Chapter summary imageCulture is the language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and material objects that are important to a society.

What is Culture?

the language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and material objects that are important enough to pass on to future generations of a society.

What Differentiates One Culture from Another?

language, gestures, values, perception and categorization of experiences, actions, norms, interaction of social structures, and struggle for scarce resources.

How Does Culture Influence Sociological Theory and Study?

culture: affects how we perceive things; guides our thoughts and actions; must be studied while keeping these differences in mind.

Theory

Functionalism

  • culture (shared values and norms) holds society together through shared values and norms
  • interaction of social structures
  • society must have a balanced relationship between the community, the market, and the government
  • communitarians (free markets and private ownership of businesses)

Conflict Theory

  • society struggles for resources
  • societies win resources by using McDonaldization process (efficiency, calculability, predictability, and technology)


    
  
  • only the wealthy benefit: wages drop, inequality increases, short-term profits rise 
    • 



Symbolic Interactionism


    
  
  • traditional vs. secular values 
    • 
  
  • three hypotheses: trend, comparison, and distribution 
    • 
  
  • individualist and traditional values result in higher rates if murder, poverty, and out-of-wedlock births 
    • 
  
  • U.S. citizens becoming more traditional, not secular 
    • 
  
  • it is important to consider the function of any issue 
    • 
  
  • society is fairly stable, which means that things occur in society for a  specific function 
    • 



Key Terms


Culture


is the language, beliefs, values, norms, behaviors, and material objects that are passed on to future generations of society.


Material Culture


consists of items within a culture that you can taste, touch, and feel.


Nonmaterial Culture


consists of the nonphysical products of society, including our symbols, values, rules, and sanctions.


Symbols


represent, suggest, or stand for some- thing else.


Language


is a system of speech and/or written symbols used to convey meaning and communicate.


Cultural Transmission


is culture passing from one generation to the next through language.


Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis


is a hypothesis, first advanced by Edward Sapir in 1929 and subsequently developed by Benjamin Whorf, that the structure of a language determines a native speaker’s perception and categorization of experience. 


Gestures


are symbols we make using our bodies, such as facial expressions, hand movements, eye contact, and other types of body language.


Values


are a part of a society’s nonmaterial culture that represent cultural standards by which we determine what is good, bad, right, or wrong.


Value Pairs


help us define values, usually in terms of opposites.


Value Clusters


are two or more values that support each other.


Value Conflict


occurs when two or more values are at odds.


Norms


are rules developed for appropriate behavior based on specific values that are conditional.


Sanction


is a prize or punishment you receive when you either abide by a norm or violate it.


Folkways


are informal types of norms.


Mores


are norms that represent a community’s most important values.


Taboo


is an act that is socially unacceptable.


Ethnocentrism


occurs when a person uses his or her own culture to judge another culture.


Xenophobia


refers to fear and hostility toward people who are from other countries or cultures.


Xenocentrism


is perceiving other groups or societies as superior to your own.


Cultural Relativism


means making a deliberate effort to appreciate a group’s ways of life without prejudice.


Normative Relativism


is the evaluation of a society based on that society’s norms.


Cultural Lag


happens when social and cultural changes occur at a slower pace than technological changes.


Culture Shock


occurs when a person encounters a foreign culture and has an emotional response to the differences between the cultures.


Subculture


is a subset of the dominant culture that has distinct values, beliefs, and norms.


Countercultures


are groups with value systems that are in opposition to the dominant group’s values.


Multiculturalism


is a concept supporting the inherent value of different cultures within society.


Assimilation


is the process by which minority groups adopt the patterns of the dominant culture.


Global Village


refers to the “shrinking” of the world through immediate electronic communications.


Essay


1.  What aspects of Las Vegas culture may lead to the city’s culture death? 


2. How does culture influence sociological theory and study? 


3. How might individualism lead to conflict? 


4. How can a business benefit from the McDonaldization process? 


5. How did Wayne Baker determine whether a crisis of values really  exists in the United States? 


Where to Start Your Research Paper




					

					
				

			

					
				

					

						
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