Elements of Society: Culture

The symbols, values, material artifacts, and rules of behavior that a society or group collectively creates and uses.

Major Perspectives

Durkheim (functionalist theory)

• Culture provides collective conscience, social solidarity, and social control.

• Culture is widely shared; it creates and reflects social harmony.

Marx (conflict theory)

• Culture creates and gives meaning to social divisions and conflicts.

• Dominant culture reflects the lives and interests of dominant groups.

• Culture is an element of a society’s superstructure, shaped by its base. (Marx only)

Weber

• Whether culture creates unity or conflict is an empirical question.

• Interests are most important in shaping social life, but culture can play an important role in certain instances.

Symbolic interactionism

• Culture is understood as the patterns, rules, and meanings of social interaction; these are the foundation of all social order.

Key Concepts

• Symbol: A sign that represents one or more meanings. Signs and meanings are linked by social convention. Examples: language, gestures, and art.

• Language: A rule-governed system of communication using vocal and written symbols (words) that have common meanings among all members of a linguistic group.

• Values: Socially created ideas about what is desirable and worthwhile in life, which may guide people’s goals, choices, and judgments.

• Norms: Standards or codes of behavior, including expectations and obligations, that are specific to particular social settings. Examples: manners, customs, and laws. Fulfilling or violating norms often results in positive or negative sanctions.

• Material culture: Material culture includes physical artifacts (e.g., adornments, buildings, and weapons) and the ways that societies produce and use them.

• Subculture: A system of norms, material artifacts, and other cultural elements shared by a minority of people within a society that distinguishes the minority from the rest. Subcultures are often seen as dominated by their parent cultures.

• Cultural capital: Cultural elements such as knowledge or taste used as a form of wealth, often to distinguish oneself from others and gain access to elite circles and opportunities. Seen as a means by which inequalities are maintained alongside formally equal opportunity.

• Cultural universals: Elements common to all cultures or societies, though they may take different forms in different societies. Examples: funeral rites, cooperative work.

• Cultural relativism: The position that there are no universal cultural values or ideas. A culture can only be understood on its own terms, not from the perspectives of other cultures.

• Ethnocentrism: A tendency to judge all cultures in terms of one’s own; a belief that one’s own culture is morally, intellectually, and/or aesthetically superior to all others.

• Ideology: A system of ideas and values that justifies a particular political or social program. Conflict theory definition: A system of ideas and values that justifies one group’s subordination of another by presenting a distorted view of reality that conceals power imbalances and reflects only the experiences of the powerful.