Introduction

 People are social beings or social creatures

 From time past to present, ppl have grped together into societies in order to survive
 By living together, they form common habits and behaviours from preferred methods of child rearing to techniques of food
collection
 E.g at Lavimisa, ppl shop once a month during mnth end at Matata complex as the largest mall and in Mbabane ppl shop daily,
picking up what they need frm different sipermarkets.
How would a person from Lavimisa perceive the shopping behaviours of ppl from Mbabane which they take for granted and vise
versa?
 Almost every human behaviour from marriage, to shopping to expression of feelings is learned.
E.G in most parts of the world, marriage is a matter of choice between two ppl based on mutual feelings of love
In some parts of the world, marriage is arranged through an intricate process of arrangements and interviews bewtween entire
families
To some, the marriage of other parts of the world mY seem strange or even wrong
 In other words, the way ppl view marriage depends on what they have been taught.
 Pple want to live theor lives knowing that their behaviour will not be disrupted or challenged
 Even a simple exercise of commuting to and from work evidences a great deal of cultural propriety
 Many behaviours will be same in diff locations but also significant differences also arise between cultures
E.g. Communitng: incl expectations about personal space where squeezing in trans is wither frowned upon by commutors or a
 What is culture?
⮚ A society’s entire way of life
⮚ They share beliefs and practices-their ways of thinking, doing and the material objects that form a ppl’s way of life
⮚ Culture is the ways of acting and the material objects that together form a people’s way of life-material culture
⮚ Culture includes what we think, how we act and what we own and shapes what we think and feel- elements that we
describe as “human nature”
⮚ It is a link to the past and a guide to the future
onmaterial culture –the ideas, attitudes and beliefs created by members of a society e.g appropriateness of wearing
ertain attires in certain social environments, teaching methods, educational standards etc
Material culture- physical things that are created by members of a society e.g. clothing, hairstyles, passports, watches,
chool building
⮚ Given extent of cultural differences and how travelers feel uneasy when they encounter a new and unfamiliar culture,
people tend to view their way of life as ‘natural’
⮚ Culture shock- uneasiness or personal disorientation when experiencing an unfamiliar way of life/ disorientation or
frustration when confronted with differences of a new culture
⮚ In 2 ways-may be experienced or may be inflicted on others by acting in ways that offend them
ulture, Nation and Society
⮚ Culture-shared way of live. Nation-political entity, a territory with designated boarders. Society-organized interaction of
people in a defined area such as a nation and who share a culture or a network of social relationships
Most nations are multicultural-their ppl follow various ways of life that blend and sometimes clash
 Process of social learning
• Learning /social Learning theories –beahaviourist view of behavior and emphasizes on
observable behaviour
- pple’s current behavior is determined by prior experience
Seeks causes of behavior in the past learning history of indiv
-behavior is learnt and it becomes a habit -in situations ppl behave in certain habitual ways e.g.
our response to traffic lights
Mechanisms by which learning occurs:
Association- linking stimuli or variables I the social environment. we learn emotions- word
doctor arouse anxiety
Reinforcement- learning behavior based on rewards
Observation- by watching others
Modelling- by imitating and copying others
 Cultural universals
 Cultures or traits that are globally common to all societies e.g very human society has a
family but how it is defined and how it functions vary.
 Music is another cultural universal in that it has the ability to evoke the universal human
emotions of fear, happiness, sadness, anger, anxiety,
 Others are language, person’ names, jokes (humour) a universal way to release tension
 Murdock found out that cultural universals revolve around basic human survival such as
finding food, clothing shelter and also on human experiences such as birth and death, illness
and healing
Elements of Culture
1) Symbols
Humans use senses to experience the world but we also use meanings
Symbols convey recognizable meanings about the social world
We transform elements of the world into symbols and we create and manipulate
these symbols-anything that carries a particular meaning that is recognized by
people who share a culture
e.g. meaning of a wink- interest, understanding or insult, police officer’s badge as a
symbols of authority and law enforcement, pink ribbon for cancer awareness
• Societies create new symbols all the time e.g. ‘cyber symbols-computers
• We tend to take symbols for granted but are aware of their significance when
someone uses them in an unconventional way
2. Language
• Language is key to the world of culture
• It is a system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another
• Humans have created many alphabets to express the hundreds of languages that we speak
• Language does not only allows communication but also is key to cultural transmission- process by which
culture is passed on from one generation to the next
• Language is constantly evolving as societies create new ideas
• In addition to spoken language, there is non- verbal communication e.g. visible channel-Distance,
gestures, eye contact and facial expressions
-paralinguistic channel: Variation in speech other than the actual verbal content: pitch, amplitude, rate,
voice quality, contour of speech
3. Values and Beliefs
• Values-Culturally defined standards that people use to decide what is desirable, good and beautiful and
that serve as broad guidelines for social living
• Values are used by people who share a culture to make choices about how to live
• Values are broad principles that support beliefs-specific thoughts or ideas that people hold to be true
e.g. value- equal opportunities for all. Belief- believe that qualified women also to occupy positions of power
• Some cultural values may be in conflict with one another –equality of opportunity yet ppl in that same
culture looking down on one another
• Like culture, values also change over time and vary with diff societies e.g. low income countries tend to value
survival-great emphasis on safety and econ security. Also value the past and importance of family and religious
beliefs
• High income countries develop cultures that value individualism and self expression. Focus on personal
happiness
• Values suggest how ppl shd behave but they do not accurately reflect how pp, actually behave. Ideal culture- the
stds society wd like to embrace and live up to e.g. faithfulness in marriage
• Real culture-the way society actually is, based on what exists and occurs e.g people are not faithful- a lot of
extra-marital relationships.
• Societies strive to put values into action through punishment, rewards and sanctions
• Sanctions are a form of social control
4. Norms
-Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behaviour of its members
-people respond to each other with sanctions-rewards or punishments that encourage conformity to cultural norms
Mores and Folkways-a system of social control (regulate behaviour) and basic rules of everyday life
Mores-norms that embody the moral views and principles of a grp and ppl who violate mores are seen as shameful
-are widely observed and have great moral significance e.g. no sexual relations btn adults and children., murder
immoral and punishable by law. Mores distinguish btn right and wrong
Folkways-more casual and do not attract severe sanctions-distinguish btn right and rude e.g. no tie in formal
• Formal norms-
Norms cont.. established and written rules e.g. laws, manuals, exam requirements, no smoking
signs, no dogs signs, designated parking
• Non formal norms- widely conformed to but not written anywhere e.g. kiss your aunt, use right
hand to receive,
Mechanisms of learning
• Association- we learn emotions- word doctor arouse anxiety
• Reinforcement- learning behavior based on rewards
• Observation- by watching others
• Modelling- by imitating and copying others

