Sociologically Studying Culture

Definition of Culture: Culture represents the collective ways of thinking, the ways of acting, and the material objects that together constitute a people’s way of life. It encompasses the lifestyles of people from countries all over the world.
The Dual Categories of Culture: Culture is fundamentally divided into two distinct categories:
- Material Culture: Physical objects and artifacts created by a society.
- Nonmaterial Culture: The intangible ideas, beliefs, and symbols that define a society.

Symbols: A symbol is a component of nonmaterial culture. It is defined as anything that carries a particular meaning recognized by people who share a culture.
- Examples of Symbols:
  - Gestures: Movements of the body.
  - Objects: Physical items like the United States flag.
  - Words: Verbal or written language units.
  - Visual Presentations: An example provided is a "Hippie in colorful clothes" representing specific cultural meanings.
Language: Language is a form of nonmaterial culture. It serves as an abstract system of word meanings and symbols that enables members of a society to communicate with one another.

Values: These are nonmaterial cultural components consisting of culturally defined standards. People utilize these standards to determine what is desirable, good, and beautiful. Values function as broad guidelines for social living.
- Examples of Value Expression: Graduates celebrating or a man cheering for his freedom.
Cultural Appropriation: This is the act of adopting elements from an outside culture—often a minority culture—including its knowledge, practices, and symbols.
- Key Issues: This often occurs without understanding or respecting the original culture and context.
- Dynamics: Lack of respect is more frequently found among the dominant culture when they commercialize elements of a minority culture.
- Case Examples:
  - A Caucasian woman who transformed her appearance to look African American, despite claims that she did nothing to alter her appearance.
  - Caucasian actors or figures such as the "QAnon Shaman" dressed as Native Americans.
  - Historical context: Caucasians dressed as Native Americans during the Boston Tea Party.

Gestures: A gesture is a nonmaterial body movement used to communicate with others. It functions as a shorthand method to convey messages without utilizing verbal messages.
- Example: The use of hands to show a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down."
Religion: Religion is nonmaterial culture consisting of a set of ideas and beliefs regarding God, worship, morals, and ethics.
- Impact: Individual beliefs significantly affect how a culture responds to various religious topics.
- Religious Symbols: Symbols representing Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and the "yin yang" are central to these belief systems.
Norms: Social norms are nonmaterial rules by which a society guides the behavior of its members.
- Classification:
  - Formal Norms: Written rules and regulations.
  - Informal Norms: Unwritten expectations.
- Interconnectivity: Norms reflect values, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors.

Folkways: These are norms intended for routine or casual interaction. They characterize everyday, repetitive behavior.
Mores: These are serious norms that are widely observed and carry great moral significance. The violation of mores typically leads to severe penalties.
Taboos: This is the most serious classification of norm. A taboo is an implicit prohibition based on a cultural sense that an action is excessively repulsive or too sacred for ordinary people to engage in.

Cultural Universals: These are patterns or traits that are globally common and found in all human societies.
Cultural Lag: This refers to a period of maladjustment that occurs when material culture changes rapidly, and the nonmaterial culture struggles to adapt to these new material conditions.
Counterculture: A group whose values stand in direct opposition to those held by the dominant culture.

High Culture: Cultural patterns that distinguish a society's elite.
- Example: Purchasing multiple expensive homes.
Popular Culture: Cultural patterns that are widespread and common among a society’s general population.
Subculture: Refers to distinctive cultural patterns, rules, and traditions that set apart a specific segment of a society’s population.
- Example: Skateboarders.
Culture Shock: The personal disorientation, uncertainty, or fear experienced when encountering an unfamiliar way of life or culture.
- Historical Illustration: Changes in behavior, such as people wearing masks during the pandemic in the year $1918$ .

Positive Sanctions: Expressions of approval or the provision of a reward for following a social norm.
- Example: A cat giving a man a high five (as a metaphor for approval).
Negative Sanctions: Expressions of disapproval or punishment for breaking a social norm.
Cultural Diffusion: This occurs when people learn from one another and adopt material objects or practices that they find desirable from other cultures.
- Example: A McDonald's restaurant operating in the Middle East.

Ethnocentrism: The practice of judging another culture exclusively by the standards of one’s own culture. This perspective assumes one's own culture is the norm or is superior to others.
Cultural Relativism: The practice of judging a culture by its own standards. This approach prioritizes understanding other cultures rather than dismissing them as "strange."
Cultural Imperialism: The deliberate imposition of one’s own cultural values onto another culture.
Xenocentrism: The opposite of ethnocentrism; the belief that another culture is superior to one's own.

Structural Functional Analysis: This perspective states that cultural values direct our lives, give meaning to our actions, and serve to bind people together in a stable society.
Social Conflict Paradigm: This perspective argues that society values the culture of the dominant group while actively devaluing the culture of marginalized groups.
Symbolic Interaction Paradigm: This paradigm focuses on how one’s culture is reflected through different symbols and daily interactions.
- Examples of Symbolic Interaction: Wearing a turban, greeting others by bowing, or eating with one's hands.