Part 5 Culture And Survival

The Challenge of Communicating, Raising Children, and Staying Alive

Part Outline

Chapter 14 The Characteristics of Culture

Chapter 15 Language and Communication

Chapter 16 Social Identity, Personality, and Gender

Chapter 17 Patterns of Subsistence Chapter 18 Economic Systems

Chapter 14

The Characteristics of Culture

Chapter Outline

What is culture? How is culture studied? Why do cultures exist?

Characteristics Of Culture

Culture is shared. Culture is learned. Culture is based on symbols. Culture is integrated.

Culture Is Shared

Culture cannot exist without society. There are no known human societies

that do not exhibit culture. All is not uniform within a culture; There

is some difference between men’s and women’s roles in any human society.

Culture Is Learned

All culture is learned rather than biologically inherited.

The process of transmitting culture from one generation to the next is called enculturation.

Through enculturation individuals learn the socially appropriate way to satisfy biologically determined needs.

Culture Is Based on Symbols

Culture is transmitted through ideas, emotions, and desires expressed in language.

Through language, humans transmit culture from one generation to another.

Language makes it possible to learn from cumulative, shared experience.

Culture Is Integrated

All aspects of a culture function as an integrated whole.

A change in one part of a culture usually will affect other parts.

A degree of harmony is necessary in any properly functioning culture, but complete harmony is not required.

Ethnic Groups of the Russian Federation

Describing a Culture Without Bias

Anthropologists must:1. Examine people’s notion of the way

their society ought to function.2. Determine how people think they

behave.3. Compare these with how people

actually do behave.

The Barrel Model of Culture

Functions of Culture

Provide for the production and distribution of goods and services necessary for life.

Provide for biological continuity through the reproduction of its members.

Enculturate new members so that they can become functioning adults.

Functions of Culture

Maintain order among members, as well as between them and outsiders.

Motivate members to survive and engage in those activities necessary for survival.

Be able to change to remain adaptive under changed conditions.

Why Cultures Change

Environment they must cope with has changed.

Intrusion of outsiders. Values have changed.

Evaluating a Culture

Cultures can be evaluated according to: Nutritional status Physical and mental health of

population Incidence of violence, crime and

delinquency Demographic structure Stability and tranquility of domestic life