2. What is Culture?
Culture is the entire way of life for a group of
people including all of their ideas, values,
knowledge, behaviors, and material objects that
they share.
It is a lens through which one views the world
and is passed from one generation to the next.
It is what makes us human.
It is what shapes and guides people’s
perceptions of reality.
3. What is culture?
The word culture,
from the Latin colo,
-ere, with its root
meaning "to
cultivate“.
Culture refers to
the universal
human capacity to
classify, and
communicate their
experiences
symbolically.
4. Characteristics of Culture
1. Culture is shared.
2. Culture is learned.
3. Culture is taken for granted.
4. Culture is symbolic.
5. Culture varies across time and place.
13. How Many Cultures?
• One indication of culture is language
• Global estimates document 7,000 languages
• In the USA, there are about 200 languages
• Upcoming decades will show the
disappearance of hundreds of languages
15. Material and Nonmaterial Culture
Material Culture includes all those things that
humans make or adapt from the raw stuff of
nature: houses, computers, jewelry, oil paintings,
etc (Stick from the forest might be a part of
material culture)
Nonmaterial culture is a group's way of thinking
(including its beliefs, values) and doing (its
common pattern of behavior, including language
and other forms of interaction) (Poem about
stick)
16. Material Culture
Material culture includes the objects
associated with a cultural group, such as
tools, machines, utensils, buildings, and
artwork.
Introduction to Sociology: Culture 16
17. Material Culture
Physical objects people create and give
meaning
Examples:
Homes
School buildings
Churches, synagogues, temples, mosques
Cell phones
Clothes
Cars
Computers
Books
18. Non-Material/Symbolic Culture
Symbolic culture includes ways of thinking
(beliefs, values, and assumptions) and
ways of behaving (norms, interactions,
and communication).
18
19. Non Material Culture
The products of collective human activity that have
no physical reality
Beliefs
Customs
language
Symbols
Music
Government.
19
What does a handshake symbolize?
26. 12 Aspects of Culture or Ethnicity
1. History-time period and conditions under which a group migrated or
immigrated.
2. Social Status Factors – education, occupation, income
3. Social Group Interaction Patterns: Intra-group (within group
relations) and Inter-group (between-group relations)
4. Value Orientation – standards by which members of a culture judge
their personal actions and those of others.
5. Language and Communication: Verbal and Nonverbal
6. Family Life Processes – gender roles, family dynamics
7. Healing Beliefs and Practices – attitudes and beliefs about health.
8. Religion – spiritual beliefs and practices
9. Art and Expressive Forms – art, music, stories, dance, etc.
10. Diet/Foods – preferred food eaten by groups.
11. Recreation – activities, sports for leisure, etc.
12. Clothing – types, styles, and extent of body coverings.
29. Education and Culture
Education
Medium through which people are
acculturated
Language, “myths,” values, norms taught
Teaches personal achievement and
competition
Critical to national competitive advantage
Education system may be a cultural
outcome
30. Language and
Culture
One of the most important functions of symbolic
culture is it allows us to communicate through signs,
gestures, and language.
Signs (or symbols), such as a traffic signal or
product logo, are used to meaningfully represent
something else.
Gestures are the signs that we make with our
body, such as hand gestures and facial expressions;
it is important that these gestures also carry
meaning.
30
36. Cultural Diversity
Dairy Association’s huge success with the
campaign “Got Milk?” prompted them to
expand advertising to Mexico
It was brought to their attention the Spanish
translation read, “Are you lactating?”
37. Cultural Diversity
When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa,
they used US packaging with the smiling baby on
the label.
In Africa, companies routinely put pictures on
labels of what’s inside, since many people can’t
read.
38. Cultural Diversity
Coca-Cola’s name in China was first read as “Kekoukela”,
meaning “Bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed
with wax”, depending on the dialect.
Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic
equivalent “kokou kole”, translating into “happiness in the
mouth.”
41. Components of Culture
Culture: a society’s (group’s) system of shared, learned
values and norms; these are the society’s (group’s)
design for living
Values: abstract ideas about the good, the right, the
desirable
Norms: social rules and guidelines; guide
appropriate behavior for specific situations
Folkways: norms of little moral significance
dress code; table manners; timeliness
Mores: norms central to functioning of social life
bring serious retribution: thievery, adultery,
alcohol
42. Beliefs
Shared ideas people hold
collectively within a culture.
Specific statements that
people hold to be true or
false.
Beliefs are the basis for many
of a culture’s norms and
values.
Beliefs orient people to the
world by providing answers to
otherwise imponderable
questions about the meaning
of life.
45. Values
Culturally defined standards by which people
assess desirability, goodness, and beauty and
that serve as broad guidelines for social living.
Values determine what is considered right and
wrong, beautiful and ugly, good and bad.
Values can provide rules for behavior, but can
also be the source of conflict.
46. Values
Values determine for us what is desirable
in our life;
If we learn other people’s values we learn
about other people;
Values underlie our preferences, our
choices, indicate what we deem as
worthwhile in our society.
48. Norms
Specific cultural expectations for how to
behave in a given situation.
Norms are expectations for behavior
A society without norms would be in
chaos; with established norms, people
know how to act, and social interactions
are consistent, predictable, and learnable.
Social sanctions are mechanisms of
social control that enforce norms.
49. According to the informal norms of culture of the
mountainous Asian kingdom of Bhutan, people greet
each other by extending their tongues and hands
52. Folkways
Less important rules of society
Violation of rules hurts nobody except the
person breaking the rule
Usually a violation of etiquette or habits
not acceptable to society
Violators are usually ridiculed/made fun of
or people avoid them
Manners not followed
54. Mores
Mores: Means “manners” in French.
Mores are norms that are essential to any
country Values, close to legalistic.
Attitudes from the past, habituated, very
little deviation allowed
Duties, obligations, common to cultural
morality
56. Taboo
A taboo is a norm so strongly ingrained
that to violate it creates disgust, revulsion,
horror - the thought of it makes people
sick:
Eating human flesh - cannibalism
Incest - having sex with relatives
Pedophilia - adults having sex with
children
57. Taboo
a very extreme more in a society
proscription
almost unthinkable it is so unacceptable to
people
people do not like to acknowledge that it
can occur in their society
people are usually executed or given long
prison sentences for violations
59. LAWS
Norms which have been formalized
written down by legislature or courts
punishment told before hand
can be based on folkway or more
can be code of law not based on folkway or more
folkways tough to enforce of all laws
61. 61
Social Control and Sanctions
Sanctions are positive or negative reactions to the
ways that people follow or disobey norms, including
rewards for conformity and punishments for norm
violators.
Sanctions help to establish social control, the
formal and informal mechanisms used to increase
conformity to values and norms and thus increase
social cohesion.
62. Sanctions
Sanctions are penalties and rewards for
conduct concerning a social norm
Conformity to a norm can lead to positive
sanctions such as pay raise, a medal, a
word of gratitude, or a pat on a back
64. HOW IS CULTUE EMBEDDED
IN PEOPLE AND
ORGANIZATIONS?
THINK OF CULTURE AS AN ICEBERG:
you see it, but perhaps not the important
parts
Symbols; language
Behaviors
Practices
Customs
Normsbeliefs, traditions,
priorities,
assumptions, values