Transcript Culture and Society - Hackettstown School District

Culture and Society
Unit Purpose: Cultures share certain traits and mores in common, but
can often vary widely. Certain cultural rules and values, like taboos, make
cultures and societies stronger and united, but can break down in times
of stress or appear silly or odd to an outside observer. American culture
is but one in the world, with some strengths and other weaknesses.
Essential Questions:
How and why might societal norms change?
How are a society’s values organized?
What values should our society emphasize?
How does one’s culture alter their perspective?
Can societal practices fairly be judged?
• Society: The community of people living in a
particular region and having shared customs,
laws, and organizations
Culture
• the language, beliefs, norms,
behaviors, and even material objects
that are passed from one generation
to the next.
Material culture:
• the physical objects that distinguish a
society (jewelry, art, buildings, weapons,
etc.);
–also known as artifacts
Non material culture (aka- symbolic
culture):
• the beliefs, values, and
common assumptions
about the world,
–actions: behaviors,
gestures, language,
values, norms,
sanctions, and other
forms of interaction
Culture and Taken-for-Granted
Orientations to Life
• Our speech, our gestures, our beliefs, and our
customs are usually taken for granted
• We assume that they are normal or natural,
and almost always accept them without
question
• Ralph Linton: “The last thing a fish would ever
notice would be water.” The same thing goes
for people
• Except in unusual circumstances, the effects of
our own culture remain imperceptible to us
Culture within us…
• We came into the world without a language;
without values and morality; with no ideas
about religion, war, money, love, use of public
space, personal boundaries, and so on
• At this point in our lives, though, we all have
acquired them.
– This is called “Culture within us”
– Culture becomes the lens through which we
perceive and evaluate what is going on around us
Reactions to other cultures:
• Culture shock:
– the disorientation that people experience
when they come in contact with a different
culture and can no longer depend on what
they take for granted
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgfpIV2
9Ccc
• Ethnocentrism:
–the tendency to
view one’s own
culture and group
as superior.
–It’s like using your
group’s ways of
doing things as the
yardstick for
judging others
–What’s good, right,
proper, and even
superior
Ethnocentrism can have both
positive effects (creating in-group
loyalties) and negative effects
(discrimination against groups
who are different from ours)
Cultural universals:
• Features common to all cultures.
–Examples:
• myths/folklore,
• Sports
• Cooking,
• Feasting
• language
Symbol:
• something to which people attach
meaning to communicate with each
other.
Gesture:
• Communication (symbol) with body parts
• Gestures not only facilitate communication,
but also, because their meanings differ around
the world, can lead to misunderstanding,
embarrassment, or worse!
Yikes! Don’t use
this gesture in
Italy!
Cultural Awareness
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGVSIkEi3
mM
• “The Close Talker”
Subculture:
• group in society who share values and norms
not shared by the whole population.
– Ex: doctors, smokers, groupies, ChineseAmericans, the Amish
Counterculture:
• rejects norms/values of society and
develop their own
Put notes away!
• In groups/with neighbors write down a
definition (in your own words) and an
example or two for the following terms:
• Material and nonmaterial culture
• Cultural universals
• Symbol and gestures
• subculture
• www.americansc.org.uk/Online/Americans.h
tm
• http://www.daily-quotes.net/culturequotes/western-culture-quotes
• http://swahhas.blogspot.com/2010/04/cultu
re-shock-for-saudi-student.html
• http://blog.thefoundationstone.org/tag/bow
ing/