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Chapter 3: Culture & Society Culture: values, norms, material goods, and characteristics of a given group Society: group of people who live in a particular territory, are subject to common systems of political authority, and are aware of having a distinct identity from other groups...

Chapter 3: Culture & Society Culture: values, norms, material goods, and characteristics of a given group Society: group of people who live in a particular territory, are subject to common systems of political authority, and are aware of having a distinct identity from other groups Cultural universals: values or modes of behavior shared by all human cultures Marriage: socially approved sexual relationship between two individuals Non-material culture: nonphysical components of culture including norms, values, symbols, language, speech, and writing Values: ideas held by individuals or groups about what is desirable, proper, good, or bad Norms: rules of conduct that specify appropriate behavior in a given range of social situations Symbols: items used to stand for/represent something else Signifier: any vehicle of meaning and communication Semiotics: study of the ways in which nonlinguistic phenomena can generate meaning Language: primary vehicle of meaning and communication in a society Linguistic relativity hypothesis: based on the theories of Sapir and Whorf that perceptions are relative to language Speech is fixed, writing is not Types of human societies: ○ Hunting and gathering >50,000 years old Small groups that meet their needs through hunting, fishing, and gathering of plants Little to no inequality Time devoted to rituals, cultural practices, and arts and crafts Gathering was more important than hunting Women were very important Rich and creative lives ○ Pastoral 12,000 BCE —> present Domestication of animals Distinct inequalities Travelers, no fixed home ○ Agrarian 12,000 BCE —> present Irrigation systems Invented the plow  Settled societies and development of cities Marked inequalities ○ Industrial (modern) 18th century → present Use of inanimate sources of power Start of environmental crisis Factory system, machine technology Live in urban areas Political communities live within a nation state ○ Colonialism Shaped the world of today Started with Columbus Force and deception Europeans colonizing Wanted our spices Notion of race started Cultural capital: accumulated knowledge within a society that confers power and status Global South (nations south of equator): formally impoverished countries that over the past 2 or 3 decades have begun to develop a strong industrial base BRICS Nations: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa Cultural appropriation: when members of a cultural group borrow elements of another groups culture Cultural diversity: ○ Subcultures: values and norms distinct from those of the majority held by a group within a wider society ○ Countercultures: cultural groups within a wider society that largely rejects the values and norms of the majority ○ Assimilation: the acceptance of a minority group by a majority population in which the new group takes on the values and norms of the dominant culture ○ Multicultural: a condition in which ethnic groups exist separately and share equally in economic and political life ○ Melting pot: the combining of multiple cultures into one Ethnocentrism: tendency to look at other cultures through the eyes of one’s own culture, thereby misrepresenting them Cultural relativism: practice of judging a society by its own standards Sociobiology: an approach that attempts to explain the behavior of both animals and human beings in terms of biological principles  Instincts: fixed patterns of behavior that have genetic origins and that appear in all normal animals within a given species Nationalism: set of beliefs and symbols expressing identification with a national community Cultural lag (William Ogburn): the idea that changes in cultural values and norms take time to catch up with technological developments Material culture: physical objects that a society creates that influence the ways in which people live Cultural turn: sociology’s recent emphasis on the importance of understanding the role of culture in daily life Industrial societies: ○ Industrialization: process of machine production of goods ○ Industrialized societies: strongly developed nation-states in which the majority of the population works in factories or offices rather than in agriculture, and most people live in urban areas ○ Nation-states: particular types of states, characteristic of the modern world, in which governments have sovereign power within the defined territorial areas and populations are citizens who know themselves to be a part of single nations Chapter 4: Socialization Socialization: lifelong process consisting of learning, relearning, and unlearning Life course: different stages and transitions experienced in life Primary socialization: infancy → early childhood Secondary socialization: early childhood → adult life Social reproduction: process of perpetuating values, norms, and social practices through socialization, leading to a structural community Agents of socialization: groups or social contexts within which processes of socialization take place; where learning is done ○ Family ○ Schools ○ Peer groups ○ Media ○ Work Resocialization: process whereby people learn new rules and norms upon entering a new social world Desocialization: process whereby people unlearn rules and norms upon exiting a particular social world Anticipatory socialization: groups or social contexts within which processes of socialization take place  Social roles: socially defined expectations of an individual in a given status or social position Social identity: characteristics attributed by others to an individual Self identity: how we think of ourselves, our relationship with the world Master status: single identity or status dominating all others; how society defines you Stages of socialization in life: childhood, teenager, young adulthood, midlife, later life Cognition: human thought processes involving perception, reasoning, and remembering 3 approaches/theories of socialization: sociological, psychological, psychoanalytic Sociological scientists: ○ George Herbet Mead Social self-basis of consciousness in human individuals Self consciousness Generalized other: individual that understands general values of a given group or society during socialization Imitation of significant other ○ Charles Horton Cooley Looking glass self: reflection of how we think others see us; reactions we elicit in social situations create a mirror in which we see ourselves Psychology scientists: ○ John Piaget Stages in childhood: Sensorimotor: birth → 2 years (senses and movement) Preoperational: 2 → 7 years (language, thinking) Concrete operational: 7 → 11 years (abstract concepts) Formal operational: 11 → 15 years (abstract ideas; mortality) Development of thoughts Egocentric: the characteristic quality of a child during the early years of life Psychoanalysis scientists ○ Sigmund Freud Theory of gender identity: male power and penis envy Interpretation of dreams/unconsciousness ○ Nancy Chodorow Gender socialization has to do with emotional attachments more than anatomy  Girls attach to their moms, boys attach to their dads ○ Carol Gilligan Gender socialization has to do with the images adult men and women have of themselves and their attainment Race socialization: specific verbal and nonverbal messages that older generations transmit to younger generations regarding meaning/significance of race Chapter 5: Social Interaction Impression management: preparing for the presentation of one's social role Roles: expected behaviors of people occupying certain social positions Status: social honor or prestige that a particular group is accorded by other members of a society Social position: identity an individual has in a given group or society Erving Goffman: theater analogy (world is our stage); life is a balancing act Audience segregation: separating of the people we “perform” for Front stage/region: where we “perform”, anywhere with an audience Backstage/region: space we don’t have to perform Civil inattention: behaviors we engage in when in a public space; acknowledgment of people’s presence around you without being intrusive Paul Ekman: ○ Facial action coding system (FACS): description of movements of the facial muscles that give rise to particular expressions ○ Response cries: involuntary expressions individuals make, expressing mistakes, pleasure, control, and awareness Unfocused interaction: interaction without direct face to face communication Focused interaction: interaction involving direct communication Encounters: a meeting between two or more people in a situation of face-to-face interaction Time-space: when/where events occur Regionalization: division of social life into different zones Clock time: time measured by numbers/on a clock Edward T Hall: ○ Personal space: individual’s physical space Personal space zones: intimate, personal, social, public Harold Garfinkel ○ Ethnomethodology: study of how people make sense of what others say and do in the course of daily social interaction; rules of people Interactional vandalism: deliberate subversion of tacit rules of conversation ○ Conversation analysis: empirical study of conversations, using techniques drawn from ethnomethodology  Cosmopolitan canopy (Elijah Anderson) ○ Streetwise: someone’s understanding and ability to navigate informal social rules and codes of behavior in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods