I was not able to include citations of the photos used. No copyright infringement intended.

1. asia europe the
americas

2. WHAT CULTURE IS
A complex whole
includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals,
customs, and other capabilities and habits
acquired by man as a member of society
(Tylor, 1871)
A blueprint for living
all that human beings learn to do, use, to
produce, to know, and to believe
(Tischler, 2002)

3. components of culture
Material Culture
This consists of all things
human beings make and use
or human technology.
Used to control the
environment and protect
humans from it, as well.

4. components of culture
Nonmaterial Culture
-Totality of knowledge, beliefs, values, and
rules for appropriate behavior.
-Determined by institutions
Nonmaterial culture elements are the
“ideas associated with their use”

5. Norms
“are the rules of behavior that are agreed
upon and shared within a culture and
that prescribe limits of acceptable
behavior.”
(Tischler, 2002)
-central elements of nonmaterial culture
-not absolute
-define what is “normal”

6. The curious case of
THE KISS
kissing the cheek
kissing the hand
kissing in public

7. Norms
-A society without
norms would be in
chaos;
-Social sanctions are
mechanisms of social
control that enforce
norms.

8. Mores
“strongly held norms
that usually have a
moral connotation
and are based on the
central values of the
culture.”

9. Mores
-Violations of mores
induce strong negative
reactions and are often
supported by law.
-Not all norms are
absolute.

10. Folkways
“norms that permit a
wide degree of individual
interpretation as long as
certain limits are not
overstepped.”
-change over time
-vary from one culture to
another

11. components of culture
Cognitive Culture
-consists of shared beliefs and
knowledge “of what the world is like:
what is real and what is not, what is
important and what is trivial.”
-the “thinking component of culture”

12. components of culture
Cognitive Culture
-Beliefs do not need to be true or
testable, but shared
-like a map that guides us through
society; provides us a representation of
society
(Tischler, 2002)

13. Beliefs
•Shared ideas people
hold collectively within
a culture.
•orient people to the
world by providing
answers to
imponderable qestions

14. Values
“a culture’s general orientations toward
life—its notions of what is good and bad,
what is desirable and undesirable.”
•can provide rules for behavior, but can
also be the source of conflict.

16. components of culture
Language
•makes teaching and sharing of cognitive
and nonmaterial cultures possible.
•foundation “on which the complexity of
human thought and experience rests.
•enables humans organization through
the act of labeling

17. Language
The Shapir-Whorf Hypothesis
The language one uses
determines one’s own
perception of reality.
“We do not see the lens
through which we look.”
(Ruth Benedict, 1961)

18. Language
Word Translation
Direct translations are
often impossible because
(1) words can have a
variety of meanings and
(2) many words and ideas
are culture bound.

19. Language
Selectivity
“a process by which some
aspects of the world are
viewed as important while
others are virtually
neglected.”
Language reflects selectivity in
vocabulary and grammar.

20. Components of culture are symbolic
Symbol
“is a representation of
something else. It
carries a particular
meaning for members
of a certain culture.”
Meanings = arbitrary
Different culture = a
different meaning

21. Certain features of culture are
EMPHASIZED
based on its many definitions

22. Culture can be learned
Nature
culture is not just mere instinctual behavior.
Nurture and adaptation
There are habits that are shared by individual
members of the group. These express their
group’s culture.
habits - learned by the group members; kept
more or less uniform by social expectations
and pressures.

23. Culture can be interpreted in different ways.
Culture shock
the difficulty people
have adjusting to a
new culture that
differs markedly
from one they are
used to.

24. Culture can be interpreted in different ways.
Ethnocentrism
People often make
judgments about
other cultures
according to the
customs and values
of their own.
-leads to prejudice,
discrimination

25. Culture can be interpreted in different ways.
Relativism
the recognition that
social groups and
culture must be
studied and
understood in their
own terms before
valid comparisons
can be made.

26. CULTURE CAN BE SHARED
There could be distinctions
and commonality between
different cultures…

27. SUBCULTURES
The distinctive lifestyles, values, norms, and
beliefs of certain segments of the population
within a society.
Types of subcultures
Ethnic subcultures
Occupational subcultures
Religious subcultures
Political subcultures
Geographical subcultures
Social class subcultures
Deviant subcultures

28. CULTURAL UNIVERSALS
certain models or patterns that have
developed in all cultures to resolve
problems such as maintaining group
organization and overcoming difficulties
originating in their social and natural
environment.

29. Among these universals are:
• The division of labor
• The incest taboo,
marriage, and the
family
• The rites of passage
• Ideology

30. Culture can change
2 simple mechanisms responsible for
cultural evolution:
Innovations
Diffusion

31. Culture can change
Innovations
any new practice or tool that becomes
widely accepted in a society
-It is the source of all cultural
traits
Cultural traits
items of a culture such as tools, materials
used, beliefs, values, and typical ways
of doing things.

