NETA PowerPoint® Slides

to accompany

Prepared by
Tami Bereska
MacEwan University

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 Chapter 3

“I am Canadian”: What is “Canadian” Culture?

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 Overview
A. What is culture?
B. How culture shapes our understandings
C. The relationship between norms and values
D. Subcultures and countercultures
E. “Canadian” culture

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 (A) What is Culture?

“the sum total of the social environment in

which we are raised and continue to be
socialized throughout our lives”

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 One Culture or Many?
• Postmodern perspective  there is no single “Canadian”
culture
– Only a multiplicity of diverse cultures
• But all societies share certain cultural universals

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 Photos/Shutterstock.com
Billion
What is in your backpack?
Material culture tells us about nonmaterial culture
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 (B) How Culture Shapes Our Understandings
• Culture shapes our understandings through
– Language
– Norms
– Values
• These understandings are so fundamental, we may experience
culture shock when travelling abroad

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 Language
• Why is language important?
– Personal expression
– Transmission of knowledge
– Personal, social, and cultural identity
• More than 200 mother tongues in Canada
– Including more than 50 Indigenous languages from 11 language
families

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 Haveseen/Shutterstock.com
What do you see?
Sapir–Whorf Hypothesis: language shapes reality

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 Gendered Language

Adjectives to describe
Names
males and females

Job titles Gendered pronouns

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 Norms
• Language communicates norms
• Types of norms
– Folkways  informal
– Mores  formal
– Taboos  wrong in and of themselves
• Prescriptive norms and proscriptive norms

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 Values
• Collectively shared ideas about how to determine whether
something is right or wrong
– e.g., equality, justice, fairness
• Presumptive link to social policies, mission statements, and
programs

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 Canadian Values
Equality and fairness
Consultation and dialogue
Accommodation and tolerance
Support for diversity
Compassion and generosity
Attachment to Canada’s natural beauty
Canada’s world image
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(C) The Relationship Between Norms and Values
• Functionalist perspective
– Durkheim  norms and values are social facts that are internalized
by people in society
– Parsons  norms and values work together to keep society running
smoothly

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 The Relationship Between Norms
and Values (cont’d)
• Conflict perspective
– Norms may contradict underlying values
– Ideal culture: values a majority of people identify with in a given
society
– Real culture: practices engaged in by the majority of people in a given
society
– There is often a gap between ideal culture and real culture

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Ideal Versus Real Culture

Which Canadian values are

contradicted by the government’s
policy of residential schooling?

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Ideal Versus Real Culture (cont’d)

Which Canadian values are

contradicted by practices
associated with the Oil Sands?

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 Ideal Versus Real Culture (cont’d)
• Why is there a gap between ideal and real culture?
– Modern practices may clash with traditional beliefs
– Cultural relativism
• e.g., recruitment of child soldiers
– Ethnocentrism

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 (D) Subcultures and Countercultures
• Subcultures have divergent language, norms, beliefs, and/or
values
e.g., Hutterites, cosplay
• Countercultures have oppositional language, norm, beliefs,
and/or values
– e.g., Hell’s Angels, Hippies

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(E) “Canadian” Culture

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 High Culture
• High culture refers to the cultural practices of the social elite
– e.g., ballet, opera
• Bourdieu  social reproduction of classes through cultural and
educational practices
• Elite culture is identifiable through status symbols

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 Popular Culture
• Popular culture refers to the everyday cultural practices of the
masses
– e.g., pop music, Hollywood movies
• Sometimes equated with youth culture
• Labelling of eras on the basis of prevalent popular culture
– e.g., “disco era” (1970s)

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 Critical Views of Popular Culture
• Popular culture serves the dominant class and exploits the
lower class
– e.g., through commodification
• Fiske  distinction between mass culture and popular culture
• Peterson  in contemporary society, high culture and popular
culture are utilized by members of all classes
– e.g., cultural omnivores

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 Summary
 Culture includes material and nonmaterial forms
 It shapes our understandings through language, norms, and
values
 It is diverse, and includes subcultures and countercultures
 It can be represented through symbols
 It consists of both high culture and popular culture

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