Values: Culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness, and beauty that serve as broad guidelines for
social living. What ought to be.
Examples of values: Equal opportunity, Achievement or success, Material comfort, Activity and work.
Science, Freedom, Physical fitness, Health, Punctuality. Wealth, Education, Competition and Merit.
Honesty, Dignity of labor, Patriotism. Justice and Democracy. Environmental protection, Charity and
Development. Sometimes there could be inconsistency in the values which can lead to conflict.
Beliefs: Specific statements that people hold to be true. Values are broad principles that underlie beliefs.
Values are abstract standard of goodness, while beliefs are particular matters that individuals consider to be
true or false.
Norms:Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members. These are the
shared expectations of the people that govern their behavior.
Proscriptive norms: Mandating what we should not do. Forbidding from certain actions.
Prescriptive norms: What we should do.
Mores and Folkways:W. G. Sumner gave these concepts.
Mores(MORE-ays): Society’s standards of proper moral conduct. Such standards have been considered as essential to maintaining a way of life. These are the notions of right or wrong developed by society.
Violation of mores brings a strong reaction from others.
Folkways: Society’s customs for routine, casual interaction. These are of less moral significance. Examples
can be: proper dress, appropriate greetings, and commoncourtesy. People usually ignore the violation of
folkways.
“Ideal” culture and “Real” Culture
Ideal culture: Social patterns that are mandated by culturalvalues and norms. The ideal values and norms,
which are prevalent in the society.
Real culture: Actual social patterns those only approximate cultural expectations. The norms and value that
people actually follow. It can also be how many people follow these cultural patterns. Or how much a
person observes a cultural pattern. Since this can be explained in numbers therefore it may also be called a
statistical norm.
Material and Non-Material Culture
Tangible and intangible culture as explained earlier.
Cultural Diversity
There are many ways of life; hence there are differences in culture. In one society there could be
differences in patterns of marriage and family, patterns of education, patterns of worship, and patterns of
earning a living. One finds cultural difference withinthe province and across the provinces in Pakistan.
Countries like Canada, which are inhabited by immigrants, display a big cultural diversity. People have
migrated from all over the globe to Canada and brought cultural differences with them and in many cases
are trying to continue with them.
Culture by social class
Cultural diversity can involve social class. In everyday life, we usually use the term “culture” to mean art
forms such as classical literature, music, dance, and painting. We describe people who regularly go to the
theater as “cultured,” because we think they appreciate the “finer things in life.” We speak less generously
of ordinary people, assuming that everyday culture is somehow less worthy. Such judgments imply that
many cultural patterns are readily accessible to only some members of society. This is how particular
cultural patterns are associated with certain classes. We can further stretch the argument to other
components of culture for finding variations in different classes.
People often divide society in different social classes and find that each class represents differences in their
norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, and thinking. These norms, values, and attitudes may relate to the
institutions of marriage and family, religion, education, earning a living, ortheir political behavior, one could
find the differences. In this perspective culture is often divided into as:
High culture: Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite.
Popular culture: Cultural patterns those are widespread among a society’s population.
Culture of poverty: Cultural patterns shared by the poor.
Sub-Culture
Cultural patterns that set apart some segments of a society’s population. Cluster of patterns which both are
related to the general culture of the society yet distinguishable from it. The example could be: student subculture, business sub-culture.
Multiculturalism
A policy followed by some governments whereby they recognize cultural diversity in the society and
promote the equality of all cultural traditions. Canadian government is following such a policy.
Counter-Culture
It is a subculture, which is in active opposition to the dominant culture. Cultural patterns that strongly
oppose widely accepted patterns within a society. Example could be of hippies, and drug users.
Cultural change
Cultural change is the process of alteration of culture over time. Any difference in a particular pattern
between two points in time may be called cultural change. This may be a change in the family pattern,
which is changing from ‘joint family system’ to a ‘nuclear familysystem’ in Pakistani society.
Cultural Lag
All parts (elements) of culture do not change at the same rate; some of them change faster than the other.
For example material culture may change faster than the non-material culture. We often see it is difficult to
change the habits quickly.
The different rate of change in the two integrated elements of culture can result in one element lagging
behind the other. William F. Ogburn called this gap between the two parts ofculture as ‘cultural lag’. Such
a cultural lag usually disrupts the system. For example we see so many automobiles on the road.There is
an increase in their speed as well. There is a sharp increase in mobility. Let us look at another related
aspect; these automobiles need a similar change in the quality of roads, which has not changed accordingly
or you can say that it has lagged behind. Resultantly there is a lot of disruption leading to traffic jams,
accidents, and pollution. You can also look at the ‘traffic sense’ among the public, be they the drivers, the
passengers, the cyclists, or the pedestrians. This lag between the increase in automobiles and the inculcation
of traffic sense in public also creates disruption in the system.
social living. What ought to be.