32. Culture can change
Diffusion
the movement of culture traits from one
culture to another
Reformulation
-marks diffusion
-A trait is modified in some way so that it
fits better in its new context.

33. Looking at
CULTURE from
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

34. Functionalism
• In every type of civilization, every
custom/object/idea/belief fulfills some
vital function
• Anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski
suggests that culture helps people meet
their needs

35. Functionalism
• Alfred Radcliffe-Brown (Structural Functionalism)
– all of culture serves to support the social structure
of the group. The needs of the group must first be
met before the needs of the individual can be
addressed.
• Bronislaw Malinowski (Psychological Functionalism)
– all behaviors primarily support the needs of the
individual. Any support to the social structure as
a whole merely grows out of those behaviors that
are advantageous to an individual.

36. Functionalism
• Pop culture –glue which holds society
together
• can undermine core values

37. Functionalism
Talcott Parsons
culture = powerful force in society
• internalized by individual members
• motivates their actions
• Culture determines our own personal
moral codes and how we behave.

38. Functionalism
Societies where people
share a common
language and core
values are more likely
to have consensus and
harmony

39. Conflict Theory
• Culture =ideology
• a system of beliefs that distorts reality
and perpetuates the inequalities
produced by the economic system.
• manipulates people into believing that
the system is fair to everyone while
really benefiting the wealthy elites.

40. VALUES & NORMS
help create and sustain the
privileged position of the
powerful

41. Conflict Theory
• Belief that pop culture has become a
part of North American capitalist
economy
– Ex. Disney creates pop culture, such as
films, TV shows and Amusement parks
• Creating new popular culture also
promotes consumption of commodities
– Ex. Park-goers at Disneyland spend as
much money on merchandise (hats, t-
shirts…) as they do on admission tickets.

42. Conflict Theory
High culture
the culture of
an elite such as
the aristocracy or
intelligentsia

43. Conflict Theory
• Low culture
– a term for some
forms of popular
culture
– This means
everything in society
that has mass appeal

44. Postmodernism
• past ways of looking at culture are
insufficient and biased. They feel that
most examinations of culture have
been Eurocentric,
• Eurocentric - focused primarily on the
assumption that Western culture is the
culture by which other cultures should
be measured

45. Postmodernism
• Western thinkers are unconsciously
biased by their common cultural
assumptions, social structures, and
histories.
• “Normal” Europeans vs. “deviant” non-
Europeans
• We should talk about cultures rather
than culture

46. Postmodernism
• We can't judge other cultures, because
our reality is different from theirs
• No one authority can truly know social
reality, and
• Existing beliefs and theories about
culture need to be de-constructed
(taken apart and examined) in order to
gain new insights

47. Postmodernism
• Cultural Commodification
– Basically , packaging culture for sale - e.g.
establishment of a value (in terms of labor
or real monetary value) for any number of
markets.
– Making culture into a commodity.

48. Postmodernism
• Baudrillard’s insights:
– Significant exposure to
the media produces a
false sense of social
reality
– Media creates in us
“hyper-reality”
• Simulation of reality is
more real to us than the
phenomena themselves

49. Symbolic Interactionism
• Our culture’s values and
norms do not
automatically determine
our behavior
• We re-interpret values
and norms with each
situation we come across.
• Values and norms are
dynamic--we are
constantly changing
them.

50. Symbolic Interactionism
• Georg Simmel suggested
that eventually culture
takes on a life of its own
– and begins to control us
instead.
• $ = started as a means of
exchange
• $ = end in itself
• Even people have a relative
“worth” applied to them:
– Bill Gates – $46 billion
– Oprah Winfrey - $1.5 billion

51. Global Culture & Cultural Hybridization
• Global Culture
– Refers to the globalization of culture
rather than to the constitution of a single
integrated culture
• Cultural Hybridization
– the process by which cultures around the
world adopt a certain degree of
homogenized global culture while clinging
to aspects of their own traditional culture

52. References
HowStuffWorks. (n.d.). Importance of Biodiversity. Retrieved February 2,
2012, from Curiosity Online: http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/what-
is-cultural-hybridization
IB Cultural Anthropology/The Nature of Culture/Functionalism. (n.d.).
Retrieved February 2, 2012, from
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/IB_Cultural_Anthropology/The_Nature_of_Cu
lture/Functionalism
Monnier, M. (2011). Theoretical Analysis of Culture. Retrieved February 2,
2012, from
https://globalsociology.pbworks.com/w/page/14711293/Theoretical%20An
alysis%20of%20Culture
Nash, K. (2000). Contemporary Political Sociology: Globalization, Politics, and
Power [Electronic version]. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Sociological Perspectives: Analysis of Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved January 31,
2012, from
http://hrsbstaff.ednet.ns.ca/ldownie/Sociological%20Perspectives%20Anal
ysis%20of%20Culture.pdf
Tischler, H. (2002). Introduction to Sociology, 7th ed. Fort Worth: The
Harcourt Press.