What is culture? Culture is the way of life. According to Sir Edward Burnett Taylor: a complex whole which includes knowledge,

belief, art, law, morals, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

It is not actual observable behavior of a group of people, but an abstraction derived from it.

It is a set of rules or standards which, when acted upon by the members of a society, produces behavior that falls within a range of variance the members consider proper and acceptable.

Culture is manifested in music, literature, lifestyle, painting and sculpture, theater and film and similar things.

Some definitions of culture: * Culture is an instant reality and apparatus of satisfaction biological delights need.• Culture is the sum total of integrated long behavior patterns which are characteristics of

members of society. • * Religion is one kind of culture.• Culture shapes our personalities. The totality of learned, socially transmitted customs,

knowledge, material objects, and behavior. It consists of all objects and ideas within a society.

Characteristics Features of culture or Fundamental features of culture: 1. Culture is learned behavior.2. Culture is society equated behavior.3. Culture is a heritage of man. 4. Culture is always idealized. 5. Culture satisfies human needs.6. Culture is the production of human society.7. Culture is the manifestation of human capacity8. Culture is changeable through periods.9. Culture is transmitted from generation to generation.10. Culture varies from societies to societies

Culture has 2 kinds 1. Material culture: the tangible products of human society.Chair, Table, Fan, Freeze, Television, Horse, Building etc.2. Non-Material culture: the intangible creations of human society.

Non-Material culture consists of words. The people speak. The believes, they holds, values and virtues, they cherish, habits, they follow, retunes and the practice they do and their ceremonies, they observed it also includes our customs and manners, attitudes and our look in brief our ways of acting feelings and thin kings.

Elements AND Characteristics of Culture1. Symbols

Is anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture. It will vary within single society.

2. LanguageIs the critical element of culture that sets human apart from other species. Members of

a society generally share a common language, which facilitates day to day exchanges with others. This is the foundation of every culture.

The key to the world of culture, is a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another. Humans have created many alphabets to express the hundreds of languages we speak.

Language not only allows communication but is also the key to cultural transmission, the process by which one generation passes culture to the next. Just as our bodies contain the genes of our ancestors, our culture contains countless symbols of those who came before us. Language is the key that unlocks centuries of accumulated wisdom.

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf claimed that each language has its own distinctive symbols that serve as the building blocks of reality. Further, they noted that each language has worlds or expressions not found in any other symbolic system. Finally, all languages fuse symbols with distinctive emotions so that, as multilingual people know, a single idea may “feel” different when spoken in Spanish rather than in English or Chinese.

Sapir-Whorf thesis states that people see and understand the world through the cultural sense of language.

3. ValuesCulturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good, and beautiful and that serve as broad guidelines for social living. Beliefs – specific idea or thoughts that people hold to be true. In other words, values are abstract standards of goodness, and beliefs are particular matters that individuals consider true or false.

4. NormsRules and expectation by which a society guides the behavior of its members. In everyday life, people respond to each other with sanctions, rewards or punishments that encourage conformity to cultural norms.

Cultural Diversities: 1. Culture is learned

Culture is learned, not biologically inherited. This is man’s “social heredity”. ENCULTURATION: the process whereby culture is transmitted from one generation

to the next. Through this, one learns the socially appropriate way of satisfying one’s instinctual needs.

2. Culture is symbolic All human behavior originates in the use of symbols.

the most important symbolic aspect of culture is LANGUAGE – this is the foundation upon which human cultures are built.

3. Culture is series nature.4. Culture is shared.5. Culture is patterned6. Culture diversities for people’s creativity.7. Culture is adaptive8. Culture is general as specific

Development of CultureLanguage is the critical element of culture that sets human apart from other species. Members of a society generally share a common language, which facilitates day to day exchanges with others. This is the foundation of every culture.

Cultural Universals all societies have developed certain common practices and beliefs. Culture may be universal, but the manner in which they are expressed varies from

one culture to another.

CAUSES OF CULTURAL CHANGEInnovation is the process of introducing a new idea or object to a culture.

Two types of innovation:1. Discovery2. Invention

Diffusion refers to the process by which a cultural item spread from group to group or society to society. It can be achieved in a variety of means, exploration, military conquest, missionary work, mass media and tourism.

