The document introduces key concepts in sociology related to culture, including its definitions, importance, and variations. It discusses elements like values, beliefs, norms, and the impact of cultural change, emphasizing the differences between high culture, pop culture, subcultures, and countercultures. Furthermore, it touches on ethnocentrism and cultural relativism, and the theories of functionalism and conflict theory regarding societal culture.

1. Introduction to Sociology
Module 3: Culture

2. Why Is Culture Important?
• Culture determines how we see and interact with the world
• Some aspects of culture are universal
• Many aspects of culture are not universal
• How we view our culture in relation to others affects our interactions with
others
• Culture changes over time and varies, even within larger cultures

3. Introduction to culture
• What is culture?
• Intangible things like beliefs and thoughts, expectations
• Tangible things like objects, buildings, infrastructure
• Material Culture
• Objects or belongings of a group
• Clothing, hairstyles, school buildings
• Non-Material Culture
• Ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society
• Often represent/ reflect material culture

4. Values and Beliefs
• Values: the standard for discerning goodness, justice
• Deeply embedded, essential for transmitting and teaching cultural beliefs
• Shape society by suggesting what’s good/bad, sought/avoided, ugly/beautiful, etc.
• Values portray an ideal culture, the standards society would like to embrace and live up to
• Real culture, the way society actually is, based on what occurs and exists, differs from ideal
• Rewards, sanctions (permission), and punishments enact values
• Values are not static
• Beliefs: Tenets and convictions people hold

5. Social Norms
• Invisible rule for conduct, norms tell us how to behave according to what
society tells us what is right, good, important
• Most people follow them
• Formal norms: established, written rules agreed upon
• Informal norms: casual behaviors people generally conform to (much like
behavioral scripts)
• Breaching experiments reveal our discomfort when people don’t follow these

6. Mores
• Norms further broken down
• Mores are norms that embody the moral views and principles of a group
• Violating them can have serious consequences
• Guarded by public sentiment: shame, shunning, banning result from violations

7. Folkways
• Folkways- norms without moral underpinnings
• Folkways direct appropriate behavior and expression of culture
• Vary from culture to culture, subject to change
• Often, they are mannerisms we take for granted until faced with differences

8. Think About It: Culture Shock
• Think about where you grew up. What were some of the folkways you took for
granted as a child? Have you ever traveled to another country and experienced
“culture shock” when folkways of different cultures differed from your own?

9. Symbols and Language
• Symbols: gestures, signs, objects, signals, and words—help people
understand their world, convey recognizable meanings shared by societies
• Material and nonmaterial culture– An object may represent an idea and
convey important cultural meanings (wedding rings, trophies, stop signs, etc.)
• Destruction of symbols also conveys cultural meaning
• Language: symbolic system through which people communicate, culture is
transmitted
• Language is a common symbol to all cultures,
no matter how it is conveyed (verbal, written,
non-verbal)

10. Sapir- Whorf hypothesis
• People experience their world through their language, and understand
their world through the culture embedded in their language, which evolves
constantly
• Also called linguistic relativity
• Think about it: Bilingual education and bilingual speakers
If the culture imbued in our languages helps us understand the world, would
you agree that those who speak more languages understand the world from a
greater perspective than single-language speakers?

11. Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism
• Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism: different expectations for
different cultures– differences outnumber similarities
• Ethnocentrism: evaluating and judging another culture based on how
it compares to one’s own cultural norms
• “Better than thou” attitude
• Cultural imperialism, the deliberate imposition of one’s own ostensibly advanced cultural values
on another culture
• Colonialism’s damage pervades today
• Even seemingly benign gestures, like teaching “better” farming methods show ethnocentricity

12. Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism, cont.
• Cultural Relativism: assessing a culture by its own standards rather than
viewing it through the lens of one’s own culture
• Open-mindedness, adaptive, yet may still struggle to reconcile key
differences (for example, things we may consider human rights violations)
• Xenocentrism: opposite of ethnocentrism, belief in superiority of another
culture
• Upon meeting other cultures, we may find we prefer their lifestyles
• Perspective is important
• Pride in one’s own culture doesn’t necessitate disparaging another
• Appreciation for another culture does not discount the importance of our own in our lives
and backgrounds

13. Introduction to Pop Culture, Subculture, and Cultural
Change
• High Culture
• Pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes in
the highest class segments of a society
• Often associated with intellectualism, political
power, and prestige
• Wealth: expensive, formal events are high culture
• Pop Culture
• More accessible, mainstream
• TV “top 20s”, radio, internet memes
• The pop culture of old can fall into obscurity and
become high culture or niche
Now and Then:
Do you think this event, in its day, would be
considered high or pop culture? Subculture or
counterculture? How about today?

14. Subculture vs. Counterculture
• Subculture: a smaller cultural group within a larger culture
• Part of the larger culture but also share a specific identity within a smaller
group
• Shared race/ ethnicity and customs
• Shared unifying interests
• Example: hipsters- unified by adopting clothes, music, styles, etc., before the
mainstream (before “it was cool”)
• Counterculture: type of subculture that rejects the larger culture’s norms and
values
• Might actively defy larger society, develop their own set of rules and norms
(hippie communities, Beat generation, Punk, early LGBT movements, etc.)
• Sometimes create communities that operate outside of and apart from the
larger society
• Oppositional, sometimes antagonistic position
• Can have the purpose of social change

15. Cultural change
• Cultural change: culture is always evolving, materially and non-materially
• When something new opens up new ways of living and when new ideas first enter a culture
• Innovation: Discovery and Invention
• Innovation: involves an object or concept’s initial appearance in society; it’s new! It’s invented
or discovered
• Discoveries make known previously unknown but existing aspects of reality (Examples: science
and exploration)
• Inventions result when something new is formed from existing objects or concepts—things are
put together in an entirely new manner

16. Cultural change, cont.
• Culture lag is the time that elapses between the introduction of a new item
of material culture and its acceptance as part of nonmaterial culture
• Unforeseen consequences, too:
• Infrastructural deficiencies
• Pollution and fuel consumption
• Cost prohibitive market may leave working poor behind

17. Functionalism
• Societies need culture to exist
• Cultural norms support operation and stability of society
• Cultural values guide decision making
• Culture exists to meet its members’ basic needs
• Values
• Functionalists study culture in what it values
• Example: education

18. Conflict Theory
• Social structure is inherently unequal
• Society exists to reinforce inequalities in privileges bestowed
• Women, minorities, LGBT+ groups, senior citizens
• Groups like ACLU try to balance the inequalities, fight for those whom society’s structure
reinforces inequalities
• Inequalities within cultural value systems
• Racism, marriage inequality, etc.
• Economic production and materialism: dependence on technology
• Technology rich/ technology poor nations
• “American Dream” ideal perpetuates idea the rich deserve privileges

19. Class Activity: Societal Norms
• Create a new norm for society. Decide what the norm is, how it will be
enforced, and what the sanctions will be for following or breaking the
norm. Then describe how you would effectively socialize people into this
norm.

20. Quick Review
• What are the differences between material and nonmaterial culture?
• What are cultural values and beliefs?
• What are cultural norms, mores, and folkways?
• What is the significance of symbols and language to a culture?
• What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?
• What is cultural universalism?
• What are some examples of cultural universalism?
• What are ethnocentrism and cultural relativism?
• What different roles do high culture, pop culture, subculture, and counterculture play within
society?
• How do innovation, invention, discovery, and globalization affect cultural change?
• How do functionalists, conflict theorists, and symbolic interactionists view culture?