Culture - Terms and Definitions
Ethnic Group
A group of people who share a common history, language, religion, some physical characteristics. Majority groups control most wealth and power. Minority groups are people whose race is different from the majority group.
Dialect
A local form of a language that differs from the same language is other areas. Most likely has pronunciation and/or meaning differences.
Multiculturalism
A perspective that, rather than seeing society as a homogenous culture, recognizes cultural diversity while advocating for equal standing for all cultural traditions.
Dictatorship
A type of unlimited government, where the ruler usually takes power by force. Most of these rulers rely on the police and military to stay in power. They usually limit freedom of speech, assembly, and press. They are not responsible to the people.
Counterculture
A way of life and/or set of addaitudes opposed to or different from the prevailing social norm.
Popular Culture
Always challenges folk culture, and undermines it.
Popular Culture
Always looking for the 'new'.
Symbols
Anything that carries a specific meaning that's recognized by people who share a culture. Non-verbal gestures are a symbolic system that people within a culture can use to communicate.
Structural Functionalism
Believes that cultures form to provide order and cohesiveness in a society.
Folk Culture
Believes that tradition is paramount, and that change comes infrequently and slowly.
Popular Culture
Can be revolutionary in effect, though often unintentionally.
Popular Culture
Celebrates the people who are experiencing it.
Popular Culture
Characterized by strong commercial interests.
Culture
Comprised of eight elements called traits; groups a society is divided into, language, religion, daily life, history, artwork, government, and how they make a living.
Popular Culture
Consuming 'popular culture products' often enhances prestige/identity.
Subcultures
Cultural patterns that set apart a segment of a society's population.
Culture is Essential
Culture gives us an identity. The art, history, literature, our education, and our upbringing shapes our personalities. Our culture is deeply ingrained in our minds. Our cultural values and our system of beliefs dictate our thinking and behavior. To make us feel like a part of the group and to give us the guiding principles of life, culture is essential. Language, symbols, values, and norms are some important elements of culture. Religious beliefs, customs and traditions, art and history together can be considered as the cultural elements. They give a meaning to the concept of culture. All of these are important for our overall development as individuals.
Culture Takes Years to Form
Culture influences us, but we also influence culture. Culture evolves over time and takes years to develop. It's not a set of rules make by one or more people and followed. The location and climate of a region directly impacts the living conditions, traditional clothing, and eating habits of the people living there. It can also affect the art, sports, and other activities, thus defining culture. Holidays, festivals, beliefs, and rituals are passed down from generation to generation with a cultural or political purpose in the interest of the nation. The culture's history plays a major role in the formation of a culture, including political changes, forms of government, or other countries ruling a nation. Even after gaining independence from foreign powers, the people are not freed from their cultural influences.
Culture is Learned
Culture is not biologically passed down generations, it is learned through experience. Members of a culture share with newer generations their ideals. Culture is imparted from generation to generation, which is why they continue. No one is born with a sense of culture.
Culture
Culture is the way of life of people who share similar beliefs or customs.
Cultural Change
Cultures do not remain the same; humans constantly invent new things and think of new solutions to problems. Trade and war can spread change to other cultures.
Culture Changes
Cultures undergo a gradual change. Migration and globalization leads to a mixing of cultures, and influence each other, and effectively, their cultures. New cultures may develop out of this. Some traditions are dropped out of a culture because they are dangerous. Newer generations are flexible to change and look at cultural concepts with an open mind. Some rituals or customs become less rigid, some are replaced by simpler ones, and some are discontinued. People adopt some aspects of other cultures, which affects what they teach their children, and influences the culture of future generations. Social thinking undergoes a transition and so does culture. All cultures chance, though the rate at which they do so might vary. Usually, the politically or economically stronger countries influence cultures worldwide.
Social Groups
Different groups of people in a society. For example, rich, poor, middle class, how people of different ages are treated, roles of men vs. women, ethnic groups.
High Culture
Does not mean better culture, but are instead the cultural patterns that distinguish a society's elite, or the 'ideal' culture.
Culture is Shared
Every culture is shared by a group of people. Being common to a group, they develop a sense of unity and belonging amoung people of that group. Many things, ranging from traditions to literature to their personalities can be influenced by their culture. Culture gives people a collective identity, and belongs to a community, not just a single person.
Popular Culture
Has masses of spectator-participants who form a community of 'believers'.
Religion
Helps people answer basic questions about life's meaning, beliefs vary drastically around the world. Religious differences are a challenge in many countries. Major religions include but are not limited to Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism.
Popular Culture
Highly individualistic and constantly changing, continually updates or redefines themselves by their cultural aspects.
Cultural Diffusion
How cultural traits spread from one culture to another.
The Economy
How people earn a living, Some farm or manufacture products, others provide services like designing a web page or preparing food.
Culture Over Time
In the first human societies, people lived y hunting animals and gathering fruits and vegetables. They were nomadic, moving to follow sources of food. Then 10,000 years ago, people learned to grow food by planting, which brought about the agricultural revolution. Groups stayed in one place and built settlements, where societies became more complex.
Folk Culture
Individualism is subordinate to traditional community standards and values.
Popular Culture
Is the 'glue' which binds members of a common society.
Popular Culture
Is transmitted by mass media such as books, films, television, large public gatherings (rock concerts, mass sports events, etc.) and is not usually location specific.
Folk Culture
Is transmitted interpersonally within the relatively small, cohesive, homogenous society in question, and is often confined to that particular environment.
Monarchy
Kings or queens are born into a ruling family and inherit the power to rule. They used to have unlimited power, but in most countries now, absolute monarchy has faded into constitutional monarchy, where they act according to the constitution.
