Chapter 4 - Recognizing Culture

Question 1

Culture

Answer 1

• The way of life of a particular group of people, including the characteristics that make it distinct from other groups.
• Ways of thinking, acting and material objects that form a person’s way of life (a design for living)
• Socially constructed because its meaning is created through social interaction

Question 2

Nonmaterial Culture

Answer 2

Includes concepts such as norms, values and beliefs, symbols, and language.

Question 3

Material Culture

Answer 3

Consists of artifacts ranging from tools to products designed for leisure like flat-screen TVs or Xboxes. Reflects the values and beliefs if the people who live in a culture.

Question 4

Constructing Culture

Answer 4

Sociologists see culture as socially constructed, created through interactions among people.

Question 5

Social Norms

Answer 5

Expectations about the appropriate thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of people in a variety of situations

Question 6

Generalized Other

Answer 6

Our perceptions of the attitudes of the whole community

Question 7

Agency

Answer 7

The ability to act and think independently of social constraints.

Question 8

Mores

Answer 8

Widely held beliefs about what is considered moral and just behavior in society.

Question 9

Folkways

Answer 9

Rules of behavior for many routine interactions, which if violated might lead to annoyance nut would not threaten society

Question 10

Status

Answer 10

Refers to our relative position in society. About relative power and respect.

Question 11

Values

Answer 11

Culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good, and beautiful and that serve as broad guidelines for social living

Question 12

Beliefs

Answer 12

• What we deem to be true
• All values are beliefs, but not all beliefs are values.
• Beliefs reflect the culture you were raised in and may be traced to the social construction of reality.

Question 13

Symbol

Answer 13

Anything that has the same meaning for two or more people

Question 14

Language

Answer 14

Series of symbols used to communicate meaning among people.

Question 15

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Answer 15

Also known as linguistic relativism, notes that language influences our understanding of reality above and beyond the meaning of its symbols

Question 16

Gerhard Lenski

Answer 16

2010. Argued that technology is the driving force in the driving force in the development of societies, from hunter-gatherer to postindustrial

Question 17

Horticultural

Answer 17

• Maintain basic sustenance in one geographic location.
• Do not have much of any excess food stores, they can attain food without constantly moving, develop homes and common areas, better care of sick.
• Begin the process of specialization.
• Not a lot of free time and do not have access to more than what they need to survive.
• Hand tool use to raise crops
• Increased belief in one God

Question 18

Pastoral Societies

Answer 18

• Pastoral society is the one that relies on the domestication of animals into herds as a major source of support.
• Basically, the term ‘pastoral’ is derived from the Latin word ‘Pastor’, which means shepherd.

Domestication of animals

• Nomadic lifestyle
• More unequal social structure; ruling elites

Question 19

Agrarian

Answer 19

• Large, more diverse pop with excess food and resources among wealthier classes
• Extension of horticultural and pastoral societies
• Raise crops and domesticate animals
• Tools are more advanced
• Higher level of production and larger pops
• Today much of the world still lives in such as South America and Africa

Question 20

High culture

Answer 20

Culture of the elie

Question 21

Popular Culture

Answer 21

Culture that exists among common people in a society

Question 22

Industrial Societies

Answer 22

• Very large populations
• Lots of diversity
• Growth of middle class
• A larger number of wealthy people
• Rely on the use of technology to produce goods as well as food
• All classes have more access to items
• Development of consumer culture
• More advanced sources of energy to drive large machinery
• Higher living standard and life expectancy; more individualism but less sense of community

Question 23

Postindustrial information technology

Answer 23

◦More economic production use new information technology

◦Changes in skills that define way of life

◦Capacity to create symbolic culture increases

Question 24

Subcultures

Answer 24

Cultural groups that exist within another, larger culture. Accept many of the values and beliefs of the larger culture while maintaining some unique ways of life.

Question 25

Multiculturalism

Answer 25

• People respect different cultures in society and honor their unique contributions to a larger “umbrella” culture that incorporates multiple subcultures
• Often difficult to live out because differences in cultures often lead to conflict among groups

Question 26

Counterculture

Answer 26

One group in a society that espouses rules, values or beliefs that conflict with the mainstream culture

Question 27

Cultural Relativism

Answer 27

• Franz Boas
• The idea that cultures cannot be ranked as better to worse than others

Question 28

Cultural Universals

Answer 28

• Geoge Murdock 1945
• Cultural practises that exists in most or all societies, such as social structures, tool making, art, song, dance, religion, etc.
• The implication is that people naturally develop certain elements of culture no matter their unique histories or backgrounds
• All human groups do some of the same things, but each does them in different ways

Question 29

Cultural Capital

Answer 29

• Type of capital related to education, style, appearance and dress that promotes social mobility
• Wealthier families are able to provide more cultural capital to their children, which in turn leads to more opportunities for financial success.
• Cultural capital provides information to people when they decide whether to let others into their social groups.

Question 30

Social intelligence

Answer 30

• Psychologist Daniel Goleman popularized in the 1990s
• Our ability to understand social relationships and get along with others
• Requires cultural capital
• Know the appropriate cultural cues in their society and can read cues given off by others

Question 32

Sanctions

Answer 32

Rewards or punishments that encourage conformity to cultural norms

Question 33

Cultural Relativism and Global Culture

Answer 33

• Cultural relativism is the idea that cultures cannot be considered better or worse than others.
• Cultures are viewed as simply different from each other.
• Cultural universals are practices that exist in most or all societies, such as social structures, tools, families, and politics.
• Cultural attributes can spread throughout the world when societies spread out and dominate others

Question 34

Hunter-Gatherers

Answer 34

• Use simple tools to gather and hunt
• Only a few exist today
• Nomadic
• Food supply is limited
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