Ravelli-Webber Ch. 5 Culture_FT2024 (1)

Chapter 5: Culture Overview

Definition:
- Culture is a complex collection of values, beliefs, behaviors, and material objects shared by a group, passed from one generation to the next.
Five Defining Features of Culture:
- Learned: Culture is acquired through socialization.
- Shared: Members of a culture share common beliefs and values.
- Transmitted: Culture is passed down through generations.
- Cumulative: Culture evolves and expands upon itself over time.
- Human: Unique to human societies.

Definition:
- Intangible and abstract components of a society, including values and norms.

Values: Beliefs about ideal goals and acceptable behaviors.
Norms: Rules that dictate appropriate behavior, including:
- Folkways: Informal norms suggesting customary behaviors.
- Mores: Strong norms significant to social order.
- Taboo: Prohibition of certain actions seen as immoral.
- Laws: Formal norms enacted in legislation.
- Sanction: Penalties for violating norms or rewards for adherence.

Ethnocentrism:
- The belief that one's own culture is superior; restricts appreciation of cultural diversity.
Cultural Relativism:
- Understanding other cultures on their own terms; raises ethical questions about judging actions.

Ethical considerations on how to approach cultural practices, especially concerning universal human rights versus cultural specifics.

Definition:
- Disorientation experienced when entering a significantly different culture.
Stages of Culture Shock (Oberg, 1960):
- Honeymoon: Initial excitement upon arrival.
- Crisis: Feelings of anxiety and disorientation.
- Recovery: Gradual adaptation begins.
- Adjustment: Acceptance and understanding of the new culture.

Experiences of culture shock can differ significantly for Indigenous Peoples in settler colonial contexts such as Canada due to ongoing systemic racism.

Symbols: Represents meanings in a culture.
Language: A critical system for sharing cultural symbols, integral to identity.
- Over 3500 languages are at risk of extinction, leading to cultural loss.

Consequences of language loss include:
- Loss of knowledge and cultural identity.
- Social rootlessness and deprivation of belonging.
- Altered worldviews and loss of historical memories.

Linguistic Determinism: Language dictates thought (limited contemporary support).
Linguistic Relativism: Language reflects worldviews and cultural perceptions.
Importance of non-verbal communication in cultural expression.

Definition:
- Groups within a larger culture with distinct values and norms, e.g., ethnic or religious groups.

Definition:
- Subcultures that strongly oppose the dominant culture, e.g., Hells Angels.

Characteristics:
- Defined in part by opposition to American culture and the historical coexistence of English, French, and Indigenous cultures.

Sources of Cultural Change:
- Discovery: Recognition and application of new ideas or items.
- Invention/Innovation: Modifying existing items to create something new.
- Diffusion: Spread of cultural items/practices across groups.

Culture aids in fulfilling human needs through shared values and practices, requiring adaptation to environmental pressures.

Focuses on societal tensions regarding resource control; those in power shape cultural norms and ideologies.

Cultures are continuously created and redefined through interpersonal interactions; minority identities are shaped within cultural symbols.

Review provided materials on culture and identity.
Discuss and create a presentation on cultural wars: definitions, examples in Canada, and concepts of cultural humility.