Culture

What is culture?

Culture is a complex set of beliefs, values, norms, customs, practices, languages and artifacts shared by a group of people that shapes their worldview and influences their behaviours and interactions

How is culture developed?

Culture is developed when people rationalise their social behaviours consistent with shared values

What are the three types of cultural development?

• Unilinear : all human societies progress through a single sequence of stages of development, from simple to complex forms

• Multilinear : culture evolve and develop in multiple ways, rather than following a single, universal path

• Cultural Imperialist : Idea that powerful nations or dominant cultures impose their cultural values, beliefs, and practices on less powerful socities

What are the factors that influence culture development?

• Climate

• Demography

• Population size

• Migration

• Available sources

What are the components of culture?

• Symbols : anything that carries a particular meaning recognised by people who share culture

• Language : a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another

• Values and Belief : culturally defined standards where people judge, desirability, goodness and beauty and serve as a broad guidelines for social living

• Norms : principles of the right actions that bind individuals to regulate socially accepted behaviour

• Material culture : Examples like book and buildings that future generations can use to try and understand us

What are the types of culture?

• high culture : cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite

• popular culture : cultural patterns that are widespread among a society’s population

• subculture : cultural patterns that distinguish some segment of society’s population

• counterculture : cultural patterns that strongly oppose the widely accepted cultural pattern

What are the levels of culture?

• Culture trait : individual tool, act or belieff

• Culture complex : cluster of interrelated traits

• Culture pattern : combination of culture complex