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