• Material culture and technology

- Other than values and norms, every culture includes a wide range of physical human creations
called artifacts e.g. Indian dress/ attire and these are material culture
- A society’s artifacts reflects underlying cultural values
- Material culture also reflects a society’s technology or the knowledge that people use to make a
way of life in their surroundings
- We tend to judge cultures with simpler technology as less advanced than our own.
Cultural diversity
• Involves not only immigration but also social class.
• In everyday talk we use the term culture to refer to classical literature, music, dance and
paintings
• High culture- cultural patterns that distinguish a society’s elite e.g. opera music, ballet,
architecture, golf, piano
• Popular culture- cultural patterns that are widespread among a society’s population e.g tv
series,
• Subculture- a small cultural grp within another culture.
Or cultural patterns that set apart some segment of a society’s population e.g. bikers, choristers
gothic, rastafarian etc
-subcultures involve not just difference but also hierarchy.
-What we view as mainstream or dominant culture is cultural patterns associated and favoured
by powerful segments of the population and we view the lives of the disadvantaged as
‘subculture’
Are cultural patterns of the rich and famous more subculture than those of the disadvantaged?
• Multiculturalism- An attempt by sociologists to level the ground pertaining to how subculture
• Counterculture-cultural patterns that strongly oppose those widely accepted culture in society
• Eurocentrism- dominance of European cultural patterns
• Afrocentrism- emphasizing and promoting African and cultural patterns.
-describing the values and norms of a cultural group that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the
day e.g. green movement, feminist group
Cultural change
Cultural diffusion – spread of material and non material culture
Cultural integration- close relationship among various elements of a cultural system
Cultural lag- the fact that some cultural elements change more quickly thn others, disrupting the cultural system
e.g. fertility issues-surrogacy and sperm donation vs traditional ideas of motherhood and fatherhood, marriage
vs divorce
Causes of cultural change
a) Invention- process of creating new cultural elements
b) Discovery- recognizing and understanding more fully something already in existence
c) Diffusion- Spread of cultural traits from one society to another
Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism
• Ethnocentrism- the practice of judging another culture by the standards/preconceptions of one’s own culture?
• Xenocentrism- the opposite of ethnocentrism. Belief that other ppl’s culture is superior than yours
• Cultural relativism-the practice of judging a culture by its own standards- openness to unfamiliar values and norms
and ability to put aside stds that we have known all our lives
• Cultural imperialism- deliberate imposition of one’s own cultural values on another culture
Theoretical Analysis and Culture
a)Structural Functionalists- Culture operates to meet human needs, cultural values direct our lives, gives meaning to
what we do and bind ppl together
b)Social conflict analysis-Culture is shaped by a society’s system of economic production.
-ties our cultural values of competitiveness and material success to the capitalist economy which serves the interests of
the worthy elite and how the strains of inequality erupt into movements of social change
c) Sociobiology approach-looks at evolution and culture. Sociobiology is a theoretical approach that explores how human
biology affects how we create culture
- Theory argues that social differences are actually rooted in biological differences
- It is an application of evolutionary theory to social behaviour and it is modelled after Charles Darwin’s theory of
evolution
- Argues that some behaviours are inherited and can be affected by natural selection
- Certain gene combinations are thought to influence particular behavioural traits from generation to generation
Sociobiology and culture
• Proposed by Charles Darwin (1859)- postulated that living organisms change over
long periods of time as a result of natural selection.
-Genes carry traits from generation to another
-Random variation in genes allows some organisms to survive better than others
and pas advantageous genes to their offspring
- A species adapts to its environment and dominant traits emerge as the ‘nature’
of the organism
e.g. men and promiscuity is a cultural pattern that hs a an underlying ‘biologic’

• Culture as constraint- culture can limit the choices we make

• Culture as freedom- as cultural creatures, we have the capacity to reshape our
world to meet our needs and pursue our dreams