,
values, and ideals.
Culture is not rigid and change as time flew by. Culture can be changed under some circumstances, and
there a many factors that lead changes in a particular culture.