Soc Lesson 9

Culture and its Types

• Culture refers to a group's taught collection of beliefs, values, traditions, and material possessions.
• Culture encompasses beliefs about what is real and what isn't, as well as what we may and cannot eat, wear, listen to, and play.
• Culture influences our perceptions of right and wrong, health and illness, and life and death.
• Culture establishes norms for significant social issues and principles for daily living.
• Culture gives our lives purpose and explains why we should get out of bed every morning, follow the law, and live a long life.
• Culture offers rewards for good behaviour and may even imply that these rewards will last beyond this world.

Material Culture and Nonmaterial Culture

• Material culture includes artefacts, works of architecture, and other tangible objects that people produce and give meaning to.
• Examples of material culture include technology, art, architecture, apparel, televisions, and consumer items from malls and supermarkets.
• Nonmaterial culture refers to the mental blueprints that serve as rules for social interaction.
• Nonmaterial culture includes the group's collective presumptions, lingo, beliefs, values, conventions, and attitudes.

High Culture and Popular Culture

• High culture refers to cultural traits that differentiate a society's elite.
• Popular culture refers to traits that are prevalent among the general populace.
• Social class is a factor in the diversity of cultures.

Society and its Relationship with Culture

• A society is a group of individuals who have relationships with one another.
• Culture is a structured system of values and standards that people adhere to.
• The distinctions between society and culture are hazy concepts.

Is the Foundation of Culture Biological or Social?

• Sociobiology is a theoretical school of thought that examines how human biology influences how humans produce culture.
• The foundation of sociobiology is the evolution idea put out by Charles Darwin in On the Origin of Species (1859).
• According to sociobiologists, the abundance of cultural universals is a reflection of the fact that all people are descended from a single biological species.

Components of Culture

• Symbols are created by humans from elements of the world and have specific meanings that are understood by people from the same culture.
• Language is a system of symbols that enables communication between people and is the key to the world of culture.
• Values are generally accepted norms for social behaviour that are based on culturally determined criteria for what is desirable, honourable, and attractive.
• Norms are expectations and rules for proper conduct that guide the behaviour of group members.

Types of Norms

• Folkways are informal expectations and guidelines that govern people's daily behaviour.
• Mores are salient social rules that are regarded as crucial to the smooth operation of society.
• Laws are written guidelines that apply to all members of society and are enacted and upheld by the state's authority.
• Taboos are rules forbidding actions that the majority of a group's members deem to be so abhorrent they are unimaginable.

Sanctions

• Sanctions are rewards or penalties used to enforce social norms.
• Sanctions can be formal, such as laws and regulations, or informal, such as social disapproval or ridicule.