Cultural Diversity in American Society

Acculturaltion

The exchange of cultural features that results when groups come into continous firsthand contact; the original culture patterns of either or both groups may be altered, but the groups remain distinct

Culture

Traditions and customs that govern behavior and beliefs; distinctly human; transmitted through learning

Culture Shock

Disturbed feelings that often arise when one has contact with an unfamiliar culture- either in North America or, more usually, abroad. It is a feeling of alienation, of being without some of the most ordinary and basic cues of one's culture of origin

Culture Patterns

A coherent set of interrelated culture traits; customs and beliefs that are connected, so that if one changes, the others also change

Enculturation

The social process by which culture is learned and transmitted across the generations

Diffusion

Borrowing between cultures either directly or through intermediaries

Culture Trait

An individual item in a culture such as a particular belief, tool, or practice

Globalization

The accelerating independence of nations in a world system linked economically and through mass media and modern transportation systems

Generalities

Culture patterns or traits that exist in some, but not all societies

Ethnocentrism

The tendency to view one's own culture as best and to judge the behavior and beliefs of culturally different people by one's own standards

International Culture

Cultural traditions that extend beyond national boundaries

National Culture

Cultural experience, beliefs, learned behavior patterns, and values shared by citizens of the same nation

Independent Invention

The process by which humans innovate, creatively finding solutions to old and new problems; an important mechanism of cultural change

Ideal Culture

What people say they should do and what they say they do; contrasted with real culture

Symbol

Something verbal or non-verbal, that arbitrarily and by convention stands for something else, with which it has no necessary or natural connection

Subcultures

The diverse cultural patterns and traditions associated with different groups in the same nation, may originate in ethnicity, class, region, or religion

Real Cultures

Actual behavior as observed by the anthropologist; contrasted with ideal culture

Particularities

Distinctive or unique culture traits, patterns, or integrations

Native Anthropologist

An anthropologist who studies his or her own culture, such as an American working in the U.S.

Human Rights

A doctrine that involves a real of justice and morally beyond and superior to particular countries, cultures, and religions, human rights, usually seen as vested in individuals, would include the right to speak freely, to hold religious beliefs without persecution, and not be enslaved

Civil Society

Voluntary collective actions around shared interests, goals, and values

Universals

Traits that exist in every culture

Text

Something that is creatively "read" interpreted and assigned meaning by each person who receives it includes any media-borne image, such as a carnival

Hegemonic Reading

The reading or meaning that the creators intended, or the one that elites consider to be the intended or correct meaning

Essentialism

Belief in natural and fixed characteristics of human groups

Diaspora

The offspring of an area who have spread to many lands

Cultural Rights

Certain rights that are vested in individuals but in identifiable groups such as religious, ethnic minorities, and indigenous peoples

Nongovernmental Organizations

Organized interests of affinity groups with local, state, regional, national, or international memberships

Neoliberalism

Encompasses a set of assumptions and economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 to 30 years that are being implemented in capitalist and developing countries, including post socialists societies

Intellectual Property Rights

A societies cultural base, it's core beliefs and principles. Claimed as a group right. Actual right allowing indigenous groups to control who may know and use their collective knowledge and it's applications

Indigenized

Modified to fit the local culture

Subaltern

Lower in rank; subordinate; traditionally lacking in traditional role in decision making

Postmodernity

The condition of the world in flux, with people on the move, in which established groups, boundaries, identities, contrasts, and standards are reaching out and breaking down

Postmodernism

A style and movement in architecture that succeeded modernism. Compared with modernism, postmodernism is less geometric, less functional, less austere, more playful, and more willing to include elements from diverse times and cultures. Describes music, literature, and visual art

Postmodern

In the most general sense describes the blurring and breakdown of established canons, categories, distinctions, and boundaries

Culturelets

In a multicultural society, multiple centers, each based on specialized cultural identity, pride and knowledge within the nation-state

Cognitive Ties

Special links based on common knowledge and perceptions of reality, on what people know or on what they think they know

Assimilation

The merging of groups and their traditions within society that endorses a single common culture. The process of change that a minority group may experience when it moves to a country that another culture dominates; the minority is incorporated into the dominant culture to the point that to no longer exists as a separate cultural unit

Affinity Groups

Common interest groups, including families kin networks, neighborhoods, local communities, political parties, religious affiliations, professional organizations, and groups organized by common culture and cognitive ties

Heteromorphic

Varied in shape of appearance

Heterogeneity

Biological, social, and cultural differences of groups

Identity Politics

Sociopolitical identities based on the perception of sharing a common culture, language, religion, or race rather then citizenship in a nation state, which may contain diverse social groups

Identity

A psychological and political orientation that individuals internalize and that is shared by people united by a common status or experience

Ideational Solidarity

Social integration through relations, bonds, and loyalties based on common knowledge

Homogeneity

Biological, social, and cultural similarities of groups

Mobilizing Agents

Politically active individuals and community organizers, including elite members of minority groups, who are often artists, and intellectuals with access to major social institutions, especially education and media

