Culture & Social Structure Chapter 2

Culture and Social Structure: Discussion Outline Components of Culture Cultural Unity and Diversity Social Structure Sociological Perspectives on Culture

What is Culture? What identifies culture? Society? – Is our classroom a society? Does it have it’s own culture?

Culture and Society Culture – Learned patterns – Customs, meanings, interpretations Society: group of people who live within the same territory and share a common culture – Networks of social relations

Types of Culture Material vs. Non-material? What are the material and nonmaterial cultures of …? – Football – Eating in a restaurant – Fraternities and sororities

Components of Culture Norms: Social Rules – Social Expectations – “Should”, “ought”, and “must” (Not?)=Social Control – Sex, Property, and Safety Are norms subjective or objective features of society?

Components: Types of norms Folkways Mores Laws – How are these types of norms enforced in society?

Components Values: broad ideas regarding what is desirable, correct, and good that most members of a society share – How we evaluate and make important choices in the social world and culture in which we live – Can values change overtime? What are some American values? Beauty?

Components Symbols Different forms Gestures – Language – The linguistic relativity hypothesis

Cultural Unity and Diversity Are there aspects of life that appear in all known societies? Can you think of any values, beliefs, and aspects of American culture that are contradictory? – I.e.: Historical example-A founding American belief in “human equality” and the practice of slavery

Cu ltural Unity and Diversity Ethnocentrism Is it functional? Cultural Relativism – Value free and neutral Which Founding father?

Cultural Unity and Diversity Subcultures and Countercultures

2-13 Social Structure Social structure: interweaving of people’s interactions and relationships in more or less recurrent, stable patterns – Provides organized and focused quality to group experiences and members to achieve collective purposes

2-14 Social Structure Status: a position within group or society – Ascribed status: assigned by group or society – Achieved status: secured on basis of individual choice and competition – Master status: core status that carries primary weight in person’s interactions and relationships with others

2-15 Social Structure Roles: sets of culturally defined rights and duties – Role performance: actual behavior of the person who occupies a status – Role set: multiple roles attached to a single status Duties: actions others can legitimately insist we perform Rights: actions we can legitimately insist others perform – Role Conflict and Role Strain

2-16 Social Structure Institutions: principal social structure that organizes, directs, and executes essential tasks of living – Examples: family, economy, religion – Encompasses cultural patterns and social structure

2-17 Social Structure Society: group of people who live in same territory and share a common culture – Classification scheme by livelihood Hunting/gathering Horticultural Agrarian Industrial Postindustrial

Sociological Perspectives on Culture Functionalist Conflict Feminist Symbolic Interactionist