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SOCIOLOGY
Richard T. Schaefer

3 Culture

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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3. Culture
• Culture and Society
• Development of Culture Around the World
• Elements of Culture
• Culture and the Dominant Ideology
• Cultural Variation
• Social Policy and Socialization

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Culture and Society

• Culture: totality of learned, socially

transmitted customs, knowledge,
material objects, and behavior
– Culture includes ideas, values, customs,
and artifacts of groups of people

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Culture and Society

• Society is largest form of human group
– Society members learn culture
and transmit from generation to
generation
– Common culture simplifies many
day-to-day interactions
– Language a critical element of
culture that sets humans apart
from other species

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Development of Culture
Around the World
• Cultural Universals
– Societies develop common practices,
including:
• Athletic sports
• Cooking
• Funeral ceremonies
• Medicine
• Sexual restrictions

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Development of Culture
Around the World
• Innovation
– Process of introducing new idea or object
to a culture
• Discovery: making known or sharing
existence of an aspect of reality
• Invention: when existing cultural items are
combined into a form that did not exist before

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Development of Culture
Around the World
• Globalization, Diffusion, and Technology
– Diffusion: process by which a
cultural item spreads from group
to group or society to society
• McDonalization: process through
which the principles of the fast-food
industry have come to dominate
certain sectors of society

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Development of Culture
Around the World
• Globalization, Diffusion, and Technology
– Technology: information about how to use
the material resources of the environment to
satisfy human needs and desires (Nolan and
Lenski 2004:37)
– Material culture: • Food items
physical or • Houses
technological aspects • Factories
• Raw materials
of our daily lives
McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Development of Culture
Around the World
• Globalization, Diffusion, and Technology
– Nonmaterial Culture: ways of using
material objects as well as: • Customs
– Culture Lag: period of • Beliefs
• Philosophies
maladjustment when • Governments
nonmaterial culture is • Patterns of
still struggling to adapt communication
to new material
conditions
McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Development of Culture
Around the World
• Sociobiology
– Systematic study of how biology affects
human social behavior
• Founded on Charles Darwin’s theory of
evolution
– Sociobiologists assert that many cultural
traits are rooted in our genetic makeup

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Development of Culture
Around the World
Figure 3-1. Languages of the World

Source: J. Allen 2005:330

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Elements of Culture

• Language
– Abstract system of word meanings and
symbols for all aspects of culture
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
• Language precedes thought
• Language is not a given
• Language is culturally determined
• Language may color how we see world

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Elements of Culture

• Language
– Nonverbal Communication
• Use of gestures, facial
expressions, and other visual
images to communicate
• Norms
– Established standards of To be significant,
behavior maintained by a norms must be
society widely shared and
understood
McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Elements of Culture
• Norms
– Types of Norms
• Formal norms
– Generally written; specify strict punishments
– In U.S., often formalized into laws
• Informal norms
– Generally understood but not precisely recorded
• Mores
– Norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of a
society
• Folkways
– Norms governing everyday behavior
McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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Elements of Culture

• Norms
– Acceptance of Norms
• Subject to change as political, economic, and
social conditions transform
• Sanctions
– Penalties and rewards for conduct
concerning a social norm

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Elements of Culture

• Values
– Collective conceptions of what is good,
desirable, and proper—or bad, undesirable,
and improper
Influence people’s behavior

Criteria for evaluating actions

of others
Values may change
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Elements of Culture
Table 3-1. Norms and Sanctions

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Elements of Culture
Figure 3-2. Life Goals of First-Year College Students in the United
States, 1996—2004

Source: UCLA Higher Education Research Institute, as reported in Astin et al. 1994; Sax et al. 2004

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Culture and the Dominant

Ideology
• Dominant Ideology
– Describes the set of cultural beliefs and
practices that help to maintain powerful
social, economic, and political interests

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Cultural Variation

• Aspects of Cultural Variation

– Each culture has unique character
• Subculture: Segment of society that shares
distinctive pattern of mores, folkways, and
values that differs from the larger society

Argot: specialized language that

distinguishes a subculture from
the wider society

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Cultural Variation
• Aspects of Cultural Variation
– Counterculture: subculture that
conspicuously and deliberately opposes
certain aspects of the larger culture
• Hippies
• Terrorist cells

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Cultural Variation

• Aspects of Cultural Variation

– Culture shock: Feeling disoriented,
uncertain, out of place, or fearful when
immersed in an unfamiliar culture

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Cultural Variation
• Aspects of Cultural Variation
– Ethnocentrism: Tendency to assume that
one’s own culture and way of life represent
the norm or is superior to all others
– Cultural relativism: people’s behaviors
from the perspective of their own culture

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Cultural Variation
Table 3-2. Major Theoretical Perspectives on Culture

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Social Policy and Socialization

• Bilingualism
– The Issue
• Bilingualism refers to use of two or more
languages in a particular setting, such as the
workplace or schoolroom
• Program of bilingual education may instruct
children in their native language while
gradually introducing the language of the
host society

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Social Policy and Socialization

• Bilingualism
– The Setting
• Languages know no political boundaries
• Minority languages common in many nations
• Schools throughout the world deal with
incoming students speaking many languages

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Social Policy and Socialization

• Bilingualism
– Sociological Insights
• For a long time, people in the United States
demanded conformity to a single language
• Challenges to this forced obedience to our
dominant ideology

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Social Policy and Socialization

• Bilingualism
– Policy Initiatives
• Bilingualism has policy implications in efforts to
maintain language purity and programs to
enhance bilingual education
• Nations vary dramatically in tolerance for a
variety of languages

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Social Policy and Socialization

Figure 3-3. States with Official English Laws

Source: U.S. English 2005

McGraw-Hill © 2007 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.