Chapter Overview

Culture is learned, and is passed from one generation to the next, through the process of enculturation. Only humans have cultural learning, which depends on symbols. Symbols have a particular meaning and value for people who share the same culture. Experiences, memories, values, and beliefs are shared as a result of common enculturation. Cultural traditions take natural phenomena, including biologically based urges, and channel them in particular directions. Everyone is cultured, not just people with elite educations. Societies are integrated and patterned through their dominant economic forces, social patterns, key symbols, and core values. Cultural rules don't always dictate behavior. There is room for creativity, flexibility, diversity, and disagreement within societies. Cultural means of adaptation have been crucial in human evolution. However, aspects of culture also can be maladaptive.

There are different levels of cultural systems. Diffusion and migration carry the same cultural traits and patterns to different areas. Such features are therefore shared across national boundaries. Nations also have internal cultural diversity associated with ethnicity, region, and social class. Some cultural features are universal. Others are widespread or generalized. Still others are unique and distinctive to particular societies. Mechanisms of cultural change include diffusion, acculturation, and independent invention. Globalization describes a series of processes that promote change in a world whose nations and people are increasingly linked.