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Culture and Social
Structure
Chapter 2
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Questions We Will
Explore
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What is culture? What are subcultures?
What are structural conditions?
Discuss the functional and conflict
views for understanding how structural
conditions affect intergroup relations.
What is the relationship between
ethnicity and social class?
What is meant by the culture of
poverty? What criticisms exist about
this thinking?
Discuss the functional and conflict
perspectives of ethnic stratification.
Discuss the major theories of minority
integration.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
Culture and Cultural
Change
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Culture (the values, attitudes,
customs, beliefs, and habits shared
by members of a society) provides
the definitions by which members of
a society perceive the world about
them.
Language and other forms of
symbolic interaction provide the
means through which this
knowledge is perceived and
transmitted.
A society, unless it is isolated from
the rest of the world, undergoes
change through cultural contact and
the diffusion of ideas, inventions,
and practices (i.e.: cultural
change).
Copyright
© Allyn & Bacon 2003
Culture and Cultural
Change (cont’d)
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Within large societies there are
subcultures. A subculture is a group
that shares in the overall culture of a
society while retaining its own
distinctive traditions and lifestyle.
Subcultures may gradually be
assimilated (convergent subcultures),
or they may remain distinct
(persistent subcultures).
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
Structural Conditions
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Structural conditions - large scale
factors affecting society, such as
industrialization, economic vitality,
and stratification which influence
people’s perceptions of the world.
Note: social stratification is the
hierarchy within a society based
upon the unequal distribution of
resources, power, or prestige.
Distribution of power resources and
compatibility with the existing
social structure greatly influence
dominant-minority relations.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
Structural Conditions
(cont’d)
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The functionalist, conflict, and
interactionist theories provide bases
for understanding how structural
conditions affect intergroup
relations.
Functionalists explain how
economic, technological and other
conditions affect intergroup
relations.
Conflict theorists emphasize the
conscious, purposeful actions of
dominant groups towards
maintaining inequality.
Interactionists concentrate on
perceptions of cultural differences
(instead of structural conditions) as
they affect intergroup relations.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
Relationship between
Ethnicity and Social
Class
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The interplay between the variables
of ethnicity and social class is
important for understanding how
some problems and conflicts arise.
A feature interpreted as an attribute
of ethnicity may, in fact, be a
broader aspect of social class.
Because many attitudes and values
are situational responses to
socioeconomic status, a change in
status or opportunities will bring
about a change in those attitudes and
values regardless of one’s ethnicity.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
Culture of Poverty:
Viewpoint and Criticisms
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Culture of Poverty - the
disorganization and pathology of
lower-class culture is selfperpetuating through cultural
transmission.
Criticisms ( Ryan and Valentine):
intergenerational poverty results
from discrimination, structural
conditions, or stratification rigidity.
Fatalism, apathy, low aspiration, and
other similar orientations found in
lower-class culture are situational
responses within each generation,
and not the result of cultural
deficiencies transmitted from parents
to children.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
Culture of Poverty
(continued)
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Other critics (Liebow, Rodman, and
Della Fave) of the culture of
poverty viewpoint argue that all
people would desire the same things
and cherish the same values if they
were in an economic position to do
so. Because they are not, they adopt
an alternative set of values in order
to survive.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
Ethnic
Stratification
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Ethnic stratification - the
structured inequality of different
groups with different access to
social rewards as a result of their
status in the social hierarchy. It is
common in a diverse society.
Functionalists: ethnocentrism of
those in the societal mainstream
leads to discrimination to cause
stratification along racial and ethnic
lines.
Conflict analysts: stress the
subordination of minorities by the
dominant group because that group
benefits from such ethnic
stratification. Two conflict theories
of ethnic stratification are the
power-differential theory and the
internal-colonialism theory.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
The Power-Differential
Theory
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Neither conflict nor assimilation is
inevitable.
The relative power of indigenous
and migrant groups determines
events. If the migrant group is
superordinate, early conflict and
colonization will occur. If the
indigenous group is superordinate,
the results will be occasional labor
and racial strife, legislative
restrictions, and pressures on the
minority to assimilate.
In a paternalistic society, the
dominant group has almost absolute
power to control societal order as it
wishes.
A competitive society is somewhat
vulnerable to political pressures and
economic boycotts.
Copyright © Allyn &
Bacon 2003
The Internal-Colonialism
Theory
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America’s treatment of its black
population resembles past European
subjugation and exploitation of nonWestern peoples.
Black ghettos are more nearly
permanent than immigrant ghettos.
Black ghettos are controlled
economically, politically, and
administratively from the outside.
Continual exploitation produces
conflict and confrontation.
Mexican American and Native
Americans may also fit this model.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
3 Theories of Minority
Integration
Assimilation (majority
conformity) theory the functioning within a society of
racial or ethnic minority-group
members who lack any marked
cultural, social or personal
differences from the people of the
majority group.
Physical or racial differences may
persist, but they do not serve as the
basis for group prejudice or
discrimination.
In effect, members of the minority
group no longer appear to be
strangers because they abandoned
their own cultural traditions, and
successfully imitated the dominant
group.
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon
2003
Minority Integration
Theories (continued)
The amalgamation (melting pot)
theory all the diverse peoples blend their
biological and cultural differences
into an altogether
new breed—
the American.
 The accommodation (pluralistic)
theory  minorities can maintain their
distinctive subcultures and
simultaneously interact with relative
equality in the larger society. This
combination of diversity and
togetherness is possible to varying
degrees because the people agree on
certain basic values.
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2003
Summ
ary
Culture provides the definitions
by which members of a society
perceive the world about them.
 Structural conditions, also,
influence people’s perceptions
of the world.
 The interplay between ethnicity
and social class is important for
understanding how some
problems and conflicts arise.
 Ethnic stratification is common
in a diverse society.
 There are three theories of
minority integration.
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Copyright © Allyn & Bacon
2003