Culture, Race & Ethnicity Flashcards

Flashcards about Culture, Race & Ethnicity, Anthropology Course, University of Europe for Applied Sciences Berlin, Dr. Costanza De Simone, April 8th 2025

What is culture?

According to E.B. Tylor, culture is the complex whole encompassing knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by individuals as members of society. Elaborate on how this definition provides a foundational understanding of cultural studies.

What is enculturation?

Enculturation is the process of learning the cultural rules and logic of a society, beginning at birth. Discuss the mechanisms and key influences in enculturation, such as family, education, and social interactions.

What are symbols?

Symbols, whether verbal, non-verbal, or written, often provide cultural stability. Analyze how symbols create and reinforce cultural meanings and identities, and why cultural stability is essential for societal cohesion.

What is the interpretive theory of culture?

The interpretive theory of culture suggests that anthropologists seek to understand the meanings behind the symbols in one’s daily life. How does this interpretive approach differ from other theories of culture, such as structuralism or functionalism?

How are cultures dynamic?

Cultures are comprised of an interrelated set of social, economic, and belief structures. Explain how changes in one aspect of culture, such as technology or economic systems, can impact other areas of cultural life.

How is culture integrated with daily experience?

Values and beliefs are shaped by many integrated elements of life experience. Explain how concepts like identity, gender, and social status influence the formation of personal values and beliefs within a cultural context.

How is culture shared?

For a thought or action to be cultural, it must be shared and collectively 'built' through common experience and negotiation. Discuss the role of communication and social interaction in creating and maintaining shared cultural understandings.

What is Cultural Relativism?

Cultural Relativism involves interpreting another culture using their goals, values, and beliefs rather than our own to make sense of what people say and do. What are the ethical implications and practical challenges of applying cultural relativism in anthropological research and cross-cultural interactions?

What is culture?

Culture consists of the collective processes through which people in social groups construct and naturalize certain meanings and actions as normal and even necessary. How does this construction of normality impact individual behavior and social expectations?

Why does culture feel so stable?

Societies function most smoothly when cultural processes feel natural and stable through symbols, values, norms, and traditions. Analyze how cultural stability is maintained through these elements and the potential consequences of cultural disruption.

What are values?

Values tend to conserve a society’s dominant ideas about morality and social issues and typically change more slowly than other aspects of culture. How do dominant values influence social policies, laws, and everyday behavior?

What are norms?

Norms typically remain stable because people learn them from an early age, and society encourages conformity. Provide examples to explain how norms can vary across different cultures and the ways in which conformity is enforced.

What are traditions?

Traditions are usually assumed to be timeless, and challenging them is difficult, even if they justify actions that make no logical sense in modern times. Explore examples of traditions that persist despite lacking a clear rationale in modern contexts and discuss the social and cultural reasons for their endurance.

What are social institutions?

Social institutions are organized sets of social relationships that link individuals to each other in a structured way within a society. Discuss the functions and impacts of social institutions such as family, education, and government and how they shape individual lives.

What is Functionalism?

Functionalism posits that cultural practices and beliefs perform functions for societies: explaining how the world works, organizing people into efficient roles, and so on. How does functionalism explain the persistence of cultural practices, even when they appear irrational or harmful from an outsider's perspective?

What is Holism?

Holism is a methodological tool that helps to show the interrelationships among different domains of a society. Can you provide examples of the application of holism such as health, economics, politics, and religion?

Can anybody own culture?

Nobody can own culture because it is the collective processes that make the artificial seem natural. Explain how this collective ownership impacts cultural evolution and adaptation and how cultural appropriation comes into play.

Is race biological?

Categories and strategies used in stratified societies to uphold the social order are constructed and dynamic as any other cultural process. Elaborate on examples like socio-economic class and gender and how those categories uphold social order.

What is a fundamental flaw of racial typologies?

There are no diagnostic genes or genetic traits that belong to only one racial group and no others. Why does the absence of genetic distinctiveness undermine the concept of race as a biological category?

How is race culturally constructed?

Racial categories are constructed differently in different cultural contexts. Discuss how the social construction of race varies between different regions and historical periods, such as Brazil versus the United States

What is Ethnicity?

Ethnicity means having common Descent. Members of ethnic groups emphasize familial metaphors and shared 'blood,' establishing group identity and distinctness from other groups. Can you discuss how ethnic identity influences social interactions, political mobilization, and cultural expression?

What is Class?

Hierarchical distinctions between social groups usually based on wealth, occupation, and social standing. Analyze how class structures influence access to resources, opportunities, and social mobility within a society.

What is Caste?

Based on Hindu texts, it is the hierarchy of Brahmans (priests), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaishyas (traders), and Shudras (artisans and servants). How do you compare and contrast class with caste?

Are prejudice and discrimination inevitable?

Most forms are acquired as part of our enculturation from trusted elders, authority figures, media, and peers. Is it truly inevitable, and what social and psychological mechanisms contribute to its transmission and perpetuation?

What is Explicit discrimination?

Makes no effort to hide and is an accepted norm, evident in institutions and laws. Provide historical and contemporary examples of explicit discrimination, especially in legal and institutional contexts.

What is Disguised Discrimination?

Lived on well beyond the 'official' end of its explicit source. Provide contemporary examples of how laws can still affect people beyond the 'official' end such as red-lining.

What is Unearned Privilege?

Having relatively light skin pigmentation in the United States as an unearned privilege because light-skinned people may do everyday things without additional attention or judgment directed at them. Elaborate on the ways it systematically advantages individuals in education and employment.