Culture and Social Structure Section Unit 3 Review Guide

Define Accommodation

A convenient arrangement; a settlement or compromise.

What are subcultures?

A cultural group within a larger culture, often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture.

How do gender roles connect to cultural identity?

A gender role is a set of societal norms dictating what types of behaviors are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable for a person based on their actual or perceived sex.

Define Primary Group

A group held together by intimate, face-to-face relationships, formed by family and environmental associations and regarded as basic to social life and culture.

What is a religious branch?

A large and fundamental division within a religion.

What is a religious denomination?

A religious denomination is a subgroup within a religion that operates under a common name, tradition, and identity. The term refers to the various Christian denominations. It is also used to describe the four major branches of Judaism.

What is a religious sect?

A sect is like a block of people within a neighborhood that decides to break off on its own. An example of a sect within Catholicism is the Community of the Lady of All Peoples, also know as the Army of Mary. This group's beliefs depart from the official doctrine of the church.

Define Conflict

A serious disagreement or argument, typically a protracted one.

What are countercultures?

A way of life and set of attitudes opposed to or at variance with the prevailing social norm.

Define Exchange

An act of giving one thing and receiving another (especially of the same type or value) in return.

What are Cultural Universals?

An element, pattern, trait, or institution that is common to all human cultures worldwide. Taken together, the whole body of cultural universals is known as the human condition.

What is the difference between an in-group and out-group?

An in-group is a social group to which a person psychologically identifies as being a member. By contrast, an out-group is a social group with which an individual does not identify.

Define Culture

An umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.

How does architecture connect to cultural identity?

Architecture is our most timeless and quotidian means of expressing ourselves - of transferring ideas and values. Buildings inherently and unavoidably document the everyday life of a culture. They are repositories of the patterns of activity, association and movement of a society or people.

Define Belief

Beliefs that are learned and shared across groups of people. Given a set of questions, all on the same topic, shared cultural beliefs or norms regarding the answers can be estimated by aggregating the responses for each question across a sample of culture members.

Define Practice

Cultural practice is the manifestation of a culture or sub-culture, especially in regard to the traditional and customary practices of a particular ethnic or other cultural group.

How does agriculture connect to cultural identity?

Cultural practices and patterns can be traced to our agrarian backgrounds e.g. Baishaki, Ugadi etc. The variations in agriculture and culture are reflected in the different regional culture like -Celebration of new year festivals in different regions of India - Pongal, Bihu, Onam etc.

What is Cultural Relativism and why is it important when studying different cultures?

Cultural relativism is the notion that cultures must be examined based on their own context and merits, not judged by the customs and codes of other cultures. This is particularly important when studying minority cultures, colonized cultures, or other traditions that have been oppressed by a dominant class.

What are Cultural Variations?

Cultural variation refers to the rich diversity in social practices that different cultures exhibit around the world. Cuisine and art all change from one culture to the next, but so do gender roles, economic systems, and social hierarchy among any number of other humanly organised behaviours.

How does economy connect to cultural identity?

Culture affects economic activity through the choices that people make about how to allocate scarce resources. So if culture is going to influence economic activity, it has to influence those constrained optimization problems.

Define Popular Culture

Culture based on the tastes of ordinary people rather than an educated elite.

How does work ethic connect to cultural identity?

Culture reflects the moral and ethical beliefs and standards that speak to how people should behave and interact with others. These normative beliefs, together with related cultural values and rituals, impose a sense of order and control on aspects of life that might otherwise appear chaotic or unpredictable.

How does dance and music connect to cultural identity?

Discovering one's identity through dancing and singing allows the instructor and students to engage in fresh conversations about communication within one multicultural environment and connect such performances of identity to communicating one's culture through means other than words.

How does education connect to cultural identity?

Education inevitably brings shifts, however, learners' cultural identity plays a significant role in transmission of such values. According to their backgrounds, needs, ages, their learning strategies, each type of learner can come across with different problems during their educational life.

What is a formal norm?

Established, written rules.

What is Ethnic/Cultural Conflict?

Ethnic conflict, therefore, is a form of conflict in which there is an ethnic dimension. The conflict tends not to be about ethnic differences themselves but over political, economic, social, cultural, or territorial matters.

How does dress/grooming connect to cultural identity?

Fashion becomes inextricably implicated in constructions and reconstructions of identity: how we represent the contradictions and ourselves in our everyday lives. Through appearance style (personal interpretations of, and resistances to, fashion), individuals announce who they are and who they hope to become.

What the difference between Folk Cultures and Popular Cultures?

Folk culture usually originates in a rural hearth; whereas pop culture usually originates in an urban hearth. Pop culture experiences dramatic change over time; whereas folk culture tends to remain consistent over a number of generations.

How does cuisine connect to cultural identity?

Food is often used as a means of retaining their cultural identity. People from different cultural backgrounds eat different foods. These food preferences result in patterns of food choices within a cultural or regional group. In religion, food is one of the most important parts of religious ceremonies.

How do sports and recreation connect to cultural identity?

