Sociology in Modules Chapter 3

1. Culture
3
3rd edition
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Sociology in Modules
Richard T. Schaefer

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What Is Culture?
• Culture: totality of learned, socially
transmitted customs, knowledge, material
objects, and behavior
– Includes ideas, values, customs, and artifacts
of groups of people

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What Is Culture?
• Common culture is shared by people in a
society—the largest form of human group
– Common culture simplifies
day-to-day interactions
– Culture influences human behavior
– Adorno: culture industry—force
that standardizes the goods
and services demanded by
consumers—limits people’s choices

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Cultural Universals
• Cultural universal: certain common
practices and beliefs that all societies
have developed
– Many adaptations to meet essential human
needs
– Murdock listed cultural universals, but they
are expressed differently from culture to
culture

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Ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentrism: tendency to assume that
one’s own culture and way of life
represents the norm or is superior to
others
– Our view of the world is dramatically
influenced by the society in which we were
raised

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Cultural Relativism
• Cultural relativism: people’s behaviors
from the perspective of their own culture
– Different social contexts give rise to different
norms and values

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Sociobiology and Culture
• Sociobiology: systematic study of how
biology affects human social behavior
– Founded on Darwin’s theory of evolution
– Most social scientists would agree there
is a biological basis for social behavior

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Figure 9-1: Countries with High Child Marriage Rates

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Elements of Culture
• Role of Language
– One of the major elements of culture
– Important component of cultural capital
– Facilitates day-to-day exchanges
– Includes both the written and spoken word
and nonverbal communication

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Language: Written and Spoken
• Language: abstract system of word
meanings and symbols for all aspects of
culture
• Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
– Language precedes thought
– Language is not a given
– Language is culturally determined
– Language may color how we see the world

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Nonverbal Communication
• Nonverbal communication: use of
gestures, facial expressions, and
other visual images to communicate
– Learned
– Differs by culture
– Symbols: gestures, objects, and words
that form basis of human communication

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Norms and Values
• All societies have ways to encourage and
enforce appropriate behavior, and
discourage and punish inappropriate
behavior
– Collective idea of what is good and desirable,
and what is not

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Norms
• Norms: established standards of behavior
maintained by a society
– To be significant, must be widely shared and
understood
– Persistent social norm in contemporary
society: heterosexuality

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Norms
• Types of Norms
– Formal norms: generally written; specify
strict punishments
• Law: governmental social control
– Informal norms: generally understood but not
precisely recorded
– Mores: norms deemed highly necessary to
the welfare of a society
– Folkways: norms governing everyday
behavior

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Norms
• Norms and Sanctions
– Sanctions: penalties and rewards
for conduct concerning social norm
– Positive sanctions: pay raises, medals,
words of gratitude
– Negative sanctions: fines, threats,
imprisonment, and stares of contempt

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Table 10-1: Norms and Sanctions

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Norms
• Acceptance of Norms
– People do not follow norms in all situations
• Behavior that appears to violate
society’s norms may represent
adherence to a particular group’s norms
– Norms may be violated because
they conflict with other norms
– Acceptance of norms is subject to change
• Sudden change can upset an entire population

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Values
• Cultural values: collective conceptions
of what is good, desirable, and proper—
or bad, undesirable, and improper
– Influence people’s behavior
– Criteria for evaluating actions of others
– Values may change, but most remain
relatively stable during any one person’s
lifetime

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Figure 10-1: Life Goals of First-Year College Students in the
United States, 1966–2012

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Global Culture War
• Culture war: polarization of society
over controversial cultural elements
– In 1990s, referred to political debates
over abortion, religious expression,
gun control, and sexual orientation
– After U.S. established military presence
in Iraq and Afghanistan, foreign
opinion of U.S. became quite negative

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Figure 10-2: Valuing Ethnicity by Country

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Sociological Perspectives
on Culture
• Functionalists maintain that social stability
requires a consensus and the support of
society’s members; strong central values
and common norms provide that support
• Conflict theorists argue that common
culture serves to maintain the privileges of
certain groups

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Sociological Perspectives
on Culture
• Dominant ideology: set of cultural
beliefs and practices that help
maintain powerful interests
– Social interests
– Economic interests
– Political interests
• Conflict perspective: dominant
ideology has major social significance
• Growing number of social scientists believe
it is not easy to identify a core culture in U.S.

