Culture and Cultural Relativism

Culture (Cole 2019)

a concept that refers to a broad and diverse collection of often intangible areas of social life. According to sociologists, culture consists of ideals, beliefs, language systems, communication, and behaviors that people have in common and that can be used to describe them as a group. Culture also encompasses material objects which are special to that community or society. Culture is distinct from the social structure and economic aspects of society, but it is related to them both by educating and updating them on an ongoing basis.

Culture (Lederach 1995)

introduced culture as the collective knowledge and schemes generated by a group of people to perceive, view, convey, and react to the social realities around them.

Culture (Zimmerman 2017)

introduced culture as the collective knowledge and schemes generated by a group of people to perceive, view, convey, and react to the social realities around them.

Characteristics of Culture

Culture is shared and transmitted.

Culture is learned and acquired.

Culture is a social phenomenon.

Culture gratifies human needs.

Culture is dynamic.

Culture is integrated.

Ethnocentrism

is the tendency to perceive and judge others according to one's cultural standards. In this cultural view, one sees his or her culture as the yardstick in judging the behaviors of others in other social contexts

Xenocentrism

the tendency to value other cultures more highly than one's own. Fascination with others' culture and contempt for one's own culture can be traced back to a culture's colonial experience through cultural brainwashing via media.

Cultural relativism

means that we do not judge a society by our own criteria of what is right or wrong, odd or natural. Rather, we will make an effort to understand the cultural traditions of other communities in their own cultural context.

the desire to consider a culture on its own terms and not to make conclusions based on the norms of one's own community. The goal of this is to foster the awareness of the cultural traditions that are not usually part of one's own culture