Cultural integration the close relationship among various elements of a cultural system.

Culture lag the fact that some cultural elements change more quickly than others, disrupting a cultural system.

Non-verbal communications—refers to gestures and hand signals.

Norms are the established standards of behavior maintained by a society. The ways of encouraging and enforcing what they view as appropriate behavior while discouraging and punishing what they consider to be improper behavior.

2 Types of Norms

1. Formal norms – these are the norms which are usually written and any violation of the norms would have a penalty.

2. Informal norms - these norms may or may have not a penalty.

Mores – are norms deemed highly necessary to the welfare of a society, often because they embody the most cherished principles of the people. The norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance. Taboos, incestuous relationships

Folkways - are norms of everyday behavior. The important role in shaping the daily behavior of members of a culture. Norms for routine or casual interactions.

Social control attempts by society to regulate people’s thoughts and behavior.

Attitudes toward cultures:1. Ethnocentrism – practice of judging another culture based on the standards of one’s

culture. 2. Cultural Relativism – the practice of judging a culture by its own standards. 3. Culture Shock- anyone who feels disoriented, uncertain, out of place, even fearful,

when immersed with unfamiliar culture. The inability to “read” meaning in strange surroundings. Not understanding the symbols of a culture leaves a person feeling lost and isolated, unsure of how to act, and sometimes frightened.

High culture to refer to cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite.

Popular culture to designate cultural patterns that are widespread among a society’s population.

Subculture refers to cultural patterns that set apart some segment of a society’s population.

Multiculturalism is a perspective recognizing the cultural diversity of a place and promoting equal standing for all cultural traditions. Represents a sharp change from the past, when our society downplayed cultural diversity and defined itself primarily in terms of well off Spaniards.

What is society? -is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.- a group of people occupying a territory who are dependent on each other for survival. The relationships that hold a society together are known so social structure or social organization.

Other definitions of society: Society is a system. Society is composed of (consists only of) very many parts, which we call members, and

which are Intelligent Systems or societies themselves.

The life span of the members of the society is appreciably shorter than that of the society or sub society to which they belong.

Society is a group of interacting individuals sharing the same territory and participating in common culture.

Basic features of a society• Society is the mutual interaction of individuals. It is invisible.• Active cooperation is the back bone of the society.

Liberty is regulated through the mutual agreement of individuals.• Society is universal having no boundary or limits.• Family is the force of biological interdependence of society.• Likeness of members is the essential pre-requisite for society

Origin of society o Social contract theory.

Society is based on some original contracts between the individuals.Society was formed to protect man against it’s sun bridled nature.Society was evolved to maintain a state of peace and justice in natureCriticism:

Society has an abstract phenomenon where as human body has a definite form. Individuals can work in an organic manner where as a body cell can not.

o Organic theory.Society is a biological system.Society is an animal body.Industrial and agricultural systems are the nutritional systems of the society.Individual persons are the cells of the society.Communication and transport are the heart, veins and arteries of the society.Criticism:

Society has an abstract phenomenon where as human body has a definite form. Individuals can work in an organic manner where as a body cell can not.

Group mind theory Society is an embodiment of an absolute mind.

Idealism by Weber: that society was ideas shape by human… State is the higher form of the individual, which gives meaning to it.

Statuses: The well defined position of an individual in the society is known as the status. It determines whether a person fits in the society and his relations.

Societies can be classified into 5 groups: Hunting gathering and tribal societies.

They live in primary groups.They require large territories to support themselves.their requirements are less and easily satisfied.They work less as compared to other societies.

Pastoral societiesThey are indulged in raring herds of animals domestically.These people find food directly from these animals.This society is more productive than the hunters.They are nomadic and carry their herds to new grazing grounds.

Horticultural societiesThey move periodically but to a short distance.They are specialized in domestication of plants.The strategy is based on slash and burn technology.

Agricultural societiesThe use of plough greatly increases the productivity of the land, as it brings the surface nutrients sunk out of the reach of the roots.Money is used as a medium of exchangeThe use of animal power increases the productivity several times.

Industrial societies Emergence of modern families. Powerful economic institutions. Domination of management and division of labor in factories. Social mobility and change of status prevails.

