Culture Terminology Practice

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering the definitions of culture, its various perspectives, layers, and its relationship with identity and design.

Cultuur

A shared but fuzzy set of values, assumptions, beliefs, and behavioral rules that influence behavior and interpretation.

Complex whole

Culture as a complex whole of knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, customs, and learned skills.

High culture

Culture seen as art, intellectual development, and good taste; often linked to the elite.

Popular culture

Culture of daily life, popular media, habits, and the tastes of broad groups of people.

Aesthetic view

The view that culture is primarily about art, beauty, refinement, and intellectual perfection.

Evolutionary view

The old view that cultures can be placed on a ladder from primitive to civilized.

Unique cultures

The idea that cultures are not higher or lower, but each has its own logic and meaning.

Cultural relativism

The idea that you must understand culture from its own context, not from your own norms.

Collective programming

Hofstede's idea that culture is a collective mental programming that distinguishes groups from each other.

Shared culture

Culture consists of meanings, values, and practices shared by a group.

Learned culture

Culture is learned via upbringing, environment, education, media, and social interaction.

Transmitted culture

Culture is passed between generations, for example via family, school, language, and rituals.

Fuzzy set

Culture has no hard boundaries; not everyone within a group shares culture in the same way.

Artifacts

Visible expressions of culture, such as objects, clothing, technology, spaces, language, and behavior.

Values

Ideas about what is important, desirable, normal, or good within a group.

Espoused values

Values that people say are important, but which do not always correspond with behavior.

Basic assumptions

Deep, often unconscious assumptions that determine what feels self-evident.

Layers of culture

Schein's idea that culture consists of layers: artifacts, values, and basic assumptions.

Interpretation of behaviour

Culture influences how people understand and give meaning to the behavior of others.

Meaning

The cultural meaning behind an object, gesture, or action; often invisible to outsiders.

Insider perspective

Understanding how people within a culture themselves give meaning to behavior or objects.

Outsider perspective

Looking at a culture from the outside, often to recognize patterns or differences.

Emic perspective

Research from the perspective of insiders within a culture.

Etic perspective

Research in which cultures are compared with each other from the outside.

Subculture

A smaller culture within a larger society, such as students, gamers, or design students.

Multiple cultural memberships

The idea that people belong to multiple cultural groups at the same time.

Culture is not nation

Culture is not the same as nationality; multiple cultures exist within a single country.

Culture is not race

Culture is learned and social; race refers to socio-political or biological divisions.

Culture is not identity

Culture influences identity, but does not fully determine who someone is.

Stereotyping

Reducing a group to simple fixed characteristics, as if everyone is the same.

Essentialism

Thinking that culture has a fixed essence that automatically explains behavior.

Culture is dynamic

Culture changes constantly through time, technology, migration, media, and social developments.

Cultural diffusion

The spreading of ideas, products, or habits between cultures.

Cultural adaptation

Adapting a product, idea, or habit to a new cultural context.

Integrated whole

The idea that parts of culture are interconnected like a system.

Material culture

Physical objects and technologies in which culture becomes visible.

Taste

Taste seems personal, but is influenced by upbringing, class, family, gender, and society.

Cultural capital

Knowledge, taste, language, and style that provide status within a certain group.

Class taste

Taste connected to social class, such as working class, middle class, or upper class taste.

Personal taste

Individual preference, but shaped by cultural and social influences.

Universal level

What all humans share, such as basic needs or emotions.

Cultural level

What you share with a specific group, such as norms, values, and habits.

Personality level

What is unique to an individual and is not fully explained by culture.

Hegemony

Dominant values and meanings that seem so normal they feel like common sense.

Design culture

The shared values, routines, language, and assumptions within a design education or design practice.

Cultural lens

Using culture as a framework for looking at and better understanding behavior, objects, and meanings.

Critical design application

Critically analyzing a design by asking what values, assumptions, and meanings it contains.