Here are the key learnings I have gained from understanding the interplay between society and culture that can help address social problems:
- Culture is learned and shared within a society, so understanding a society's culture provides insights into the root causes of social issues and informs better solutions. Framing issues and solutions within the appropriate cultural context increases effectiveness.
- Social problems are often related to conflicts between cultural values, beliefs and norms. Understanding cultural diversity and relativity helps address tensions and conflicts between social groups in a society.
- Culture and socialization play a role in shaping attitudes and behaviors. Analyzing how culture enables or constrains certain behaviors related to social problems can guide interventions to encourage positive social change.
- No culture
Here are the key learnings I have gained from understanding the interplay between society and culture that can help address social problems:
- Culture is learned and shared within a society, so understanding a society's culture provides insights into the root causes of social issues and informs better solutions. Framing issues and solutions within the appropriate cultural context increases effectiveness.
- Social problems are often related to conflicts between cultural values, beliefs and norms. Understanding cultural diversity and relativity helps address tensions and conflicts between social groups in a society.
- Culture and socialization play a role in shaping attitudes and behaviors. Analyzing how culture enables or constrains certain behaviors related to social problems can guide interventions to encourage positive social change.
- No culture
Here are the key learnings I have gained from understanding the interplay between society and culture that can help address social problems:
- Culture is learned and shared within a society, so understanding a society's culture provides insights into the root causes of social issues and informs better solutions. Framing issues and solutions within the appropriate cultural context increases effectiveness.
- Social problems are often related to conflicts between cultural values, beliefs and norms. Understanding cultural diversity and relativity helps address tensions and conflicts between social groups in a society.
- Culture and socialization play a role in shaping attitudes and behaviors. Analyzing how culture enables or constrains certain behaviors related to social problems can guide interventions to encourage positive social change.
- No culture
Here are the key learnings I have gained from understanding the interplay between society and culture that can help address social problems:
- Culture is learned and shared within a society, so understanding a society's culture provides insights into the root causes of social issues and informs better solutions. Framing issues and solutions within the appropriate cultural context increases effectiveness.
- Social problems are often related to conflicts between cultural values, beliefs and norms. Understanding cultural diversity and relativity helps address tensions and conflicts between social groups in a society.
- Culture and socialization play a role in shaping attitudes and behaviors. Analyzing how culture enables or constrains certain behaviors related to social problems can guide interventions to encourage positive social change.
- No culture
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ASPECTS OF CULTURE
E.B TAYLOR (Edward Burnett Tylor)
an English anthropologist, the founder of cultural anthropology Was the first to coin the term “culture” in 18th century WHAT IS CULTURE? CULTURE
A complex whole which
encompasses beliefs, practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, symbols, knowledge and everything that a person learns and shares as a member of society. Culture is the social behavior and norms found in human societies. Culture is considered a central concept in anthropology, encompassing the range of phenomena that are transmitted through social learning in human societies CLASSIFICATION OF CULTURE Material Culture Cultural components that are visible and tangible which include all material objects or those components or elements of culture which physical representation such as tools, furniture, buildings, bridges, gadgets, etc. NONMATERIAL CULTURE
Components of culture that are
nontangible or without physical representation. Categorized into cognitive and normative nonmaterial culture. Cognitive Culture Includes the ideas, concepts, philosophies, designs etc. that are products of the mental or intellectual functioning and reasoning of human mind Normative Culture Includes all the expectations, standards and rules for human behaviour Connecting Culture Iceberg The material and non material cultures are always interlinked. The existence of material culture is justified by nonmaterial culture. Any form/ element of material; culture will be meaningless and will cease to exist without the ideas and normative expectations that support it. ELEMENTS OF CULTURE BELIEFS Are conceptions or ideas people have about what is true in the environment around them like what is life, how to value it, and how one;s beliefs on the value of life relate with his or her interaction with others and the world. These may be based on common sense, folk wisdom, religion, science or a combination of all of these. VALUES Describe what is appropriate (good or bad; desirable or undesirable; worthy or unworthy) in a given society or what ought to be. These are broad, abstract, and shared to influence and guide the behaviour of people. LANGUAGE It is shared set of spoken and written symbols. It is basic to communication and transmission of culture. It is known as the storehouse of culture. TECHNOLOGY