More economic avenues for women Post Industrial societies Refers to technology that supports an information based economy. More and more

jobs demand information-based skills using computers, satellites, facsimile machines, and other forms of communication.

Utilizes less and less of its labor force for industrial production. EVOLUTION OF SOCIETYGERHARD LENSKI – a sociologist that differentiates societies based on their level of technology, communication and economy

Karl Marx: SOCIETY AND CONFLICT

Social Conflict – struggle between segments of society over the valued resources. The most significant form of social conflict involved classes that arise from the way society produces material goods.

This economic system, Marx noted, transformed a small part of the population into capitalists, people who own factories and the other productive enterprises. A capitalist’s goal is profit, which results from selling a product for more than it costs to produce. Capitalism casts most of the population as industrial workers, whom Marx termed the Proletariat – people who provide labor necessary to operate factories and other productive enterprises.

Marx viewed the economic system as the social infrastructure.

Marx rejected capitalist common sense as false consciousness – explanations of social problems in terms of the shortcomings of individuals rather than the flaws of society. He said, industrial capitalism itself is responsible for many of the social problems he saw all around him.

Marx use the term class conflict to refer to antagonism between entire classes over the distribution of wealth and power in society.

Class consciousness – the recognition by workers of their unity as a class in opposition to capitalists and ultimately capitalism itself. Because the inhumanity of early capitalism seemed so obvious to him, Marx concluded that industrial workers would inevitably rise up en masse to destroy industrial capitalism.

Max Weber: The Rationalization of Society

Weber’s coined the term idealism- which emphasizes how human ideas shape society.

Ideal types – abstract statements of the essential characteristics of any social phenomenon.

He encourages rationality, deliberate, matter of fact calculation of the most efficient means to accomplish a particular goal. Weber viewed both the Industrial Revolution and capitalism as evidence of historical surge of rationality. He used the phrase “rationalization of society” – a historical change from tradition to rationality as the dominant mode of human thought.

Emile Durkheim: Society and Function

Durkheim’s observation on society:First, society has structure because social patters exsit in orderly relationship to ont another.Second, society has power because the soial world surrounds us, shaping our thoughts and actions.Third, society has an objective existence because it operates apart from any individual’s subjective experience.

Society is complex organisms that spring form our collective life.

Durkheim’s vision of society is the concept of function. He explained that the significance of any social fact lies, not in the experience of individuals, but its contribution to the general life of society.

The Division of Labor – specialized economic activityMechanical Solidarity – social bonds, based on shared moral sentiments that unite members of preindustrial society

Organic Solidarity- social bonds, based on specialization, that unite members of industrial societies.

PROCESS OF SOCIALIZATIONSocialization

The lifelong process in which people learn the attitudes, values, and behaviors appropriate for members of a particular culture.

The lifelong social experience by which individuals develop human potential and learn the patterns of their culture.

Human beings rely on social experience to learn the nuances of their culture in order to survive.

Social experience is also the foundation of personality, which refers to a person’s fairly consistent pattern of thinking, feeling, and acting.

Learning how to live within one’s culture.

Understanding the Socialization Process

Sigmund Freud: the elements of personality The theory of Psychoanalysis – the analysis of personality and development. According to Sigmund Freud he stated that we all have inborn drives especially drives

for sexual gratification in channeling human behavior. Also according to Freud self is a social product, and that aspects of one’s personality are

influenced by other people(especially parents). He contended that biology plays an important part in personality of development,

although not in terms of simple instincts as is common to most other species. Freud incorporated both basic drives and the influence of society into a broader model

of personality with three parts:o Id - represents the human being’s basic drives, which are unconscious and

demand immediate satisfaction. o Ego – a person’s conscious efforts to balance innate pleasure seeking drives with

the demands of society.o Superego – the presence of culture within the individual.

Jean Piaget: Cognitive Development The human cognition – how people think and understand.

o Four Stages of Cognitive Development The Sensorimotor Stage – the level of human development in which

individuals experience the world only though sensory contact.

On this stage, on the first two years of life, the infant explores the world by touching, looking, sucking, and listening. Children gain skills at imitating the actions or sounds of others during the sensorimotor stage, but they have no comprehension.

