AP Human Geography Unit 3

Culture

Culture

The beliefs, values, practices, behaviors, and technology shared by a society and passed down from generation to generation

Cultural Trait

A shared object or cultural practice

Artifacts

A visible object or technology that a culture creates
-Exp: Houses, buildings, clothing, tools, toys

Sociofacts

A structure or organization of a culture that influences social behavior
-Families, governments, educational systems, religious organizations
-Slower to change than Artifacts

Mentifacts

A central, enduring element of a culture that reflects its shared ideas, values, knowledge and beliefs
-religious beliefs, languages
-Slowest to change

Popular culture

The widespread behaviors, beliefs, and practices of ordinary people in society at a given point in time

Traditional culture

The long-established behaviors, beliefs, and practices passed down from generation to generation

Cultural norm

A shared standard or pattern that guides the behavior of a group of people

Ethnocentrism

The tendency of ethnic groups to evaluate other groups according to preconceived ideas originating from their own culture

Cultural relativism

The evaluation of a culture by its own standards

Cultural Landscape

A natural landscape that has been modified by humans, reflecting their cultural beliefs and values
-clues on cultural practices and priorities

Identity

The ways in which humans make sense of themselves and how they wish to be viewed by others

Sequent Occupance

The notion that successive societies leave behind their cultural imprint, a collection of evidence about human character and experiences within a geographic region, which shapes the cultural landscape

Ethnicity

The state of belonging to a group of people who share common cultural characteristics

Ethnic Neighborhoods

A cultural landscape within a community of people outside of their area of origin

Traditional Architecture

An established building style of different cultures, religions, and places

Postmodern Architecture

A building style that emerged as a reaction to "modern" designs and values diversity in design

Religion

A system of spiritual beliefs that helps form cultural perceptions, attitudes, beliefs, and values

Pilgrimage

A journey to a holy place for spiritual reasons

Language

A distinct system of communication that is the carrier of human thoughts and cultural identity

Toponyms

A place name

Gendered Spaces

A space designed and deliberately incorporated into the landscape to accommodate gender roles

Gender Identity

An individual's innermost concept of self as male, female, a blend of both, or neither
-Can be the same or different from their sex assigned at birth

Safe Spaces

A place of acceptance for people who are sometimes marginalized by society

Gentrification

The renovations and improvements conforming to middle-class preferences

Third Place

A communal space that is seperate from home (first place) or work (second place)
-Coffee shop, fitness center, bookstore

Sense of place

The subjective feelings and memories people associate with a certain geographic location

Placemaking

A community-driven process in which people collaborate to create a place where they can live, work, play and learn

Dialects

A variation of a standard language specific to a general area, with differences in pronunciation, degree of rapidity in speech, word choice, and spelling

Adherents

A person who is loyal to belief, religion, or organization

Denomination

A seperate church organization that unites a number of local congregations

Sect

A relatively small group that has seperated from an established denomination

Centrifugal Force

A force that divides a group of people

Centripetal Force

A force that unites a group of people.

Diffusion

The process by which a cultural trait spreads from one place to another over time

Cultural Hearth

An area where cultural traits develop and from which cultural traits diffuse

Expansion Diffusion

The spread of a cultural trait outward from where it originated
-The trait does the moving, not the people

Contagious Diffusion

The process by which an idea or cultural trait spreads rapidly among people of all social classes and levels of power

Hierarchial Diffusion

The spread of an idea or trait from a person or place of power or authority to other people or places

Stimulus Diffusion

The process by which a cultural trait or idea spreads to another culture or region but is modified to adapt to the new culture.

Lingua Franca

Common language used among speakers of different languages

Creolization

The blending of two or more languages that may not include the features of either original language

Cultural Convergence

The process by which cultures become more similar through interaction

Cultural Divergence

The process by which cultures become less similar due to conflicting beliefs or other barriers

Acculturation

The process by which people within one culture adopt some of the traits of another while still retaining their own distinct culture

Assimilation

A category of acculturation in which the interaction of two cultures results in one culture adopting almost all of the customs, traditions, language and other cultural traits of the other

Syncretism

Process of innovation combining different cultural features into something new

Multiculturalism

A situation in which different cultures live together without assimilating

Cultural Appropriation

The act of adopting elements of another culture

Collectivist Cultures

A culture in which people are expected to conform to collective responsibility within the family and to be obedient to and respectful of elder family members

Language Family

A group of languages that share a common ancestral language from a particular hearth, or region of origin

Isolate

A language that is unrelated to any other known languages

Language Branch

A collection of languages within a language family that share a common origin and seperated from other branches in the same family several thousand years ago

Language Groups

Languages within a language brach that share a common ancestor in the relatively recent past and have vocabularies with a high degree of overlap

Universalizing Religions

A religion that tries to appeal to all humans and is open to membership by everyone
-Regardless of background
-Christianity, Islam, Buddhism
-Open to Diffusion

Christianity

A universalizing religion based on the teachings of Jesus Christ that began in what is now the West Bank and Israel around the beinning of the common era and has spread to all continents
-Roman, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant
-Largest Religion

Islam

A universalizing religion based on the teachings of Muhammad that originated in the hearth of Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula in the seventh century
-Seperated into Shiites and Sunnis

Buddhism

The oldest universalizing religion which arose from a hearth in northeastern India sometime between the mid-sixth and mid-fourth centuries B.C.E. and is based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama, called the Buddha
-Buddha "the enlightened one"
-Spread through contagious, hierarchal, and relocation

Sikhism

The newest universalizing religion; founded by Guru Nanak, who lived from 1469-1539, in the Punjab region of northwestern India
-10 identified gurus (religious teachers)

Ethnic Religions

A religion that is closely tied with a particular ethnic group often living in a particular place
-Hinduism, Judaism, Shinto, Confucianism, Taoism

Hindusim

An ethnic religion that arose a few thousand years ago in South Asia and is closely tied to India
-Brahman and dieties
-Karma and reincarnation

Judaism

The world's first monotheistic religion which developed among the Hewbrew people of southwest Asia about 4,000 years ago
-Monotheistic
-Faced lots of persecution

Secularized

Focused on worldy rather than spiritual concerns