Multicultural Society

The coexistence of cultural defined groups within a nation-state

Multicultural Paradox

Principles and practices of homogeneity and heterogeneity essentialism and constructivism by nationalists to deny human rights to some groups and multiculturalists to claim them

Attitudinal Discrimination

Discrimination against members of a group because of prejudice toward that group

Pluralism

The view that ethnic and racial difference should be allowed to thrive, so long as such diversity does not threaten dominant value and norms

Race

An ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis

Ascribed Status

Social Status that people have little or no choice about occupying

Achieved Status

Social status that comes through talents, actions, efforts, activities, and the accomplishments rather then ascription

Multiculturalism

The view of cultural diversity in a country as something good and desirable; a multicultural society socializes individuals not only into the dominant culture but also into an ethnic culture

Discrimination

Policies and practices that harm a group and it's members

Cultural Colonialism

Internal domination by one group and it's culture/ ideology over others, such as Russian domination in the former S.U.

Colonialism

The political, social, economic, and cultural domination of territory and it's people by a foreign power for an extended time

Ethnic Expulsion

A policy aimed at removing groups who are culturally different from a country

Environmental Racism

The systematic use of intuitionally based power by a majority group to make policy decisions that create disproportionate environmental hazards in minority communities

Descent

A rule assigning social identity on the basis of some aspect of one ancestry

Antiracists

Those who reject ideas and practices based on presumed innate superiority and inferiority of groups; antiracists strategies include refusal to behave according to ones prescribed racial category and participation in activities to combat racism

Afrocentric

Orientation of many African Americans, emphasizing Africa as a cultural center

Tropics

A geographic zone extending some 23 degrees North and South of the equator, between the tropic of cancer and tropic of capricorn

Rickets

A nutritional disorder caused by a shortage of vitamin D, so the calcium is imperfectly absorbed in the intestines; causes softening and deformation of the bones

World View

Ways in which a people make sense of it's place in the context of the world

Polynesia

A triangle of South pacific islands formed by Hawaii to the North. Easter island to the East and New Zealand to the Southwest

Phenotype

An organism's evident traits; it's manifest biology- anatomy and physiology

Racial Classification

A now rejected approach to the study of human biological diversity, which seeks to assign human beings to categories based on assumed common ancestry

Hypodescent

A rule that automatically places the children of a union or mating between members of different socioeconomic groups in the less privileged group

Rituals

Behaviors that are formal stylized, repetitive, and stereotyped, performed earnestly as social acts; rituals are held at set times and places and have liturgical orders

Natural Selection

The process by which nature selects the forms most fit to survive and reproduce in a given environment, such as the tropics

Melanin

The primary determinate of human skin color, is a chemical substance manufactured in the epidermis, or outer skin layer

Haplogroup

A linage or branch of such a genetic tree marked by one or more specific genetic mutations

Antimodernism

The rejection of the modern in favor of what is perceived as an earlier, purer, and better way to live

Third World

The less developed countries

Stereotypes

Fixed ideas, often unfavorable, about what members of a group are like

Status

Any position that determines where someone fits in society; may be ascribed or achieved

Rites of Passage

Culturally defined activities associated with the transition from one place or stage of life to another

Religion

Belief and ritual concerned with supernatural beings, powers, and forces

Liminality

The critically important marginal or in-between phase of a rite of passage

Fundamentalism

Anti modernist movements in various religions

Second World

The Warsaw pact nations, including the former S.U. and the once socialists countries of Eastern Europe and Asia

Refugees

People who have been forced or who have chosen to flea a country to escape persecution of war

Racism

Discrimination against an ethnic group assumed to have a biological basis

Communitas

Intense community spirit, a feeling of great social solidarity, equality, and togetherness; characteristic of people experiencing liminality together

Prejudice

Devaluing a group because of it's assumed behavior, values, capabilities, or attributes

Plural Society

According to Fredrick Barth, a society that features ethnic contrasts, ecological specialization of its ethnic groups, and economic independence of those groups

Negritude

African identity; developed by African intellectuals in Francophone- French speaking Africa

Nationalities

Ethnic groups that once had, or wish to hover regain, autonomous political status

State

A complex sociopolitical system that administers a territory and populace with substantial contrasts in occupation, wealth, prestige, and power. Independent, centrally organized political unit; a government

Nation

A single culture sharing a language, religion, history, ancestry, and kinship; state or nation-state

Minority Groups

Subordinate groups in a social/political hierarchy, with inferior power and less secure access to resources then majority groups have

Majority Groups

Subordinate, dominant, or controlling groups in a social/political hierarchy

Forced Assimilation

Use of force by a dominant group to compel a minority to adopt the dominant culture

First World

The democratic West traditionally conceived in opposition to second world, ruled by communism

Nation-State

An autonomous political entity; a country, such as the U.S. or Canada

Institutional Discrimination

Programs, policies, and agreement that deny equal rights and opportunities to , or differentially harm member of a certain group

Genocide

The deliberate elimination of a group, for example, through mass murder, warfare, or introduced diseases

Ethnocide

Destruction by a dominant group of the cultures of an ethnic group

Ethnicity

Identification with, and feeling part of, an ethnic group, and exclusion from certain other groups because of the affiliation