Refers to the application of
knowledge and equipment to ease the task of living and maintaining the environment. It includes all artifacts, methods and devices created and used by people. NORMS
Are specific rules/standards to
guide appropriate behaviour. Societal norms are of different types and forms. TYPES OF NORMS 1.Proscriptive – defines and tells us things not to do 2. Prescriptive – defines and tells us things to do FORMS OF NORMS 1. Folkways – Also known as customs, these are norms for everyday behaviour that people follow for the sake of tradition or convenience. Breaking a folkway does not usually have serious consequences. FORMS OF NORMS 2. Mores – these are strict norms that control moral and ethical behaviour. Mores are norms based on definitions of right and wrong. FORMS OF NORMS 3. Taboos - these are norms that society holds so strongly that violating it results in extreme disgust. Often times the violator of the taboo is considered unfit to live in the society. FORMS OF NORMS 4. Law - these are the codified ethics, and formally agreed, written down and enforced by an official law enforcement agency. CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE DYNAMIC, FLEXIBLE AND ADAPTIVE
This basically means that cultures interact and
change. Most societies interacts with other societies, and lead to exchanges of materials and non material components of culture. All cultures change, or else, they would have problems adjusting and adapting to changing environments. SHARED AND MAY BE CHALLENGED
As we share culture with others, we are able to
act in an appropriate ways as well as predict how others will act. Despite the shared nature of culture, that doesn’t mean that culture is homogenous(the same). It may be challenged by the presence of other cultures and other social forces in society like modernization, industrialization, and globalization. LEARNED THROUGH SOCIALIZATION OR ENCULTURATION It is not biological, we do not inherit it but learn as we interact in society. Much of learning culture is unconscious. We learn, absorb, and acquire culture from families, peers, institutions and the media. Enculturation - the process of learning culture PATTERNED SOCIAL INTERACTIONS.
Culture as a normative system has the capacity
to define and control human behaviours. Norms are cultural expectations in terms of how one will think, feel, or behave as a set by one’s culture. It sets the pattern in terms of what is appropriate or inappropriate in a given setting. Human interactions are guided by some forms of standard and expectation which in the end regularize it. INTEGRATED This is known as holism, or the various parts of culture being interconnected or interlinked. All aspects of a culture are related to one another and to truly understand a culture, one must learn about all of its parts, not only in few. Transmitted through socialization/ enculturation As we share our culture with others, we were able to pass it on to the new members of the society or the younger generation in different ways. In the process of socialization/ enculturation, we were able to teach them about many things in life and equip them with the culturally acceptable ways to surviving, competing, and making meaningful interactions with others in society. REQUIRES LANGUAGE AND OTHER FORMS OF COMMUNICATION In the process of learning and transmitting culture, we need symbols and language to communicate with other in society. A symbol is something that stands for something else. Symbols vary cross-culturally and are arbitrary. These only have meaning when people in a culture agree on their use. Language, money, and art are all symbols. Language is one of the key elements of culture needed for people in one culture to interact or for one to interact with one other cultures. FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE 1.Culture defines situations 2.Culture defines attitudes, values and goals. 3.Culture defines myth, legends and the supernatural 4.Culture provides behaviour patterns. ETHNOCENTRISM/XENOCENTRISM AND CULTURAL RELATAVISM AS ORIENTATIONS IN VIEWING OTHER CULTURES ETHNOCENTRISM A view of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it. Each group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boast itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with contempt on outsiders. (William Graham Sumner) A term coined by William Sumner, is a tendency to see and evaluate other culture in terms of one’s own race, nation, or culture. XENOCENTRISM giving preference to the ideas, lifestyle, and products of the cultures People who usually experience xenocentrism came from a country with lower economic position as compared to the one preferred. This may be triggered by comparison wherein the person sees one’s position as inferior and would like to improve one’s status or experience a better condition compared to his/her current position. XENOPHOBIA
Is the fear of what is perceived as foreign or
strange. It may include fear of losing identity, suspicion of the other group’s activities, aggression and the desire to eliminate the presence of the group to secure a presumed purity. CULTURAL RELATIVISM
The principle that an individual human’s belief
and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual’s own culture. Highlights the perspective that no culture is superior to any other culture when comparing systems of morality, law politics, etc. Culture is seen to have equal value. WHAT LEARNING/S YOU HAVE GAINED AS TO HOW THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE INTERPLAY OF SOCIETY AND CULTURE WILL HELP IN ADDRESSING SOCIAL PROBLEMS/ISSUES THAT WE HAVE IN OUR SOCIETY?