Chapter 2 Notes

Cultural Diversity

Culture

• ALL the shared products of human groups – both physical and the beliefs, values, and behaviors shared by a group.

Material Culture

• Physical objects that people create and use

Nonmaterial Culture

• Abstract human creations (beliefs, values, etc)

Society

• Group of interdependent people who have organized in such a way as to share a common culture and feeling of unity

Technology

• Knowledge and tools people use for practical purposes

Symbol

• Anything that stands for something else and has a shared meaning attached to it.

Language

• Organization of written or spoken symbols into a standardized system.

Values

• Shared beliefs about what is good or bad, right or wrong, desirable or undesirable.

Norms

• Shared rules of conduct that ell people how to act in specific situations

Folkways

• Norms that describe socially acceptable behavior but do not have great moral significance attached to them – outline common customs of everyday life.

Mores

• Norms that have great moral significance attached to them; violation of such rules endangers society's well-being and stability.

Laws

• Written rules of conduct enacted and and enforced by the government.

Culture Trait

• An individual tool, act, or belief that is related to a particular situation or need.

Culture Complex

• A cluster of interrelated traits.

Culture Patterns

• Combination of a number of culture complexes into an interrelated whole.

Cultural Universals

• Common features that are found in all human cultures. (George Murdock)

Ethnocentrism

• Tendency to view one’s own culture and group as superior to all other cultures and groups.

Cultural Relativism

• Belief that cultures should be judged by their own standards.

Subculture

• Group with its own unique values, norms, and behaviors that exists within a larger culture. (Edwin Suterland)

Counterculture

• Group that rejects the values, norms, and practices of the larger society and replaces them with a new stet of cultural patterns.