Games and sports are found in early human history and appear to be cultural universals. Cross-cultural research has found that type of games and sports vary in some very predictable ways-they are related to social and political complexity, to how children are raised, and aggressive sports are related to warfare.

What is GlobWalization and how is it changing the world's Cultural Landscape?

Globalization reduces awareness and contact with our heritage and sense of origin. It lures us away from a sustainable society. These cultural losses haunt the positive change brought forward in an era of decreasing human boundaries.

How does government connect to cultural identity?

Government is the most powerful influence on our culture today because government spends about $2.5 trillion a year, and every dollar carries the power to affect our culture and behavior through laws, regulations, grants, entitlements, and tax credits.

What is the difference between a habit and a custom?

Habit is a personal phenomenon while custom is a social phenomenon. A custom is formed on the basis of habit gaining the sanction and the influence and, therefore, the social significance which is peculiar to it. Customs are social habits which through repetition become the basis of an order of social behaviour.

What is the difference between an Ascribed Status, an Achieved Status, and a Master Status?

In sociology, the master status is the social position that is the primary identifying characteristic of an individual. Ascribed statuses are statuses born with- for example race, sex, etc.. Achieved statuses are gained throughout life-such as, mom, athlete, spouse, etc.

How does etiquette connect to cultural identity?

It reflects our cultural norms, generally accepted ethical codes, and the rules of various groups we belong to. It helps us show respect and consideration to others and makes others glad that we are with them.

Why are languages so important to cultural identity and continuation?

Language is intrinsic to the expression of culture. As a means of communicating values, beliefs and customs, it has an important social function and fosters feelings of group identity and solidarity. It is the means by which culture and its traditions and shared values may be conveyed and preserved.

Define Secondary Group

Large groups whose relationships are impersonal and goal oriented. People in a secondary group interact on a less personal level than in a primary group, and their relationships are generally temporary rather than long lasting.

Example of Popular Culture

Mass circulated magazines like the Sun or Mirror, soap operas, reality TV, popular music, video games, websites like Facebook.

How do festivals and holidays connect to cultural identity?

Most cultures use holiday celebrations to honor their history and past. By explaining holidays to preschoolers, teachers and parents can help children to understand and respect the sacrifices of people in history.

What is the difference between Polytheistic and Monotheistic Religion?

Polytheism is the belief in more than one god. Monotheism differs from polytheism in that it is the belief in a single god or divine being.

Define Racism

Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.

What is an example of cultural relativism?

Putting aside your vegetarianism to eat meals with the local tribe you are studying.

Why is religion so important to some cultural groups?

Religion can be a key factor in the cultural identity of many people, influencing their behavior and traditions. Rituals, sacrifices, prayer, art, are one of the many ways people show their allegiance to a particular religion.

How does medicine connect to cultural identity?

Respect is at the heart of cultural competence-patients who feel their healthcare providers respect their beliefs, customs, values, language, and traditions are more likely to communicate freely and honestly, which can, in turn, reduce disparities in healthcare and improve patient outcomes.

What are Role Expectations and how can they lead to problems?

Role expectations are a set of assumptions about behaviors expected of a role. For actors fulfilling roles in a virtual organization, role expectations of peers guide in the formation of a role identity. The actor must choose the extent to which he will fill the expectations of either role.

How do Roles and Statuses connect to the formation of a societal structure?

Roles are the behaviors, obligations, and privileges attached to a status. The individual occupies a status, but plays a role. Roles are an essential component of culture because they lay out what is expected of people, and as individuals perform their roles, those roles mesh together to form the society.

What is the difference between subcultures and countercultures?

Subcultures include people who may accept much of the dominant culture but are set apart from it by one or more culturally significant characteristics. On the other hand, countercultures are groups of people who differ in certain ways from the dominant culture and whose norms and values may be incompatible with it.

How does technology connect to cultural identity?

Technology influences everyday life and has a strong influence on culture. ... So, technology is incorporated in all aspects of culture including travel, food, government, and art. Technology shapes different cultures and differentiates one from another. It allows us to intermix.

Define Competition

The activity or condition of competing.

Define Society

The aggregate of people living together in a more or less ordered community.

Define Value

The core principles and ideals upon which an entire community exists. This is made up of several parts: customs, which are traditions and rituals; values, which are beliefs; and culture, which is all of a group's guiding values.

What is high culture?

The cultural objects of aesthetic value, which a society collectively esteem as exemplary art, and the intellectual works of philosophy, history, and literature that a society consider representative of their culture.

Define Xenophobia

The dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries.

Define Ethnocentrism

The opinion that one's own way of life is natural or correct.

What is a Societal Structure?

The patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally-related groups or sets of roles, with different functions, meanings, or purposes.

Define Cooperation

The process of working together to the same end.

What is Cultural Diffusion?

The spread of the beliefs and social activities of one culture to different ethnicities, religions, nationalities, etc..

Define Discrimination

The unfair or prejudicial treatment of people and groups based on characteristics such as race, gender, age or sexual orientation.

What are Social Institutions and how do they help the developments of culture?

They are systems of values and rules that determine how our society is organized. They are what makes our society function able for us to live together in harmony.