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Culture


In this chapter, you will find the following items:

Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material objects, and behavior. This chapter examines the basic elements that make up a culture, social practices common to all cultures, and variations that distinguish one culture from another.

After studying this chapter, you should be able to:


1.
Define a society.
2.
Give examples of cultural universals.
3.
Differentiate between the two forms of innovation: discovery and invention.
4.
Explain how sociologists use the terms diffusion and globalization.
5.
Discuss the "McDonaldization" of society.
6.
Differentiate between the following elements of a culture: language, norms, sanctions, and values.
7.
Explain what the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is, and why it is important when discussing language and culture.
8.
Summarize the feminist perspective on gender-related language.
9.
Describe the relationship between culture and the dominant ideology.
10.
Differentiate between subcultures and countercultures.
11.
Identify your own attitudes toward cultural variation.
12.
Explain how ethnocentric value judgments have complicated U.S. efforts at democratic reform of the Iraqi government.





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Schaefer, Sociology Brief, 6/eOnline Learning Center

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