Chpt. 3 Sect. 3 Flashcards
(12 cards)
What is cultural diversity?
Outsiders becoming familiar with other societies and appreciating their cultural differences
Describe cultural diversity
-it can occur within a single society, where subcultures and counter cultures can both exist
What is a subculture?
A group that shares the central values and beliefs of the larger culture but still retains certain values, beliefs, and norms that make it distinct from the larger culture
What are some examples of subcultures?
- nurses
- professors
- bartenders
- scrap-bookers
- police officers
- college students
Subcultures may have a special shared interest like:
We may belong to multiple subcultures
- language (argot)
- way of dress
- special holidays
What is a counterculture?
A group whose values and beliefs directly oppose those of the larger culture and even reject it
What are some examples of counterculture?
- hippies in the 1960s
- the Amish
- survivalists (extreme anti-government views and hoard weapons)
What is cultural relativism?
The belief that we shouldn’t judge any culture as superior or inferior to another culture
What is the viewpoint of cultural relativism?
- all cultures have their benefits and disadvantages
- we shouldn’t automatically assume that our own culture is better and “their” culture is worse
What is ethnocentrism?
The tendency to judge another culture by the standards of our own and to the belief that our own culture is indeed superior to another culture
What is culture shock?
The uncomfortable or bewildered feeling we might have when immersed in a new culture
What are scholars viewpoints on cultural relativism?
- some scholars think cultural relativism is an absolute, that we should never judge another culture’s beliefs and practices as inferior to our own
- other scholars think cultural relativism makes sense up to a point, but that there are some practices that should be condemned, even if they are an important part of another culture bc they violate the most basic standards of humanity
