1. Beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics common to the members of a particular group or society.
Culture

2. What is Culture??
Language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors and material objects that are passed from one generation to another.
Ideal culture
A group’s ideal values, norms, and goals
Real culture
The group’s actual behavior

3. Material Culture
Jewelry, art, buildings, weapons, machines, even eating utensils, hair styles, and clothing…

4. Non- Material Culture…
Group’s way of thinking, beliefs, values, etc.
i.e. religion
Language
Gestures
Body language
Customs
Patterns of behavior.

5. Culture often taken for granted. Seen as “normal”!
Culture Shock
The disorientation people feel when they come into contact with a different culture and it causes them to question the perspectives they were taught and raised with.
Ethnocentrism
The belief that one’s own culture is superior leading to a negative evaluation of their values, norms and behaviors.

6. Cultural Relativism
Not judging a culture, but trying to understand it on its own terms.

7. Components of Symbolic Culture
something to which people attach meaning and use to communicate with each other.
Gestures
Language
Values, Norms, Sanctions
Folkways and Mores

8. Gestures are… Movements of the body to communicate with others…
Used as a shorthand to communicate messages without using words.
Make a list of commonly used gestures

9. Language…
Visual and Sound symbols that convey meaning based on their combinations.
Language allows culture to exist!!
Allows human experience to be cumulative
Allows us to share and pass on our past
Allows us to share a vision of our future
Allows us to share perspectives
Share and communicate goal directed behavior

10. Language and Perception
The Sapir- Whorf Hypothesis
Language determines our consciousness and thus shapes perception of objects and events.
In short, Language shapes how you see the world!!
**Think of examples where language influenced how you interpreted what was going on…

11. Values, Norms, Sanctions
The standards by which people define what is good and bad, beautiful and ugly, etc.
Norms
expectations (or rules of behavior) that develop out of a groups values
Sanctions
the reactions people give or receive for following or breaking norms.
Positive Sanctions – approval
Negative Sanctions - disapproval

12. Folkways and Mores Folkways Mores Taboo
norms that are not strictly enforced.
Mores
Norms that are strictly enforced because they are thought to be essential to the core values or the well being of the group (i.e. society)
Taboo
a norm so strong that it brings revulsion if violated.

13. Many Cultural Worlds Subcultures Counter-Cultures Pluralism
Smaller Cultures within the larger overall culture
Counter-Cultures
Group’s whose values and norms place them on opposition to the value and norms of the larger culture
Pluralism
One group made up of many smaller groups and cultures… i.e. the United States

14. Overview U.S. Culture Achievement and success Individualism
Activity and work
Efficiency and practicality
Science and Technology
Progress
Material Comfort
Humanitarianism
Freedom
Democracy
Equality
Racism and Group Superiority
(exceptionalism)
Education
Religiosity
Romantic Love

15. Value Clusters Value Contradictions
values are not independent, cluster together to form the larger whole.
Value Contradictions
Values that contradict one another. Creates “cognitive dissonance” and pushes change

16. Culture Wars Clashes in Cultural Values Values as Blinders
Challenges in core values are met with strong resistance by the people who hold them dear. i.e civil rights legislation
Values as Blinders
Form a view of what ‘ought’ to be like
Ideal vs Real Culture
‘Ideal’ culture
A group’s ideal values, norms, and goals
‘Real’ culture
The group’s actual behavior

17. Dialectics- The Basics
There are the three laws of dialectics according to Frederick Engels, a revolutionary thinker and partner of Karl Marx, writing in the 1870s in his book Dialectics of Nature.

18. Here's how it works - 1. Every thing is made of opposing
forces/ opposing sides.
2. Gradual changes lead to turning points,
where one opposite overcomes the other.
3. Change moves in spirals, not circles

19. 1. Everything is made of opposites
Like material objects, the process of change needs opposing forces.
Change needs a driving force to push it ahead, otherwise everything stays put.
A billiard ball only moves when hit with a pool cue or another ball.
We eat when our hunger tells us to.

20. 2. Gradual changes lead to turning points.
Two opposing forces in a process of change push against each other. As long as one side is stronger than the other side, change is gradual. But when the other side becomes stronger, there is a turning point--an avalanche, a birth, a collapse, a discovery, This law is powerful in describing the stages of development of anything. A person's life, a society is shaped by these changes.

21. 3.Change moves in spirals, not circles
Many changes are cyclical--first one side dominates, then the other--as in day/night, breathing in/breathing out, one opposite then another.
Dialectics argues that these cycles do not come back exactly to where they started; they don't make a perfect circle. Instead, change is evolutionary, moving in a spiral.

23. Technology (tools) Sets the framework for the non-material culture…
Shape thinking
Symbols
Language
Interactions
Roles
Etc.

24. Cultural Lag and Change
William Ogburn
A group’s material culture usually changes first, and the non-material culture will lag behind.
i.e. hard for laws, religion, etc. to keep up with scientific advancements and new technology

25. Technology and Cultural Leveling
Cultural Diffusion
The spread of cultural traits from one culture to another. (i.e. McDonalds)
Cultural Leveling
The process by which cultures become similar to one another. Refers specifically to the process by which Western culture is being diffused into other nations.