Understanding Culture, Society and Politics: Lesson 3 Quiz

Cultural Universals and Cultural Variation

• Cultural Universals are traits that are part of every known culture, including bodily adornment, courtship, dancing, education, food taboos, funeral rites, etc.
• Cultural Variation refers to the rich diversity in social patterns that different human groups exhibit around the world.

Types of Cultures

• Subculture: a culture shared with a distinctive pattern of mores, folkways, and values that differ from a larger society.
• Counter Culture: a culture practiced by groups whose values and norms place it at odds with mainstream society or actively reject dominant cultural values and norms.
• High Culture: a culture practiced and patronized by the upper classes of society.
• Popular Culture: a culture practiced or patronized by the middle and working classes of society.

Cultural Relativism

• Cultural Relativism: the practice of assessing a culture by its own standards rather than viewing it through the lens of one's own culture.
• Example: Pepay, a cultural relativist from the Philippines, looks at other cultures in terms of what their practices bring to them.
• Goals of Cultural Relativism: to understand a culture on its own terms, putting oneself in another culture's shoes/eyes.

Ethnocentrism

• Ethnocentrism: the use of one's own culture to judge others in their society, regarding one's own culture as the center of everything.
• Example: Pedro, an ethnocentric from the Philippines, considers others' beliefs and practices to be savage or corrupt, or is often confused by other people's cultures.
• 3 Stages of Ethnocentrism:
  • Stage 1: Denial - denial that cultural differences exist.
  • Stage 2: Defense - acknowledgement of cultural differences, but seen as threatening to self.
  • Stage 3: Minimization - recognition of cultural differences, but downplaying their importance.

Culture Shock and Multiculturalism

• Culture Shock: the feeling of disorientation, uncertainty, or fear when immersed in an unfamiliar culture.
• Multiculturalism: the existence of a diversity of cultures within one territory, and a way of conceptualizing and managing cultural diversity.
• Critical Cultural Relativism: creates questions about cultural practices in terms of who accepts them and why.

Test your knowledge on Cultural Universals, Cultural Variation, Subcultures, and Countercultures with this quiz based on the lesson on Cultural Relativism and Ethnocentrism.