AP Geo Unit 3

★ Culture →

Shared practices, beliefs, values, behaviors, and technologies learned by a group of people.

Social construct →

An idea or category whose meaning is created and maintained through social agreement rather than being entirely fixed by nature.

★ Cultural trait →

One element of a culture, such as a language, religious practice, food tradition, or clothing style.

Visible cultural traits →

Observable expressions of culture, such as architecture, clothing, signs, and places of worship.

Invisible cultural traits →

Beliefs, values, attitudes, and social expectations that are not directly visible but influence behavior.

Religion →

A system of beliefs and practices concerning the sacred, spiritual meaning, and people’s relationship with the world.

Ethnicity →

A shared cultural identity associated with characteristics such as ancestry, history, language, religion, or customs.

Gender → ith gender categories; these vary across places and over time.

Socially shaped identities, roles, and expectations associated w

Gender roles →

Social expectations about the activities, responsibilities, and behavior of people of different genders.

★ Ethnocentrism →

Judging another culture by the standards of one’s own culture, often while considering one’s own superior.

★ Cultural relativism →

Understanding a cultural practice within its own cultural context rather than automatically judging it by one’s own standards.

★ Cultural landscape →

The visible imprint of human activity and culture on the environment, including buildings, farms, roads, signs, and sacred spaces.

★ Built environment →

Human-made structures and infrastructure, such as buildings, roads, bridges, and transportation systems.

Built environment versus cultural landscape →

The built environment is part of the cultural landscape; the cultural landscape also includes broader patterns of land use and human interaction with natural features.

Traditional architecture →

Building styles associated with established cultural traditions, often reflecting local materials, climate, skills, and customs.

Postmodern architecture →

Architecture that combines or reinterprets styles and may use unusual shapes, symbolism, ornament, or historical references.

Architecture and culture →

Buildings can reveal religious beliefs, historical influences, available technology, economic conditions, and cultural identity.

★ Ethnic neighborhood / ethnic enclave →

An area with a concentration of people sharing an ethnic identity, often expressed through businesses, languages, food, and community institutions.

Chinatown →

A class example of an ethnic enclave where signs, restaurants, architecture, and institutions may reflect Chinese cultural influences.

Gendered spaces →

Places whose access, use, or meaning is influenced by gender roles and expectations.

Gender and the landscape →

Opportunities and restrictions can influence who uses workplaces, schools, religious spaces, transportation, and public areas.

Sacred space →

A place that a religious community considers spiritually significant.

Place of worship →

A location where people gather for religious practices.

Pilgrimage →

A journey to a sacred place for religious reasons.

★ Sequent occupancy →

The layering of cultural imprints as different groups occupy and modify a place over time.

★ Cultural hearth →

The place or area where a cultural trait or tradition originated and from which it spread.

Cultural pattern →

The spatial arrangement of cultural traits, such as where languages, religions, or ethnic communities are concentrated.

★ Sense of place →

The meanings, feelings, and attachments people associate with a location.

★ Placemaking →

The creation or transformation of spaces to give them meaning, identity, and usefulness for a community.

★ Centripetal force →

A force that encourages unity within a population.

★ Centrifugal force →

A force that encourages division within a population.

★ Relocation diffusion →

The spread of culture when people move and bring cultural traits with them.

★ Expansion diffusion →

The spread of a trait outward to additional people or places while it remains present in its original area.

★ Hierarchical diffusion →

The spread of a trait through a hierarchy of influential people, institutions, or places, often from major centers to smaller ones.

★ Contagious diffusion →

The spread of a trait through contact among people, without requiring movement through a hierarchy.

★ Stimulus diffusion →

The spread of an underlying idea while its specific form is modified to fit a different cultural context.

Diffusion barrier →

A condition that slows or prevents diffusion, such as censorship, language differences, limited access, or cultural resistance

★ Colonialism →

The establishment of direct political control over another territory, often involving settlement and exploitation.

★ Imperialism →

The extension of power over other territories or peoples through direct control or indirect political, economic, or military influence.

★ Globalization →

Increasing connections and interdependence among people and places through trade, migration, technology, communication, and culture.

★ Time-space compression →

The reduction in the time needed to connect distant places because of improvements in transportation and communication.

Communication technology →

Tools such as smartphones, television, social media, and the internet that allow information and cultural practices to spread.

Urbanization →

The increasing share of a population living in urban areas; cities bring people from different backgrounds into contact.

★ Cultural convergence →

Cultures becoming more similar through interaction and the adoption of shared traits.

Convergence example →

People in different countries adopting the same global brands or using a shared language for business.

★ Cultural divergence →

Cultures maintaining or developing differences, sometimes through resistance to outside influences.

★ Language family →

A group of languages descended from a shared ancestral language.

Language branch →

A subdivision of a language family containing more closely related languages.

Language tree →

A diagram representing relationships and divergence among languages; it is not necessarily a map of geographic diffusion routes.

Indo-European →

A language family that includes English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Russian, and Hindi.

Sino-Tibetan →

A language family that includes Mandarin Chinese, Tibetan, and Burmese.

Romance languages →

Languages descended from Latin, including Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian.

★ Dialect →

A regional or social variety of a language with distinctive vocabulary, grammar, or pronunciation.

Accent →

A distinctive pattern of pronunciation; an accent is one aspect of language variation.

Linguistic diversity →

The variety of languages spoken within an area.

★ Lingua franca →

A language used for communication among people who have different native languages.

Lingua-franca examples →

English in many international settings; Swahili in parts of East Africa.

★ Pidgin →

A contact language that develops for communication among groups without a shared language, typically with limited functions and no native speakers initially.

★ Creole →

A fully developed language arising from language contact and used as a community language, including by native speakers; some develop from pidgins.

Language endangerment →

A situation in which a language risks losing its speakers and transmission to younger generations.

Language extinction →

The loss of a language’s living speakers; revitalization efforts may sometimes reestablish its use.

Language revitalization →

Efforts to strengthen or restore a language through teaching, community use, media, and public institutions.

★ Toponym →

A place name that can reveal linguistic, cultural, historical, or political influences.

★ Universalizing religion →

A religion with beliefs presented as relevant to people across ethnic backgrounds and generally open to conversion.

★ Ethnic religion →

A religion closely associated with a particular people, heritage, or place, with membership often transmitted through family and community.

Religious hearth →

The area where a religion originated.

Conversion →

Adoption of a religion or a change in religious affiliation.

Missionary → A person who works to spread religious beliefs, often seeking converts.

A person who works to spread religious beliefs, often seeking converts.

Diaspora →

A population dispersed from an ancestral homeland while retaining connections or identity associated with it.

★ Multiculturalism →

The coexistence of multiple cultural communities that retain significant aspects of their identities.

★ Acculturation →

Adoption of traits from another culture while retaining important elements of one’s original culture.

★ Assimilation →

A process in which a group becomes increasingly similar to a dominant culture, reducing cultural distinctions; it can be voluntary or coerced.

Forced assimilation →

Policies or practices that pressure people to abandon their language, customs, or identity.

★ Syncretism →

The blending of elements from different cultural traditions to create new practices or forms.