Lesson 3: Cultural Relativism and Ethnocentrism

Vocabulary practice cards covering key sociological terms, theories, and scholars related to Cultural Relativism and Ethnocentrism.

Cultural Relativism

The idea that a person's beliefs, values, and practices should be understood based on that person's own culture, rather than be judged against the criteria of another.

Diversity

Understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences.

Ethnocentrism

The belief in the superiority of one's culture, where one's own group is considered the center of everything and others are rated in relation to it.

Superior

Derived from the Latin 'super' (meaning 'above'), it describes what is above something.

Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)

An anthropologist who argued that each culture has an internally consistent pattern of thoughts and actions which serves as the basis for judging the morality of its practices.

Cultural Relativist

Someone who does not judge other people's practices and understands that there is no universal right, wrong, good, or bad when it comes to culture.

Franz Boas

An anthropologist well known for his theory of cultural relativism, which held that all cultures were essentially equal but simply had to be understood in their own terms.

William Graham Sumner

The sociologist who described ethnocentrism as a belief or attitude that one's own culture is superior to all others.

Ethnocentric

A person who believes their culture is superior to others and uses their own values as yardsticks for measuring other folkways.

Xenocentrism

The belief that one's own culture is inferior to another, often manifesting as a preference for the products, ideas, and styles of foreign cultural groups.