Basic Sociological Concepts - Culture
Understanding Culture
Culture: Shared system of meaning: what social structures/interactions mean.
Shared system of meaning that exists in any society; undergirds social structure.
The way we make distinctions between good and bad; important or not.
Classifications; distinctions; values.
Links between culture and social structure.
Social structure are culture that are intertwined, but they focus on different aspects of a social life: $$ \text{(Social Structure)}\qquad\qquad\qquad\text{Statuses}\ \longrightarrow\ \text{(Roles)}\ \longrightarrow\ \text{Norms} $$
$$ \text{(Culture)}\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\text{prestige}\ \longleftrightarrow\ \text{Values} $$
Values: Values often accompany norms:
They justify norms and provide believable reasons as to why we should conform.
Values define what is worthwhile or important.
They are shared believes of what is good or normal.
Prestige: Prestige often accompanies status. Based on values, prestige concerns specific activities or statuses that the group defines as important and good.
Different levels of Culture:
Explicit:
- Culture operates in an explicit fashion.
- Areas that explicitly/obviously deal with meaning.
- Material culture
- Values/Beliefs:
- Beliefs that people share regarding what is good, beautiful.
- Values define what is worthwhile, important.
Implicit:
- It also operates in an implicit fashion.
- Parts of life that have meaning, but that we "take-or-granted"
- Sometimes, we hold values and beliefs that are implicit: we do NOT recognize them as values/cultures.
Culture shock and Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism: Tendency to regard our way of life as the right way.
Cultural relativity:
- Stance taken by social scientists (opposite of ethnocentrism)
- Different societies create different values and different systems of meaning.
- Difference does not equal "right" or "wrong"
Culture Shock: A feeling of confusion, doubt, or nervousness (or disorientation) caused by being in a place (such as a foreign country) that is different from what people are used to.
Example: Nacirema
Social Construction of Reality
Our world is "socially constructed":
"Construction" aspect:
- Nothing contains meaning in-and-of-itself
- Humans "construct" or create meaning; including categories/distinctions that are important (e.g. gender/race)
"Social" aspect:
- Humans create meaning together.
- Meaning is created through social interaction/social processes.
- People decide together on meanings to assign categories/distinctions, events, objects.
Example: How to Become a Batman Podcast
How is blindness a "social construction"?
- Our expectations of blind people from one another (The social world)
- What does the meaning of blindness? Can blind people "see"? Or does a blind people need help from non-blind people?
- The meaning we give to "blindness" effects both the blind and the non-blind. It impacts our interactions.
- In fact, the non-blind constrain the behaviors of the blind as a consequence.
- We change our expectations of human beings because of meanings we "take-for-granted".
- Meaning - what something means - can change our behavior.
Questions to think about:
- Where did your thoughts/beliefs about blind people come from?
- How do you, personally, respond when you see someone who might be blind? Why do you respond the way you do?
- Daniel and Adam got “lumped together” in their school. People would mix them up, thinking one was the other.
- Has this ever happened to you? Why were you “lumped together” with someone else? How did you respond? Why do you think you responded the way you did?
- Do you live in a world that believes you can’t do certain things? (Think of the man who worked in a paint factory)
- What would happen if we changed our expectations of what blind people can do? Do you think we should?
- Have you ever been the subject of someone else’s lower expectations of you? How did you respond?
Example: The 7 Day Week
Reality of the 7-Day Week:
- The week is ubiquitous, but taken-for-granted -> Implicit culture
- The week gives us a "temporal map" to organize our lives
The week is a social construction of reality:
- It does not correspond to any naturally occurring phenomenon.
- It is made by people, together (part of culture):
- Origins of the 7-day week:
- Judaism
- Astrology
- Attempts to change the 7-day week: Soviet Union. These attempts did not work: Because culture was so embedded in people's lives that it seemed "inevitable."
- Origins of the 7-day week:
Social Construction of Reality
- Our world is "socially constructed."
- People create meaning together.
- Because meaning are created by people, People can change them. (This usually only happens in extraordinary circumstances.)
Meaning, Behavior, and Norms
- New meanings (new social construction of reality) will produce new behaviors.
- All groups must have norms or rules that govern these new behaviors.
- Without norms or rules (without structure), people do not know how to relate to each other, and we have chaos.
Example: Henslin, Survivors of F-227 - How is the "social construction of reality" illustrated with the crash survivors in the Andes?
Social Construction of Reality
What deeply held cultural meaningis at the heart of this situation?
How do their normal circumstances change - what is their new social context?
Why does this new social context challenge their deeply held values?
How does cultural meaning change because of new social context?
Meaning, Behavior, and Norms:
- After meaning changes, how does group behavior change?
- How do norms develop to guide this new behavior?
- What norms did the group put into place?