Cultural Diversity and Similarity

Sociology: Chapter 3, Section 5

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• Cultures change according to three major processes

• Cultures have groups within them called subcultures and countercultures that differ in important ways from the main culture

• People tend to make judgments based on the values from their own culture

• While they may be different on the surface, all cultures have common traits called cultural universals

Cultural Change

• While cultures are relatively stable, they do experience change

• Your grandparents probably remember life before there was TV, your parents never emailed friends or used cell phones when they were teens, women didn’t work outside the home, interracial dating was rare

Cultural change can be uncomfortable for those who are used to living life a certain way

Why does Culture Change?

• Culture changes for three reasons:• Discovery– finding something that already existed– The United States is discovering the previously unrecognized

athletic ability of females• Invention– the creation of something new– Science has created the automobile and the iPod

• Diffusion– the borrowing of aspects of culture from other cultures– Food is rapidly spread throughout many cultures– tacos,

pizza, and hamburgers are popular in many cultures– Japan adopted democracy and capitalism after World War II

Culture has changed from simple to more complex ideas

(Acephalous means lacking a head, or a chief)

Cultural Diversity

• Diversity in a culture comes from social categories, groups within a culture that share a particular characteristic like age, gender or religion

• All males between the ages of 35-49 forms a social category within a culture

This group is culturally diverse, because they share a particular characteristic (the same age),

but they come from various social categories regarding gender and ethnicity

Subcultures and Countercultures

• Cultural diversity also comes from groups that differ from the main culture.

• People in these groups may eat, work and dress like others in the main culture, but they differ in some key ways that sets them apart from that culture.

• These groups are known as subcultures and countercultures

Subculture

• Subcultures are mini-cultures within the larger culture

• Chinatowns have developed in several bigger cities. These areas resemble Chinese traditional ways of life, while still being in the United States

• Other nationalities are represented by ghettos in larger cities

• Other examples of subcultures could be youth, circus performers, musicians, or mental patients

Chinatown in New York City

Counterculture

• A counterculture is a subculture deliberately and conspicuously opposed to certain aspects of the larger culture

• The counterculture can only be understood within the context of that opposition

• Hippie, punk and Goth movements among teens were fairly prominent countercultures from the 1960s- 1990s

Youth have always provided some of our counterculture

Flappers 1920s

Greasers 1950s

Hippies 1960s

Punk 1970s

Goth 1990s

Gangsta 2000s

Ethnocentrism

• Once people learn their culture, they tend to become strongly committed to it, even to the point of not being able to imagine another way of life

• They may judge others in terms of their own cultural standards. This is known as ethnocentrism.

Many cultures, including Americans, can be ethnocentric and believe the world revolves around them

wimps communists

kangaroos

It can even come from a sub-

culture to the larger culture

Examples of Ethnocentrism

• The Olympics is more than an athletic contest. It’s a chance to prove that your country/ way of life is the best

• Regional rivalries occur within the United States– Texans think that everything there is the biggest and best– University Prep fights Riverside Prep in every sport every

year

When Regional Rivalries Get Out of Hand

In the 1990’s, the argument about which coast had the better rap music got out of hand when Tupac Shakur from the West Coast and then Christopher Wallace (Notorious B.I.G.) from the East Coast were gunned down by their rivals.

Does Ethnocentrism Help or Hurt?

Advantages• People feel good about

themselves and others in their group when what they are doing is superior

• Stability is promoted, as traditions are highly valued

Disadvantages• Could prevent change for

the better• Chinese built a wall to keep

invaders and ideas out• Racial ethnocentrism has

led to violence; the most extreme example being Hitler’s Final Solution

Cultural Universals

• It may seem that different cultures have little in common, the fact is that there are many common cultural traits

• Researchers have identified over seventy cultural universals

• Some of these are religions, holidays, families, governments, alphabets, music, words, education, dancing, food, and shelter

While the particulars may vary from culture to culture, there are many basic customs important to all cultures

Cultural Universals• Cultural universals may be expressed differently

between cultures• These different ways are called cultural particulars• One cultural universal is caring for children• In the United States, women have traditionally

cared for the children while men have worked outside the home (although this is changing)

• While in New Guinea, the men are completely in charge of taking care of children.

• Other cultures share these duties equally (i.e. Pygmies, Navajo, etc.)

Cultural Universals

• Cultural universals exist because we are all human and we need to survive

• Children must be born and cared for, and some sort of family structure must exist

• People die, so there must be funeral rites, mourning, and inheritance

• Because we eat, there must be cooking• But we may just go about these universals in

our own particular way

Assessment

• Complete the five questions on page 102