UCSP

IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE
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FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE
- Provide for producing and distributing goods and services necessary for life.
- Provide for biological continuity through the reproduction of its members.
- Enculturate new members so that they can become functioning adults.
- Maintain order among members, as well as between them and outsiders.
- Motivate members to survive and engage in those activities necessary for survival.
- Be able to change to remain adaptive under changed conditions.

ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
- Language
 A group of words or ideas having a common meaning and being shared in a social
situation is called language. Language is the entrance to a culture. Language is a set of
socially sound patterns, words, and sentences having specific meanings and terminology
common to the same culture.
- Symbols
 Culture is a system of symbols. Symbols are anything used to represent express and stand
for an event situation. Symbols direct guide our behavior. It is used to show an event of
the past, present, or future.
- Norms
 Norms as elements of culture are the rules and the guidelines which specify the behavior
of an individual. Norms keep a person within the boundary of society and its culture. It
gives us restrictions about something which to do and which not to do. It molds our
behavior and gives us knowledge about wrong and right.
 - Values
 Anything getting important in our daily life becomes our values. The origin of values is
not biological but it is social production while living in society the values develop.
Values depend upon the culture. Culture varies from society to society and thus values
are different in every social situation. Values are what we like and what we say will in
our society values are good ideas and thinking of a person.
- Beliefs
 Every sect within a culture has some beliefs for cultural refuge. These beliefs are
responsible for the spiritual fulfillment of needs and want. Muslims believe in God, the
Holly Prophet, The Day of Judgment, the recitation of the Holy Quran, Hajj, etc.
- Cognitive Elements
 Cognitive elements of culture are those through which an individual knows how to cope
with an existing social situation. How to survive, how to make a shelter from storms and
other natural calamities, how to travel and transport etc. are the practical knowledge that
makes a culture. Such knowledge is carefully thought to every generation.

TYPES OF NORMS
- FOLKWAYS
 Folkways are customs that we follow but are often not written down. We learn them
through intuition as we grow up.
- MORES
 Mores are moral norms. If you break them you would be seen as not just in poor taste, but
immoral. They’re often linked to religious rules.
- TABOOS
 Taboos are ‘negative norms’ – things that people find offensive and socially
inappropriate if you are caught doing them.
- LAWS
 Laws are norms that are actually defined as being legal or illegal. The government has
decided these norms are so important that you could get in trouble for breaking them.