Culture

Question 1

culture

Answer 1

a system of behaviors, beliefs, knowledge, practices, values, concreate materials including building tools and scared items

Question 2

artifacts

Answer 2

expressed through language and things we make

Question 3

why is culture and its elements often contested?

Answer 3

there is little agreement as to who and what belongs to a culture, even those who belong to a cultural group

Question 4

what is one point of contestation?

Answer 4

authenticity

Question 5

what are the 2 oppositions that distinguish cultures?

Answer 5

1. dominant culture vs subculture and counterculture
2. high culture vs popular and mass culture

Question 6

dominant culture

Answer 6

the culture that, though its political and economic power, is able to impose its values, language and ways of behaving and interpreting behavior on a given society

Question 7

dominants

Answer 7

people who are closely linked with the cultural mainstream

Question 8

who are Canadas dominants?

Answer 8

white, English speaking males, who graduated university from Europe between 30-55 in good health

Question 9

minority cultures

Answer 9

those that fall outside the cultural mainstream

Question 10

what are the 2 subcategories of minority cultures?

Answer 10

1. countercultures
2. subcultures

Question 11

countercultures

Answer 11

minority cultures that feel the power of dominant culture and exist in opposition to it

Ex. hippies, biker gangs, emo’s
-have different clothing styles

Question 12

subcultures

Answer 12

minority cultures that differ in some ways from the dominant cultures but don’t directly oppose it

Ex. group organized around hobbies or occupations

Question 13

high culture

Answer 13

the culture of the elite, a distinct minority.

Ex. associated with arts (classical music, opera)

Question 14

what is cultural capital and who said/made it

Answer 14

a set of skills and knowledge needed to acquire the sophisticated tastes that mark someone as a person of high culture

Pierre Bourdieu said it

Question 15

popular culture

Answer 15

culture of the majority (mainly those without power)
Ex. working class, less educated, women and racialized minorities

Question 16

mass culture

Answer 16

people who have little or no agency in the culture they consume

Ex. big companies dictate what people watch, buy, value or believe)

Question 17

who creates mass culture?

Answer 17

those in power for the mass

Question 18

how do mass culture and popular culture differ

Answer 18

because of agency

Question 19

what is agency?

Answer 19

the ability of “the people” to be creative or productive with materials given to them by a dominant culture

Question 20

what is simulacra?

Answer 20

stereotypical cultural images produced and reproduced like material goods or commodities by the media and sometimes by scholars

-a feature of mass culture

Ex. Portuguese represented as a rooster or porkchop

Question 21

what is an important distinction between popular culture and mass culture?

Answer 21

decipherment and reading

Question 22

decipherment

Answer 22

looking in a text for the definitive interpretation, for the purpose (conscious or unconscious) the culture industry had in mind in creating the text

Question 23

reading

Answer 23

when people treat what is provided by culture industry as a resource, a text to be interpreted as they see fit, in ways not necessarily intended by the creators of the text

Question 24

resocialization

Answer 24

the process of unlearning old behaviors, attitudes and values and learning new ones upon moving into a significant different social environment

Ex. me when i moved to NB i unlearned old habits and made new ones

Question 25

what are the 2 types of socialization

Answer 25

voluntary and involuntary -they can happen together

Question 26

voluntary resocialization

Answer 26

occurs when someone starts a new school, changes schools, starts a new job, retires, undergoes a religious conversion -marked by a rite of passage - ritual or ceremony signaling change of status Ex. confirmation, bar mitzvah

Question 27

involuntary resocialization

Answer 27

happens when someone is forced to change Ex. when someone has to go to prison or the military

Question 28

indigeneity

Answer 28

they have inherent rights as indigenous people - the original occupants of this land

Question 29

what is culture a "tool kit" of?

Answer 29

symbols, rituals, values and worldviews which people draw upon to solve problems

Question 29

what is culture like?

Answer 29

an available set of skills or habits that make sense to use within a particular worldview

Question 30

norms

Answer 30

are the rules or standards of behavior that are expected of a group, society or culture

Question 30

what can norms be contested against?

Answer 30

ethnicity, race, gender and age

Question 30

how are norms expressed?

Answer 30

from ceremonies (weddings) to symbolic articles of dress

Question 31

what did Emile Durkheim argue

Answer 31

that religious rituals function to create collective consciousness and collective effervescence

Question 32

symbols

Answer 32

cultural items that hold significance for a culture or subculture -can be tangible/intangible -can change

Question 33

what are examples of symbols

Answer 33

-maple leaf -hijab -songs -events

Question 34

values

Answer 34

standards used by a culture to describe abstract qualities such as goodness, beauty and justice and to assess the behavior of others

Question 35

ideal culture

Answer 35

what people believe in

Question 36

actual culture

Answer 36

what really exists

Question 37

ethnocentrism

Answer 37

occurs when someone holds up one culture (usually their own) as being the standard by which all cultures are to be judged

Question 38

what is ethnocentrism often a product of?

Answer 38

lack of knowledge or ignorance

Question 39

eurocentrism

Answer 39

involves addressing others from a broadly defined European position and assuming the audience is or would like to be part of that position

Question 40

cultural relativism

Answer 40

an approach to studying and understanding an aspect of another culture within its proper social, historical and environmental context -studying history by putting you in their shoes

Question 41

presentism

Answer 41

is the inability to judge figures of the past within their own time, instead we judge them by todays standards

Question 42

what does cultural relativism the ability to do?

Answer 42

judge figures of the past within their own time and not by todays standards