American culture
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AMST101_Lecture_DefiningCulture.pptx
Defining Culture
Culture as a Shared System of Meaning
Culture: the knowledge that people in groups share and learn, which helps them to interpret and generate behavior
Components of Culture
Abstract body of knowledge expressed in various things throughout society
Beliefs, values, ideals, expectations, explanations
Ways of acting and interacting
People in groups (can not have a culture of one)
Culture as communication from individuals to the group
Cultures spawn subculture (subset of larger culture)
Subcultures have more of an impact on an individual’s lifestyle because they are more specialized
Have mostly to do with how you construct your reality, although you are still part of the national culture
What are some subcultures that you belong to?
Enculturation: the process of learning one’s own culture—also known as cultural learning.
Primary learning period is from birth to age seven
Continue learning throughout entire life
Dual-process of enculturation
Tacit: understood learning (observed/experienced learning)
Tacit learning is more valuable
Explicit: stated or written
Formal codes, laws, institutions
Sanctions: system of rewards and punishments
*Example of cultural learning: Southern California freeways. How does being able to survive on the freeways of Southern California require a combination of tacit and explicit cultural knowledge?
Cultural knowledge helps you interpret behavior and generate your own behavior
Allows individuals to act among others and be understood
Evolves and changes
Question to consider: What are some examples of the way cultural knowledge has changed over time?
For example, look at the way we understand
gender in the contemporary moment—how has what it means to be a woman changed since even the beginning of the 20th century?
Set of ideas to defend/rationalize the distribution of power
Inequalities are arbitrary in that they are socially constructed/socially agreed upon
So what does this mean?
System of beliefs about the world that involves distortions of reality at the same time it provides justification for the status quo.
Ideology serves the interests of groups in the society who justify their position by distorting social definition of reality.
Social control? Gives “us” a definition of reality that is false, yet it simultaneously orders our comprehension of the surrounding world, it constructs our reality.
Ideology: system of justification (or to make right) of arbitrary inequalities
A social construction, or social construct, is an idea which may appear to be natural and obvious to those who accept it, but in reality is an invention or artifact of a particular culture or society.
Social constructs are in some sense human choices rather than laws resulting from divine will or nature.
Obvious social constructs include such things as games, language, money, governments, universities, corporations and other institutions.
Less obvious social constructs include class, race, gender, religion, sexuality, morality, etc.
Social constructs are obviously part and parcel of ideology—therefore even though as human creations it is easy to reduce them to something that is made-up, accidental, arbitrary, or unreal, social constructions are very much real - they are a part of, or sometimes the entirety of, lived reality. Indeed, they are ontologically on par with "real" reality.
Question(s) to consider: What difference does it make if you understand something—like gender or race, for example—as a social construct vs. if you understand something as biological, natural, or innate to the individual? How does this tie back into the process of enculturation (or the acquisition of cultural knowledge)?
Socialization: process by which social roles are learned
Social roles: are the culturally prescribed expectations duties, and rights that define the relationship between a person in a particular position and the other person with whom she or he interacts.
Socialization linked to enculturation. If enculturation is the process of learning our own culture, then socialization is the process of learning our place within our culture.
Socialization acts as a powerful system of social control because what we think and believe about ourselves keeps us in line
