1. What is Culture?
Culture is the values, beliefs, behavior, and material objects that together form a people’s way of life.

2. Types of Culture Non-material culture – intangible human creations
Material culture – tangible creations of a society
Shapes what we do
Helps form our personalities
Informs our definition of what is
‘normal ‘

3. Culture Shock
Personal disorientation when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life.
It is the inability to read meanings in a new surroundings.

4. Components of Culture Symbols Language Values and Beliefs Norms
Ideal and Real Culture

5. What do symbols mean

6. Components of culture Symbols:
A symbol is anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture (a flag, a word, a flashing red light, a raised fist, an animal etc).
* non-verbal gestures can be very “symbolic” and diverse.
-Diverse meanings can be given to different variations of the same object, for example, the winking of an eye.

7. Language Sick Dope Bomb For Schizzle my Snizzle Fo sho Whack My bad
Dawg or is it Dog, or is it Dogg (Snoop)
Give me 5 more words that carry significance in teenage vernacular.

8. Components of culture (contd’)
Language
A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another.
Function of language:
-Enhances communication (“lets make sure we’re on the same page”)
-Ensures continuity of culture (story telling)
-Identifies societies or groups (group specific words)
-Determines how a person is perceived by others (proper grammar vs slang)

9. Components of culture (contd’)
Values and Beliefs
-VALUES are culturally defined standards by which people assess desirability, goodness, and beauty and that serve as broad guidelines for social living.
BELIEFS are specific statements that people hold to be true (e.g. The possibility that the US will one day have a female president - based on the shared value of equal opportunity)

10. Beauty – what are our values in America
“Peek-a-boo”
Are these beautiful people by America’s standards??

11. Is this beauty?

12. American Beauty – what do we value as
beauty today

13. Components of culture (contd’)
- Norms are the agreed-upon expectations and rules by which a culture guides the behavior of its members in any given situation.
TYPES
PROSCRIPTIVE
Should nots, prohibited
PRESCRIPTIVE
Shoulds, prescribed like medicine

14. Types of Norms
Sociologists speak of at least four types of norms: folkways, mores, taboos, and laws.
Folkways, sometimes known as “conventions” or “customs,” are standards of behavior that are socially approved but not morally significant.
For example, belching loudly after eating dinner at someone else's home breaks an American folkway.
Mores are norms of morality. Breaking mores, like attending church in the nude, will offend most people of a culture.
Certain behaviors are considered Taboo, meaning a culture absolutely forbids them, like incest in U.S. culture.
Finally, Laws are a formal body of rules enacted by the state and backed by the power of the state. Virtually all taboos, like child abuse, are enacted into law, although not all mores are.
For example, wearing a bikini to church may be offensive, but it is not against the law.

15. SOCIAL CONTROL
Various means by which members of society encourage conformity to norms
GUILT
A negative judgment we make about ourselves i.e. “internal compass”
SHAME
The painful sense that others disapprove of our actions
i.e. must value their opinion to feel shame

16. Cultural Diversity High culture Popular culture Subculture
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
Counterculture
Cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted within a society

17. High Culture
Museum, art gallery, opera, etc

18. Pop Culture
The latest trend

19. Sub Culture
* Rave
* Ecstasy

20. Counter Culture

21. CULTURAL CHANGES -This takes place in 3 ways:
INVENTION - creating new cultural elements
Telephone or airplane
DISCOVERY – recognizing and understanding 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

22. Other Concepts: Ethnocentrism Cultural relativism
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