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Table 10-2: Sociological Perspectives on Culture

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Development of Culture
around the World
• Innovation: process of introducing
a new idea or object to a culture
– Discovery: making known or sharing
existence of an aspect of reality
– Invention: existing cultural items
combined into form that did not exist before

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Globalization, Diffusion,
and Technology
• Diffusion: process by which cultural
item spreads from group to group
– McDonaldization of society: process through
which principles of fast-food industry
dominate certain sectors of society
– Technology: information about how to use
material resources of the environment to
satisfy human needs and desires
(Nolan and Lenski)

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Globalization, Diffusion,
and Technology
• Material culture: physical or
technological aspects of daily lives
• Nonmaterial culture: ways of using
material objects
• Culture lag: period of maladjustment
when nonmaterial culture struggles to
adapt to new material conditions

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Cultural Variation
• Cultures adapt to meet specific
circumstances
– Climate, level of technology, population,
geography
• Groups within a single nation develop
cultural patterns that differ from those of
the dominant society

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Subcultures
• Subculture: segment of society that
shares distinctive pattern of mores,
folkways, and values that differs from
larger society
• A subculture may develop an argot, a
specialized language that distinguishes a
subculture from the wider society

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Countercultures
• Counterculture: subculture that
conspicuously and deliberately opposes
certain aspects of the larger culture
• Typically thrive among the young
• Counterterrorism experts concerned about
growth of ultraconservative militia groups

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Culture Shock
• Occurs when someone feels disoriented,
uncertain, out of place, or fearful
when immersed in an unfamiliar culture
• People tend to take for granted cultural
practices of their society

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Social Policy and Culture:
Bilingualism
• Looking at the Issue
– Bilingualism: use of two or more
languages in a particular setting
– Bilingual education may instruct children
in their native language while gradually
introducing the language of the host society
– Bilingual programs vary widely in application
and quality, so it is difficult to measure their
success

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Figure 12-1: Percentage of People Who Speak a
Language Other than English at Home, by State

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Social Policy and Culture:
Bilingualism
• Applying Sociology
– For long time, people in U. S. demanded
conformity to a single language
– Recent decades have seen challenges to
pattern of forced obedience to the dominant
ideology
– Attackers of bilingual programs often ignore
fact that bilingual education programs may
have beneficial results

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Social Policy and Culture:
Bilingualism
• Initiating Policy
– Bilingualism has policy implications in
efforts to maintain language purity and
programs to enhance bilingual education
– Nations vary dramatically in tolerance
– Public concern over potential decline
in use of English appears to be overblown

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10-1: Symbolizing 9/11
– What does the 9/11 memorial symbolize to
you? Explain the meaning of the
cascading water, the reflecting pools,
and the empty footprints. What does the
placement of the victims’ names suggest?
– If you were designing a 9/11 memorial,
what symbol or symbols would you
incorporate? Use your sociological
imagination to predict how various groups
would respond to your design.
Sociology in the
Global Community

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10-2: A Culture of Cheating?
– Do you know anyone who has engaged in
Internet plagiarism? What about cheating on
tests or falsifying laboratory results?
If so, how did the person justify these forms
of dishonesty?
– Even if cheaters aren’t caught, what negative
effects does their academic dishonesty have on
them? What effects does it have on students
who are honest? Could an entire college or
university suffer from students’ dishonesty?
Sociology on Campus

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11-1: Life in the Global Village
– How are you affected by globalization?
Which aspects of globalization do you
find advantageous and which
objectionable?
– How would you feel if the customs
and traditions you grew up with were
replaced by the culture or values of
another country? How might you try to
protect your culture?
Sociology in the
Global Community

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11-2: Cultural Survival in Brazil
– Compare the frontier in Brazil today
to the American West in the 1800s.
What similarities do you see?
– What does society lose when
indigenous cultures die?
Sociology in the
Global Community