Transcript Elements of Culture - Methacton School District

Elements of Culture
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
• Culture
•
– All things that make
up a person’s way of
life.
7 Elements
– Social Organization
– Customs & Traditions
– Language
– Arts & Literature
– Religion
– Forms of Government
– Economic System
1. Social Organization
• Definition: smaller units of a culture to create
social structure and help people work together
to meet basic needs
1. Social Organization
• Family-basic way to pass on culture –
– social controls: regulates individual or group behaviors
– Nuclear: immediate family
• typical for industrialized societies
• Vary in size based on culture and traditions
– Extended: several generations living in one
household
• Common agricultural/traditional societies
• Economic unit
1. Social Organization
• Social Class –
– Rank people by status
– Ways: money, education, job, heritage
– relative to culture and economy
– Social Mobility: ability to move social class
• Social Groups
– Members have similar interests
2. Customs and Traditions
• Def: rules for behavior/how a society
expects people to behave = social controls
• Ways to express ideas, emotions, and
pass on information
• Examples: ways you eat, sleep, greet,
wear, obtain food, prepare food
• Vary in importance
– from daily behavior to right and wrong
(written law)
3. Language
• Def: ways to communicate/express
thoughts, feelings, emotions, and
knowledge
• Basic way to pass on culture
• Helps unify and strengthen culture
– Issues of dialects
• All culture have language but not all
develop forms of writing
• Verbal/Non-Verbal
• Digital Language
4. Arts and Literature
• Def: ways to express ideas information
and emotions, teaches cultural values;
performing arts
• Strengthens a cultures identity
• Express cultural pride
• Examples: music, visual arts (pictures),
dance, stories
5. Religion
• Def: a person’s belief system that
helps guide behavior and teaches
basic values = social controls
– Where do we come from? How to act?
Where are we going?
Cosmology:
The study and
explanation of
the universe
Theology:
A system of
religious
beliefs
5. Religion
• Monotheism
– Worship one God
• Christianity, Islam, Judaism
• Polytheism
– Worship of many Gods
• Hinduism, Buddhism
• Sect: religious group, division,
“branch” or faction
6. Forms of Government
• Def: a system for making decision for a
society: order, protection, education
– people who hold power and make the laws
6. Forms of Government
• Types of Government:
– Democracy
• People have supreme power
– Republic
• Representative democracy
– Dictatorship
• Ruler or group holds power by force
– A government that officially calls itself a "democratic
republic" is usually a dictatorship
– Fascism
6. Forms of Government
• Types of Government:
– Autocratic/Authoritarian
• ruling with absolute authority
– Monarchy
• power or sovereignty held by a single person for
life – inherited position - Ruling family
• Constitutional Monarchy
– has a written Constitution and has a monarch as Head of
State
7. Economic Systems
• Def: how a society obtains food, clothing,
and shelter - Distribute goods and services
• How people use limited resources to satisfy
their wants and needs
– Answers:
– What goods and services should we produce?
– How should we produce them?
– For whom should we produce them?
Economic system
• Traditional Economy
• Produce what they need
to survive
• Hunting and Gathering,
Farming, and Herding
• Surplus is traded
• Market Economy
• Buying and Selling
• Command Economy
• Government controlled
• Individuals have little
economic power
• Mixed Economy
• Individuals and
Government make
decisions
• Cars are a great
example: People pick &
Government sets
standards
7. Economic Systems
• Examples of Economic Systems:
– Traditional economy
• People produce what they need to survive
• Hunting and gathering, farming, herding
– Market economy
• Free Market economy: people decided the basic
economic questions based on supply and demand
7. Economic Systems
• Examples of Economic Systems:
– Command economy
• Government controls the economy and answers
basic economic questions
• Individual has little input
– Mixed economy
• Bits of all economies
• Individual makes some economic decisions and the
government makes others
• Most countries mixed economies
What determines cultural
similarities and differences?
• Technology
• Availability of money
• History
• Relationship with nature
• Geography and climate