Cultural Transmission
Language is used to pass and share information, and to share the things that make up their culture.
Folk Culture
Local in orientation, and limited in the appeal of it's authentic.
Folk Culture
May combine folk and non-folk elements. Includes folktales, folk songs, folk dances, folklore, folk beliefs, superstitions and customs.
Mores
More official than folkways, and tend to codified, or formalized, as the stated rules and laws of a society.
Culture Cannot be Isolated
No culture can remain in isolation. Every culture is mostly influenced by cultures of the surrounding regions. The cultural values of a people in a particular country are affected by those of the people from neighboring countries. Trade, migration, and travel are examples of how cultures cannot stay seperated. Cultures that evolve around the same time show similarities because they are developed together. Some blend together to created shared cultures. No culture can make itself immune to external influences.
Cultural Relativism
Not judging a culture to our own standards of what is right of wrong, strange or normal. Instead, we should try to understand cultural practices of other groups in its own cultural context. You should think about their customs in a way that helps us make sense of how their cultural practices fits with their overall cultural context.
Folk Culture
Not much commercialization, though some aspects can be copied and popularized by mass culture.
Folk Culture
Often has a strong family or clan structure and highly developed family, religious, or general community rituals.
Language
One of the strongest unifying forces for a culture. Some cultures may have language differences call dialects.
Popular Culture
One's identity within this is usually flexible and vague, and is seldom restricted to any particular environment.
Folk Culture
Original form to 'outsiders' of this particular society.
Culture
Patterns of human activity, and the significant symbols of them. Expressed through art, customs, language, religion, literature, and clothing. Cultural values (their principles and moral values) are important, and different cultures have different cultural values.
Arts
People express their culture through this. It doesn't just include paintings and sculptures, but the architecture, dance, music, theatre and literature. This shows what the culture thinks is beautiful and important.
Government
People need rules, which are created by this. Limited governments are where all citizens, including country leaders, must obey the laws of the land as written is a constitution or statement of rights Unlimited governments are where rulers have powers not limited by laws.
Culture Shock
Refers to the feelings of disorientation, uncertainty, or even fear that people experience when they encounter unfamiliar cultural practices. This can happen when someone moves to a different country, moves social environment, or travels to another country or type of life.
Beliefs
Specific ideas about what people think is true about the world.
Culture is Transmitted Across Generations
Symbols and stories are methods of passing down culture across generations. Languages, values, and religious beliefs are integrated into the education system. Beliefs take the form of customs and rituals. Art, music, and dance are also transmitted across generations. Many people are unaware of their own culture, some things are lost in translation, and some may be removed on purpose. Some aspects may not be completely understood, and some are not accepted. This can lead to the end of old cultures. Many have the knowledge of the world, but only some have a complete knowledge of their culture.
Folk Culture
The 'identity' of members is usually fixed and inflexible, with clearly-defined roles and expectations.
Low Culture
The cultural behaviors and ideas that are popular with most people in a society.
Mainstream Culture
The cultural patterns that are broadly in line with a society's cultural ideals and values. (The 'norm', if you will.)
Values
The cultural standards that people use to decide what's good or bad, what's right or wrong. They serve as the ideals and guidelines that we live by.
Non-material Culture
The culture of ideas. There are three main elements: symbols, values and beliefs, and norms.
Material Culture
The culture of things.
Folkways
The informal little rules that kind of go without saying.
Popular Culture
The means of which large, heterogeneous masses of people identify themselves.
Taboo
The norms that are crucial to a society's moral center, involving behaviors that are always negatively sanctioned. These are never okay, no matter the circumstance.
Folk Culture
The people (and objects, etc.) who represent or maintain a 'traditional way of life', who live in an old-fashioned way or with a simpler lifestyle which is not (or no longer) 'popular' (at least in the modern, 'mass' sense prevailing in a particular society).
Conflict Theory
The perspective that society is in a state of perpetual conflict because of competition for limited resources and cultural differences.
Ethnocentrism
The practice of judging one culture by the standards of another.
Cultural Diffusion
The process of spreading new knowledge and skills to other cultures.
Norms
The rules and expectations that guide behavior within a society.
Culture
The world _______ itself comes from the Latin word 'colere' which means 'to cultivate'. ________ cultivates our minds.
Culture Regions
These include different countries with common traits like forms of government and social groups. Their languages are religion may be related, and they may have similar history and art. Their food, dress and housing could be similar.
Democracy
This is a form of limited government where powers rest with the people of the nation. This can also be in the form of a representative ______.
Civilizations
This is a highly developed culture. Four civilizations arose in river valleys in (present day) Iraq, Egypt, India, and China. They had cities, complex governments and religions, and systems of writing. Thousands of years later in the 1700s and 1800s, people began to industrialize, or use machines and factories to make goods. They could work faster and more efficiently than people or animals. This was called the industrial revolution, and people began to live longer and healthier lives. Recently, the world began the information revolution, with computers able to store and process huge amounts of information. They also allow people to send information around the world.
History
This shapes how we view the world: remember past successes, celebrating holidays to honor the people who brought about those successes, stories about heroes show the characteristics people deem important. They also remember the dark periods of history (disaster or defeat). These experiences influence how a group of people sees itself.
Folk Culture
Usually rural, cohesive, conservative, and largely self-sufficient.
Daily Life
What people eat and how they eat it (fingers, silverware, chopsticks) reflect their culture. What people wear and how they build traditional homes shows cultural differences.
Cultural Lag
Where some cultural elements change more slowly than others.
