Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics

Jean Baptiste-Lamarck

A french naturalist

Counter culture

A group whose values and norms place it at odds with mainstream society or a group that actively rejects dominant cultural values & norms

Subculture

A segment of society which shares a distinctive pattern of mores, folkways and values which differ from the pattern of larger society. It is a culture within a culture

Non material culture

Abstract human creations Beliefs, family patterns

Social change

An alteration in the social order of a society driven by cultural, religious, economic, scientific or technological forces

Lucy

Australopithecus afarensis

Popular culture

Based on the tastes of ordinary people rather than the educated elite

Parts of human cultural variation

Cultural variation Social differences Social change Political identities

Donald Johanson, Maurice Taleb, Yves Coppens, Tom Gray

Discovered Lucy

Hominids

Family of mankind and his relatives

Handy man (Homo habilis)

First hominids to use stone tools, were hunters and gatherers

Assimilation [Type of acculturation]

Give up old ways and completely adapt to new ways.

Enculturation

It is the process of learning culture of one's own group.

Acculturation

It is the process of learning some new traits from another culture.

Integration

Keep original culture and form positive relationship with members of dominant culture.

Upright man (Homo erectus)

Knew how to make fire, developed a spirit of community, cooked food which reduced diseases

Marginalization

Not joining new culture or leaving old. Living in the "margins" between the two.

Social differences

Overlapping social differences Crosscutting social differences

Material culture

Physical objects that people create and use Automobiles, books

Political identities

Refers to people of a particular race, ethnicity, gender, or religion form alliances and organize politically to defend their group's interests.

Culture

Refers to the attitudes, values, customs and behavior patterns that characterize a social group. The ways in which a particular group of people lives, including their shared knowledge, values, customs and physical objects.

Human cultural variation

Refers to the differences in social behaviors that different cultures exhibit around the world

Separation

Reject majority culture language. Socialize only with their group

Java man Peking man Turkana boy

Similar species with Homo habilis

Characteristics of culture

Social Diverse Shared Transmissive Learned Cumulative Idealistic

Assimilation

The process in which an individual entirely loses any awareness for his/her previous group identity and takes on the culture and attitudes of another group

High culture

The set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture

Charles Robert Darwin

Was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to the science of evolution

Afar, Ethiopia

Where Lucy was found

Functions of culture

defines situations defines attitudes, values and goals defines myths, legends and the supernaturals provides behavior patterns

Ethnocentrism

practice of judging all other cultures by one's own culture based on assumption that one's life is superior to all other

Cultural Relativism

practice of judging other cultures by his own context

Xenocentrism

preference othe the products, styles, ideas or ideas of someone else's culture rather than of one's own

Reciprocal assimilation

refers to multiple social groups sharing a singular behavior or ideal, thereby forming a connection between the groups.

Civic assimilation

refers to the connection of individuals within multiple social groups by a shared agreement or disagreement with specific civil /political policies.

Marital assimilation

refers to the integration of families and societies resulting from significant intermarriage.

Language assimilation

refers to the integration of multiple dialects, languages or cultural phrases

Structural assimilation

refers to the integration of one society into the social customs, institutions and social groups of a host society.

Identificational assimilation

refers to the willingness of multiple social groups to self-identify -- choose to identify -- with a unified identity.

Fossils

remains of living things (plants, animals, people), not things that were made

Artifacts

remains of things that were made, not remains of living things