Sociology Chapter 3

Values

A CRUCIAL COMPONENT OF CULTURE a culture's standard for discerning what is good and just in society

Cultural universals

patterns or traits that are globally common to all societies. One example is the family unit: every human society recognizes a family structure that regulates sexual reproduction and the care of children. Others might include weddings and birthdays.

Beliefs

tenets or convictions that people hold to be true

Xenocentrism

the belief that another culture is superior to one's own; the opposite of ethnocentrism

Counterculture

type of subculture that rejects some of the larger culture's norms and values

Conflict theorists

This group view social structure as inherently unequal, based on power differentials related to issues like class, gender, race, and age. For a conflict theorist, culture is seen as reinforcing issues of "privilege" for certain groups based upon race, sex, class, and so on. Women strive for equality in a male-dominated society. Senior citizens struggle to protect their rights, their health care, and their independence from a younger generation of lawmakers. Advocacy groups such as the ACLU work to protect the rights of all races and ethnicities in the United States. At the core of (?) is the effect of economic production and materialism: dependence on technology in rich nations versus a lack of technology and education in poor nations

Functionalism perspective on culture

This group views society as a system in which all parts work—or function—together to create society as a whole. In this way, societies need culture to exist. Cultural norms function to support the fluid operation of society, and cultural values guide people in making choices. Just as members of a society work together to fulfill a society's needs, culture exists to meet its members' basic needs. They also study culture in terms of values. Education is an important concept in the United States because it is valued. The culture of education—including material culture such as classrooms, textbooks, libraries, dormitories—supports the emphasis placed on the value of educating a society's members.

sanction

a form of social control; giving support, approval, or permission, or by instilling formal actions of disapproval and nonsupport

society

a group of people who share a community and a culture

social control

a way to encourage conformity to cultural norms

Informal norm

casual behaviors that are generally and widely conformed to (type of norm)

Nonmaterial Culture

consists of the ideas, attitudes, and beliefs of a society (type of culture)

norms

define how to behave in accordance with what a society has defined as good, right, and important, and most members of the society adhere to them

Formal norms

established, written rules (type of norm)

Ethnocentrism

evaluating and judging another culture based on how it compares to one's own cultural norms

Symbols

gestures, signs, objects, signals, and words

Globalization

integration of international trade and finance markets

Mores

norms that embody the moral views and principles of a group. Violating them can have serious consequences.

folkways

norms without any moral underpinnings; they direct appropriate behavior in the day-to-day practices and expressions of a culture

Subculture

part of the larger culture but also share a specific identity within a smaller group.

culture

shared beliefs, values, and practices that participants must learn

Symbolic interactionism

sociological perspective that is most concerned with the face-to-face interactions between members of society. Interactionists see culture as being created and maintained by the ways people interact and in how individuals interpret each other's actions. Proponents of this theory conceptualize human interactions as a continuous process of deriving meaning from both objects in the environment and the actions of others. This is where the term symbolic comes into play. Every object and action has a symbolic meaning, and language serves as a means for people to represent and communicate their interpretations of these meanings to others. Those who believe in symbolic interactionism perceive culture as highly dynamic and fluid, as it is dependent on how meaning is interpreted and how individuals interact when conveying these meanings.

Language

symbolic system through which people communicate and through which culture is transmitted

cultural imperialism

the deliberate imposition of one's own cultural values on another culture; People with the best intentions sometimes travel to a society to "help" its people, because they see them as inferior.

Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

the idea that people experience their world through their language, and that they therefore understand their world through the culture embedded in their language

Material culture

the objects or belongings of a group of people EX: Metro passes and bus tokens, automobiles, stores, and the physical structures where people worship

Popular culture

the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in mainstream society

High culture

the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in the highest class segments of a society; often associated with intellectualism, prestige, or power

Cultural relativism

the practice of assessing a culture by its own standards rather than viewing it through the lens of one's own culture

Diffusion

the spread of material and nonmaterial culture

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

Culture lag

time that elapses between the introduction of a new item of material culture and its acceptance as part of nonmaterial culture (

Culture shock

when confronted with all of the differences of a new culture, one may experience disorientation and frustration