TYPES OF CULTURE

Material Culture

Material culture mentions to the physical objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define
their culture. These include homes, schools, churches, mosques, offices, temples, factories and
plants, clothes, utensils, roads, ornaments, T.V, radio, machines, tools, goods and products, stores
and many more. All of these man-made objects and things that have been evolved over ages for
man’s well-being and comfort are material culture.

Now material culture does not mean that it is an object that is bought and sold; it can also be
something we all make. For example, cocking art is a common thing we all do, and therefore is a
part of our material culture.

Non material Culture

The other type of culture is non material culture which cannot be touch, feel, taste or hold. Non
material culture belongs to the nonphysical ideas that people have about their culture, including
beliefs, values, rules, norms, morals, languages, social roles, ethics, music, literature, customs,
traditions, organizations and institutions. Non material culture is just as big of impact on our lives
as material culture.

Real Culture:
Real culture is that which can be observed in our social life. The culture on which we act upon in
our daily life is real culture. It is that parts of culture, which the people adopt in their social life,
for example. If a person/ says that he/she is Muslim, will be, when followed all the principles of
Islam is the real and when doesn’t follow, is not a real one.
Ideal Culture:
The culture which is presented as a pattern to the people is called ideal culture. It is the goal of
society and never achieved fully because some parts remain out of practice. This culture is
explained in books, speeches etc.
Elements of Culture
The culture of any specific society consists of several elements, or parts. Followings are some
elements of culture.

Social Organization
In most cultures, society divides people by social organization. Mostly there is a ruler who is more
powerful than other persons. Social organization is an important element of culture that shows how
the society treats the relationships between different members of that culture.
Customs
Customs are traditions, values, and social standards of a society and establish practices. These help
a society indicate the rules of behaviour which enforce ideas of right and wrong. These can be
traditions, rules, written laws, etc.

Rituals

Rituals are processes or set s of actions that are repeated in specific conditions and with specific
meaning. They may be used in such as when someone is promoted or retires. They may be
associated with company events or special day.

Religion
Religion is another important element of culture, which describes a society’s morals and beliefs
about humanity’s spirituality and reason for existing.

Language
Language is a symbolic system through which people communicate and through which culture is
written, acted and transmitted. Language is always evolving as societies create new ideas. Rules of
speaking and writing vary in every language even within cultures.

Norms
There are different norms, standards and expectations in
cultures for behaving. Norms are divided into two types. Formal norms also called mores and laws
considered most important in any society. Informal norms also called folkways and customs,
considered less important.

Symbols
Some symbols are type of nonverbal communication, while others are material objects. Every
culture has many symbols, of things that stand for somethings or show reactions and emotions. The
world is filled with symbols, like sports uniform, school uniform, company logo, gold ring and
traffic signs are symbols.

Cultural Relativism:

The Cross-Cultural Relationship is the idea that people from different cultures can have
relationships that acknowledge, respect and begin to understand each other’s diverse lives. People
with different backgrounds can help each other see possibilities that they never thought were there
because of limitations, or cultural proscriptions, posed by their own traditions. Traditional
practices in certain cultures can restrict opportunity because they are “wrong” according to one
specific culture. Becoming aware of these new possibilities will ultimately change the people that
are exposed to the new ideas. This cross-cultural relationship provides hope that new opportunities
will be discovered but at the same time it is threatening. The threat is that once the relationship
occurs, one can no longer claim that any single culture is the absolute truth.
Cultural relativism is the ability to understand a culture on its own terms and not to make
judgments using the standards of one’s own culture. The goal of this is promote understanding of
cultural practices that are not typically part of one’s own culture. Using the perspective of cultural
relativism leads to the view that no one culture is superior than another culture when compared to
systems of morality, law, politics, etc. [11] It is a concept that cultural norms and values derive their
meaning within a specific social context. This is also based on the idea that there is no absolute
standard of good or evil, therefore every decision and judgment of what is right and wrong is
individually decided in each society. The concept of cultural relativism also means that any opinion
on ethics is subject to the perspective of each person within their particular culture. Overall, there
is no right or wrong ethical system. In a holistic understanding of the term cultural relativism, it
tries to promote the understanding of cultural practices that are unfamiliar to other cultures such
as eating insects, genocides or genital cutting.

Ethnocentrism:

Evaluating and judging another culture based on how it compares to one’s own cultural norms.
Ethnocentrism, as sociologist William Graham Sumner (1906) described the term, involves a
belief or attitude that one’s own culture is better than all others, and should therefore serve as the
standard frame of reference. Almost everyone is a little bit ethnocentric.

Xenocentrism
It refers to the idea that what is foreign is best and that one's lifestyle, products or ideas are inferior
to those others.