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Tentative Definitions of Culture
Culture
refers to the cumulative deposit of
knowledge, experience, beliefs, values,
attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion,
notions of time, roles, spatial relations,
concepts of the universe, and material
objects and possessions acquired by a
group of people in the course of
generations through individual and group
striving.
Culture
is a way of life of a group of people--the
behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols
that they accept, generally without
thinking about them, and that are
passed along by communication and
imitation from one generation to the
next.
Culture
is symbolic communication. Some of
its symbols include a group's skills,
knowledge, attitudes, values, and
motives. The meanings of the
symbols
are
learned
and
deliberately perpetuated in a society
through its institutions.
Culture consists of patterns, explicit and
implicit, of and for behavior acquired and
transmitted by symbols, constituting the
distinctive achievement of human groups,
including their embodiments in artifacts; the
essential core of culture consists of
traditional ideas and especially their
attached values; culture systems may, on the
one hand, be considered as products of
action, on the other hand, as conditioning
influences upon further action.
Culture
in its broadest sense is cultivated
behavior; that is the totality of a
person's learned, accumulated
experience which is socially
transmitted, or more briefly,
behavior through social learning.
Culture is
a collective programming of the mind
that distinguishes the members of one
group or category of people from
another.
Conceptual clarification questions
Probing assumptions
Probing rationale, reasons and evidence
Questioning viewpoints and perspectives
Probe implications and consequences
Questions about the question
MANIFESTATIONS OF CULTURE
Cultural
differences
manifest
themselves in different ways and
differing levels of depth. Symbols
represent the most superficial and
values the deepest manifestations of
culture, with heroes and rituals in
between.
Symbols, heroes, and rituals are the
tangible or visual aspects of the
practices of a culture.
The true cultural meaning of the
practices is intangible; this is revealed
only when the practices are interpreted
by the insiders.
Symbols
are words, gestures, pictures, or objects that
carry a particular meaning which is only
recognized by those who share a particular
culture.
New symbols easily develop,
old ones disappear.
Symbols from one particular group are regularly
copied by others.
This is why symbols represent the outermost
layer of a culture.
Heroes
are persons, past or present, real or
fictitious, who possess characteristics
that are highly prized in a culture. They
also serve as models for behavior.
Rituals
are collective activities, sometimes
superfluous in reaching desired objectives,
but are considered as socially essential.
They are therefore carried out most of the
times for their own sake (ways of greetings,
paying respect to others, religious and
social ceremonies, etc.).
values
The core of a culture is formed by values. They
are broad tendencies for preferences of certain
state of affairs to others (good-evil, right-wrong,
natural-unnatural).
Many
values
remain
unconscious to those who hold them. Therefore
they often cannot be discussed, nor can they be
directly observed by others. Values can only be
inferred from the way people act under different
circumstances.
Althusser’s re-consideration of the Marxist line of thought would fit more for my identity
approach since it defines ideology as
a system of representations (images, myths, ideas, or
concepts) endowed with a specific historical context
and functioning within a given society. It is related to
the culture (in its sociological rather that humanistic
sense), of that society, and to the sum of its prejudices
and preconceptions. In most cases 'ideology' is
transmitted on a preconscious level, since it is usually
taken for granted, considered as 'natural', hence
neither repressed (unconscious) nor intentionally
propounded (conscious). 21 (Emphasis mine)
Ideology
According to Webster's Tenth New Collegiate
Dictionary, "ideology" is "visionary theorizing."
Alternatively, it is "a systematic body of concepts
especially about human life or culture," or "a manner
or the content of thinking characteristic of an
individual, group, or culture." Malcolm Hamilton, in his
article "The Elements of the Concept of Ideology,"
offers a more scholarly formulation, writing that
ideology is "a system of collectively held normative and
reputedly factual ideas and beliefs and attitudes
advocating and/or justifying a particular pattern of
political and/or economic relationships, arrangements,
and conduct."
The historian Michael Hunt, meanwhile, views
ideology in more specific terms as performing a
particular function: it is
"an interrelated set of convictions or
assumptions that reduces the complexities of a
particular slice of reality to easily comprehensible
terms and suggests appropriate ways of dealing
with that reality."
These are just a few examples of scholars' many
efforts to define ideology.
Socialization
Process by which individuals acquire the
knowledge, language, social skills, and value to
conform to the norms and roles required for
integration into a group or community. It is a
combination of both self-imposed (because the
individual wants to conform) and externallyimposed rules, and the expectations of the
others.
Types
Primary socialization
occurs when a child learns the attitudes, values and actions appropriate to
individuals as members of a particular culture. For example if a child saw
his/her mother expressing a discriminatory opinion about a minority group,
then that child may think this behavior is acceptable and could continue to
have this opinion about minority groups.
Secondary socialization
refers to the process of learning what is appropriate behavior as a member of
a smaller group within the larger society. It is usually associated with
teenagers and adults, and involves smaller changes than those occurring in
primary socialization. eg. entering a new profession, relocating to a new
environment or society.
Resocialization
Resocialization refers to the process of discarding former
behavior patterns and reflexes accepting new ones as
part of a transition in one's life. This occurs throughout
the human life cycle (Schaefer & Lamm, 1992: 113).
Resocialization can be an intense experience, with the
individual experiencing a sharp break with their past,
and needing to learn and be exposed to radically
different norms and values. An example might be the
experience of a young man or woman leaving home to
join the military, or a religious convert internalizing the
beliefs and rituals of a new faith.