Examples of values: Equal opportunity, Achievement or success, Material comfort, Activity and work.
Science, Freedom, Physical fitness, Health, Punctuality. Wealth, Education, Competition and Merit.
Honesty, Dignity of labor, Patriotism. Justice and Democracy. Environmental protection, Charity and
Development. Sometimes there could be inconsistency in the values which can lead to conflict.
Beliefs: Specific statements that people hold to be true. Values are broad principles that underlie beliefs.
Values are abstract standard of goodness, while beliefs are particular matters that individuals consider to be
true or false.
Norms:Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behavior of its members. These are the
shared expectations of the people that govern their behavior.
Proscriptive norms: Mandating what we should not do. Forbidding from certain actions.
Prescriptive norms: What we should do.
Mores and Folkways:W. G. Sumner gave these concepts.
Mores(MORE-ays): Society’s standards of proper moral conduct. Such standards have been considered as essential to maintaining a way of life. These are the notions of right or wrong developed by society.
Violation of mores brings a strong reaction from others.
Folkways: Society’s customs for routine, casual interaction. These are of less moral significance. Examples
can be: proper dress, appropriate greetings, and commoncourtesy. People usually ignore the violation of
folkways.
“Ideal” culture and “Real” Culture
Ideal culture: Social patterns that are mandated by culturalvalues and norms. The ideal values and norms,
which are prevalent in the society.
Real culture: Actual social patterns those only approximate cultural expectations. The norms and value that
people actually follow. It can also be how many people follow these cultural patterns. Or how much a
person observes a cultural pattern. Since this can be explained in numbers therefore it may also be called a
statistical norm.
Material and Non-Material Culture
Tangible and intangible culture as explained earlier.
Cultural Diversity
There are many ways of life; hence there are differences in culture. In one society there could be
differences in patterns of marriage and family, patterns of education, patterns of worship, and patterns of
earning a living. One finds cultural difference withinthe province and across the provinces in Pakistan.
Countries like Canada, which are inhabited by immigrants, display a big cultural diversity. People have
migrated from all over the globe to Canada and brought cultural differences with them and in many cases
are trying to continue with them.
Culture by social class
Cultural diversity can involve social class. In everyday life, we usually use the term “culture” to mean art
forms such as classical literature, music, dance, and painting. We describe people who regularly go to the
theater as “cultured,” because we think they appreciate the “finer things in life.” We speak less generously
of ordinary people, assuming that everyday culture is somehow less worthy. Such judgments imply that
many cultural patterns are readily accessible to only some members of society. This is how particular
cultural patterns are associated with certain classes. We can further stretch the argument to other
components of culture for finding variations in different classes.
People often divide society in different social classes and find that each class represents differences in their
norms, values, beliefs, attitudes, and thinking. These norms, values, and attitudes may relate to the
institutions of marriage and family, religion, education, earning a living, ortheir political behavior, one could
find the differences. In this perspective culture is often divided into as:
High culture: Cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite.
Popular culture: Cultural patterns those are widespread among a society’s population.
Culture of poverty: Cultural patterns shared by the poor.
Sub-Culture
Cultural patterns that set apart some segments of a society’s population. Cluster of patterns which both are
related to the general culture of the society yet distinguishable from it. The example could be: student subculture, business sub-culture.
Multiculturalism
A policy followed by some governments whereby they recognize cultural diversity in the society and
promote the equality of all cultural traditions. Canadian government is following such a policy.
Counter-Culture
It is a subculture, which is in active opposition to the dominant culture. Cultural patterns that strongly
oppose widely accepted patterns within a society. Example could be of hippies, and drug users.
Cultural change
Cultural change is the process of alteration of culture over time. Any difference in a particular pattern
between two points in time may be called cultural change. This may be a change in the family pattern,
which is changing from ‘joint family system’ to a ‘nuclear familysystem’ in Pakistani society.
Cultural Lag
All parts (elements) of culture do not change at the same rate; some of them change faster than the other.
For example material culture may change faster than the non-material culture. We often see it is difficult to
change the habits quickly.
The different rate of change in the two integrated elements of culture can result in one element lagging
behind the other. William F. Ogburn called this gap between the two parts ofculture as ‘cultural lag’. Such
a cultural lag usually disrupts the system. For example we see so many automobiles on the road.There is
an increase in their speed as well. There is a sharp increase in mobility. Let us look at another related
aspect; these automobiles need a similar change in the quality of roads, which has not changed accordingly
or you can say that it has lagged behind. Resultantly there is a lot of disruption leading to traffic jams,
accidents, and pollution. You can also look at the ‘traffic sense’ among the public, be they the drivers, the
passengers, the cyclists, or the pedestrians. This lag between the increase in automobiles and the inculcation
of traffic sense in public also creates disruption in the system.
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