Chapter 2, Culture

1. Chapter 2, Culture • Defining Culture • The Elements of Culture • Cultural Diversity • The Globalization of Culture • Popular Culture • Theoretical Perspectives on Culture • Cultural Change

2. Characteristics of Culture • Culture is shared. • Culture is learned. • Culture is taken for granted. • Culture is symbolic. • Culture varies across time and place.

3.  The Elements of Culture • Language • Norms • Beliefs • Values

4. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis • Language forces people to perceive the world in certain terms. • Critics question whether language single-handedly dictates the perception of reality.

5.  Ethnomethodology • Technique for studying human interaction. • By disrupting social norms we can discover the true social order. • Culture is enforced by the social sanctions applied to those who violate the norms.

6. Ethnocentrism • Judging a culture by the standards of one’s own culture. • Builds group solidarity, but discourages intercultural or inter group understanding. • Can lead to overt political conflict, war, and even genocide. 

7. Racism and Sexism in the Media • The mass media promotes narrow definitions of who people are and what they can be. • Images of women and racial and ethnic minorities in the media are limiting. • Images in the media help form cultural ideals and have a huge impact on people’s behavior, values and self-image.

8. Functionalist Perspectives on Culture • Integrates people into groups. • Provides coherence and stability in society. • Creates norms and values that integrate people in society.

9. Conflict Theory Perspectives of Culture • Serves the interest of powerful groups. • Can be a source of political resistance. • Is increasingly controlled by economic monopolies. 

10. Symbolic Interaction Perspectives on culture • Creates group identity from diverse cultural meaning systems. • Changes as people produce new cultural meaning systems. • Is socially constructed through the activities of social groups.

11. New Cultural StudiesPerspectives on Culture • Is ephemeral, unpredictable and constantly changing. • Is a material manifestation of a consumer-oriented society. • Is best understood by analyzing its artifacts such as books, films and television images.

12. Sources of Cultural Change • Change in societal conditions. • Innovation. • Imposition by an outside agency (an invasion or political revolution).