The Preoperational Stage – the level of human development in which individuals first use language and other symbols.

The Concrete Operational Stage – the level of development at which individuals first perceive causal connections in their surroundings.

The Formal Operational Stage – the level of human development at which individuals use highly abstract thought to imagine alternatives to reality.

Lawrence Kohlberg: Moral Development He has extended Piaget’s work to the issue of moral reasoning, that is, the ways in

which individuals come to judge situations as right or wrong. He argued that moral development occurs in stages

o Pre-conventional Level – young children who experience the world in terms of pain and pleasure.

o Conventional Level - level of moral development and this will appear among teenagers. Young people are less self centered in their moral reasoning, defining right and wrong in terms of what pleases parents and what is consistent with broader cultural norms.

o Post Conventional Level – moves individuals beyond the specific norms of their society to ponder more abstract ethical principles.

Sociological Approaches to the Self Cooley: Looking-Glass Self

In the early 1900s, Charles Horton Cooley advanced the belief that we learn who we are by interacting with others. Our view of ourselves, then, comes not only from direct contemplation of our personal qualities but also from our impressions of how others perceive us. Cooley used the phrase looking-glass self to emphasize that the self is the product of our social interactions with other people. This is to capture the idea that self-image is based on how others respond to us.

The Self has two components: (The I and the Me)1. The self is subject in that it can initiate social actions2. The self is the object because, taking the role of another, we form impressions of

ourselves. The objective element of the self the ME.

Mead: Stages of the Self George Herbert Mead continued Cooley’s exploration of interactionist theory. The self – a dimension of personality composed of an individual’s self awareness and self image. The self develops only in social experience. Mead developed a useful model of the process by which the

self emerges, defined by three distinct stages: the preparatory stage, the play stage, and the game stage.

The Preparatory Stage. During the preparatory stage, children merely imitate the people around them. As they grow older, children become more adept at using symbols to communicate with others. Symbols are the gestures, objects, and language that form the basis of human communication.

The Play Stage. Mead was among the first to analyze the relationship of symbols to socialization. As children develop skill in communicating through symbols, they gradually become more aware of social relationships. As a result, during the play stage, they begin to pretend to be other people. Just as an actor “becomes” a character, a child becomes a doctor, parent, superhero, or ship captain. Role taking is the process of mentally assuming the perspective of another and responding from that imagined viewpoint.

The Game Stage. The child of about eight or nine years old no longer just plays roles, but begins to consider several actual tasks and relationships simultaneously. At this point in development, children grasp not only their own social positions, but also those of others around them. Generalized other refers to the attitudes, viewpoints, and expectations of society as a whole that a child takes into account in his or her behavior.

Impacts of Socialization to: The Individuals

- provides the skills and habits - for acting and participating within the society

The Society - inducting all individual members to its norms, values, beliefs, etc. - the means by which social and cultural continuity are attained.

Goals of Socialization Impulse control and development of a conscience Role preparation and performance Prepares humans to function in social life

Types of Socialization Primary- the individual learns the culture as a member of a particular culture. Secondary- the individual learn the culture as member of a smaller groups. Developmental- process of learning behavior in a social institution, or developing one’s

skills within the social institution. Anticipatory- rehearses for future behaviors, future skills. Re-socialization- discards former behavior pattern and accept new pattern as a part of a

transition in one’s life.

Agents of SocializationAgents of Socialization are the people and groups that influence our self-concept, emotions, attitudes, and behavior.

Family- most important agent of socialization. Family is responsible for among other things, determining one’s attitudes toward religion and establishing career goals.

Education- education is the agency responsible for socializing groups of young people in particular skills and values in society.

Peer groups- peers refer to the people who are roughly the same age/or who share other social characteristics. Peers can be the source of harassment as well as support.

Mass media Workplace- learning to behave appropriately within an occupation is a fundamental

aspect of human socialization. Socialization in the workplace changes when it involves a more permanent shift from an after-school job to full-time employment.

The State- social scientists have increasingly recognized the importance of the government as an agent of socialization because of its growing impact on the life course. The state has had a noteworthy impact on the life course by reinstituting rites of passage that had disappeared from agricultural societies and during periods of early industrialization.