8/21 (Thursday) TOTD: How would you describe American culture? Agenda: TOTD Culture Notes Ch.3 ...

8/21 (Thursday)TOTD: How would you describe American culture?Agenda:TOTDCulture NotesCh.3Lost Boys FactsEssay assignment

Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis

Sociology, 12th Edition by John MacionisAll rights reserved.

CultureThe values, beliefs, behavior, and material

objects that together form a people’s way of life

Sociology, 12th Edition by John MacionisCopyright 2008 Prentice Hall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

Terminology

• Nonmaterial culture– The intangible world of ideas created by

members of a society

• Material culture– The tangible things created by members

of a society


Terminology

• Culture shock– Disorientation due to the inability to

make sense out of one’s surroundings• Domestic and foreign travel

• Ethnocentrism– A biased “cultural yardstick”

• Cultural relativism– More accurate understanding


Symbols• Anything that carries a particular

meaning recognized by people who share a culture

• Societies create new symbols all the time.

• Reality for humans is found in the meaning things carry with them.– The basis of culture; makes life

possible


Symbols• People must be mindful that

meanings vary from culture to culture.

• Meanings can even vary greatly within the same groups of people.– Fur coats, Confederate flags, etc.

8/22 TOTD: What is the difference b/w material culture & non-material culture? Give an example of both for the USA.Agenda:Turn in your Common Sense essayLost BoysCulture Notes

Sociology, 12th Edition by John MacionisHall, a division of Pearson Education. All rights reserved.


Language

• A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another

• Cultural transmission– The process by which one generation

passes culture to the next• Sapir-Whorf thesis

– People perceive the world through the cultural lens of language.

8/25 MondayTOTD: Do you think that a person who speaks Cherokee, an American Indian language, experiences the world differently from other Americans who think in English or Spanish? Explain your answer.

Agenda:CH 3 NotesCulture ReviewCulture Assignment

• http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/17/the-global-guide-to-hand-_n_4956860.html

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTE0G9amZNk#t=13

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/17/the-global-guide-to-hand-_n_4956860.html



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTE0G9amZNk#t=13

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTE0G9amZNk#t=13

Values and Beliefs

• Values– Culturally defined standards of desirability,

goodness, and beauty, which serve as broad guidelines for social living. Values support beliefs.

• Beliefs– Specific statements that people hold to be

true.– Particular matters that individuals consider to

be true or false.

Sociologist Robin Williams’ Ten Values That Are Central to American Life

1. Equal opportunity2. Achievement and success3. Material comfort4. Activity and work5. Practicality and efficiency6. Progress7. Science8. Democracy and free

enterprise9. Freedom10. Racism and group superiority

Are some of these values inconsistent with one another?

Values Sometimes Conflict• Williams's list includes examples of value clusters.• Sometimes one key cultural value contradicts

another. (Ex: people in US may believe in equality but also may degrade others b/c of their sex or race)

• Value conflict causes strain.• Values change over time.

A Global Perspective• Cultures have their own values.• Lower-income nations have cultures that value

survival. • Higher-income countries have cultures that

value individualism and self-expression.

.

Norms:

• Types– Proscriptive

• Should-nots, prohibited– Prescriptive

• Shoulds, prescribed like medicine

• Mores and Folkways– Mores (pronounced "more-rays")

• Norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance (tell us what is right vs wrong)

– Folkways• Norms for routine and causal interaction (tell us

what is right vs rude)

Rules and expectations by which society guides its members’ behavior (Ex: applauding after a musical

performance; not applauding after a classroom lecture)

8/28 *thursday

For 8/27 write: NO TOTD. Today’s is: Thinking about the article yesterday, do you think your generation values the “right” things? Explain.Agenda:TOTDCulture Notes: FinishCulture Review SheetCulture Mini-

Project


Cultural Diversity• High culture–Cultural patterns that distinguish a

society’s elite.

• Popular culture–Cultural patterns that are widespread among society’s population.

