Introduction to Culture and Its Conceptualizations

A set of vocabulary flashcards covering the definitions, scholars, elements, and qualities of culture based on the lecture transcript.

Colere

The Latin root of the word culture, which means to cultivate.

Culture (Layman's Definition)

The way of life of a group of people.

Sir Edward Burnett Tylor

A British anthropologist who in 1871 defined culture as that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Kroeber (1948)

Scholar who defined culture as the mass of learned and transmitted motor reactions, habit, techniques, ideas, and values and the behaviour they include.

John H. Bodley (1951)

Scholar who used the term culture to refer collectively to a society and its way of life, emphasizing that culture cannot be meaningful outside of a group.

Professor Thurstan Shaw (1974)

Defined culture as the way of life, the mental outlook, and the characteristic artifacts produced by a fairly homogenous group of people over a limited period of time.

Ibanga (1999)

Defined culture as the totality of knowledge and behaviour, ideas and objects that constitutes the common heritage of a people.

Orlando Petterson (2000)

Defined culture as a repertoire of socially transmitted and intra-generationally generated ideas about how to live and make judgments.

Richard Shweider (2000)

Defined culture as community-specific ideas about what is true, good, beautiful and efficient.

Ukpokolo (2004)

Extractions from Clifford Geertz's article quoting Clyde Kluckhon's Mirror for Man, defining culture as a social legacy, a way of thinking, feeling and believing, or an abstraction from behaviour.

William Ogburn (1922)

The scholar who distinguished between material and non-material aspects of culture.

Material Culture

The physical or technological aspects of daily lives, including food items, houses, factories, and raw materials.

Sangoan Culture

An archaeological example of a culture from Sango Bay in Uganda where only chipped pebbles remain.

Jules David Prown (2001)

Defined material-culture as the study through artifacts of the beliefs, values, ideas, attitudes, and assumptions of a particular community or society.

Non-material Culture

Refers to ways of using material objects and covers customs, beliefs, philosophies, governments, and patterns of communication.

Language

An abstract system of word meanings and symbols for all aspects of culture, including speech, written characters, numerals, and gestures.

Norms

Established standards of behaviour maintained by a society, such as respect your elders.

Sanctions

Penalties and rewards for conduct concerning societal norms, which can be positive (e.g., medals) or negative (e.g., fines).

Values

Collective conceptions of what is considered good, desirable, and proper or bad, undesirable, and improper in a culture.

Adaptive Quality

The feature of culture that guarantees survival by allowing a group to adjust to needs and changes in their environment.

Integrative Quality

The quality that stresses culture is receptive to new ideas to affect needed cultural trait changes.

Enculturation

The grow-up process through which culture is learned and socially inherited; also known as cultural transmission.

Symbolic Quality

The quality enabling a group to develop and exchange complex thoughts through symbols.

Dynamic Quality

The characteristic that no culture is static; they are ever-changing to accommodate integrated changes without losing unique features.