THE CONCEPT OF CULTURE

1
THE CONCEPT OF CULTURE
2

• Appreciation of our differences starts with the
  acknowledgment of our similarities
• -Peter Reese

3
As the soil, however rich it may be, cannot be
productive without cultivation, so the mind
without culture can never produce good fruit.
Seneca, Roman philosopher
4
Defining Culture

• How do you know what you know?
• Where did you get that knowledge from?
• What kind of an attitude do you have?
• What is your behavior like?
• Is this all yours individually or was it passed
  down to you?

5
What Is Culture?
6
What Is Culture?

• The customary ways in which humans live. For
  example diet, family forms and processes, social
  organizations, and religions.
• Mikel Hogan-Garcia

7

• Culture is that complex whole which includes
  knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and
  any other capabilities and habits acquired by
  men/women as members of the society.
• Edward Taylor

8
Simpler

• Culture is everything that people
• have (material possessions),
• think (values and attitudes) and
• do (behavior patterns) as members of a society

9

• The Role theory
• Personality consists of a set of learned roles,
  the correct
• behaviour in a particular situation
• teacher/pupil interaction
• weddings, funerals, birthday parties
• boss/subordinate interaction
• boy/girl relationships
• There is a correct way to herd goats, drive a
  car, raise children, etc.
• Role theory places standard responses to standard
  situations.
• Problems can arise when circumstances change and
  the standard behaviours no longer produce
  satisfactory outcomes.

10
ARE THERE CULTURED AND UNCULTURED PEOPLE?
11
Core Identity

• Includes everything an individual finds
  meaningful, beliefs, values, perceptions,
  assumptions, and framework about reality.
• Developed through social interaction with family
  and others in a specific environment.

12
Self-Awareness

• Requires self-knowledge of own culture in order
  to know when cultural limits are likely to be
  pushed, foreseeing potential areas of tension,
  and conflict with specific groups.

13
HIGH CULTURE???
14
ORDINARY CULTURE???
15
IN FACT, WE ALL HAVE CULTURE
16
Ethnocentrism

• The belief that ones own group or culture is
  superior to all other groups or cultures.
• The tendency to use our own way of life as a
  standard for judging others
• It also indicates the belief, on the part of most
  individuals, that their race, culture, society,
  etc., are superior to all others.

17
Ethnorelativism

• From being neutral about differences to being
  positive.
• Not only accepts cultural differences, but
  willing and able to adjust our own behavior to
  conform to different norms.
• Bi-cultural or multi-cultural.
• Effortlessly adjusting behavior to suit a
  different culture.
• "style switching"
• Do not give up their own or birth culture's
  values and beliefs, but integrate aspects of
  other cultures into it.

18
CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

• Enculturation
• the process of learning or interacting with ones
  cultural environment.

19
Acculturation
It occurs when a society changes because it
accepts or adopts an innovation.
20
How does this picture show acculturation?
21
How does this picture show acculturation?
22
CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

• Culture is dynamic
• Culture is adaptive
• Culture is integrated
• Culture is learnt (not biologically transmitted)
• Culture is shared (people of the same culture can
  predict, within limits, how others will think and
  behave)

23
LAYERS OF CULTURE

• Cultural universals learned behaviour patterns
  shared by all human beings.
• Mainstream culture Cultural traditions that
  distinguish a specific society.

24
Cultural universals

• Economic system.
• Systems of marriage and family.
• Educational system.
• Social control system.
• System of supernatural beliefs.
• Systems of communication.
• Lic. Oscar Conejo Chacón