• Subculture–Cultural patterns set apart some segment of society’s population. (surfers, athletes, computer nerds, wilderness campers, emo…)

• Counterculture–Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society.(hippies in the 1960s, doomday-preppers,)

• Ethnocentrism– Whenever someone believes that their

own culture is superior over another culture or the practice of judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture

• Cultural relativism– The practice of judging a culture by its

own standards

Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism

Xenocentrism- • This means to think that another culture is

better than your own. • For example, you might think that the

math skills of students in Singapore are better than those of American students or food in France is better than your Spanish cuisine.

• This can create distress among a society when its individuals do not feel that their own culture is up-to-par.


Culture Collage ProjectFun online collage makers:•glogster.com• postermywall.com• collage.com


Social Control

How we evaluate our own behavior:•Guilt

– A negative judgment we make about ourselves

•Shame– The painful sense that others

disapprove of our actions

Attempts by members of society to regulate/encourage conformity to norms


Ideal Versus Real Culture• Ideal culture

– The way things should be– Social patterns mandated by values

and norms

• Real culture– They way things actually occur in

everyday life– Social patterns that only approximate

cultural expectations

• “Do as I say, not as I do”

Material Culture and Technology

• Culture includes a wide range of physical human creations or artifacts.

• A society's artifacts partly reflect underlying cultural values.

• In addition to reflecting values, material culture also reflects a society's technology or knowledge that people use to make a way of life in their surroundings.

Multiculturalism

•Eurocentrism– The dominance of European (especially English) cultural patterns

•Afrocentrism–The dominance of African cultural patterns

An educational program recognizing the cultural diversity of the United States and promoting the

equality of all cultural traditions.

Interdependence• Culture integration

– The close relationships among various elements of a cultural system• Example: Computers and changes in our

language

• Culture lag– The fact that some cultural elements

change more quickly than others, which might disrupt a cultural system• Example: Medical procedures and ethics


Culture Changesin Three Ways

• Invention–Creating new cultural elements– Telephone or airplane

• Discovery–Recognizing and better understanding of something already in existence– X-rays or DNA

• Diffusion–The spread of cultural traits from one society to another– Jazz music or much of the English language

Sociology, 12th Edition by John Macionis.

Is There a Global Culture?• The Basic Thesis

– The flow of goods–Material product trading has never been as important.

– The flow of information–Few, if any, places are left where worldwide communication isn’t possible.

– The flow of people–Knowledge means people learn about places where they feel life might be better.

• Limitations to the thesis– All the flows have been uneven.– Assumes affordability of goods– People don’t attach the same meaning to

material goods.


Theoretical Analysis of Culture• Structural-functional

– Culture is a complex strategy for meeting human needs.

– Cultural universals–Traits that are part of every known culture; includes family, funeral rites, and jokes

• Critical evaluation– Ignores cultural diversity and

downplays importance of change


Inequality and Culture• Social-conflict

– Cultural traits benefit some members at the expense of others.

– Approach rooted in Karl Marx and materialism; society’s system of material production has a powerful effect on the rest of a culture.

• Critical evaluation– Understates the ways cultural patterns

integrate members into society


Evolution and Culture• Sociobiology

– A theoretical paradigm that explores ways in which human biology affects how we create culture.

– Approach rooted in Charles Darwin and evolution; living organisms change over long periods of time based on natural selection.

• Critical evaluation– Might be used to support racism or sexism– Little evidence to support theory; people

learn behavior within a cultural system


Culture and Human Freedom

• Culture as constraint– We only know our world in terms of our

culture.

• Culture as freedom– Culture is changing and offers a variety

of opportunities.– Sociologists share the goal of learning

more about cultural diversity.

8/29 FridayTOTD: What is the term for the cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society?

Agenda: TOTDCulture Chapter 3Research/Online study

9/4 Thursday

NO TOTD today!

Agenda:•Review—follow the directions below!

•Get your laptops out, go to kahoot.it and put in this code: 66377•Test: Culture

8/21 (Thursday) TOTD: How would you describe American culture? Agenda: TOTD Culture Notes Ch.3 ...

Documents

Transcript of 8/21 (Thursday) TOTD: How would you describe American culture? Agenda: TOTD Culture Notes Ch.3 ...