Define culture in sociology

Figure 1.2 Sociologists learn about society while studying one-to-one and group interactions. (Credit: GlacierNPS/Flickr) Sociology is the scientific and systematic study of groups and group interactions, societies and social interactions, from small and personal groups to very large groups. A group of people who live in a defined geographic area, who interact with one another, and who share a common culture is what sociologists call a society. Sociologists study all aspects and levels of society. Sociologists working from the micro-level study small groups and individual interactions, while those using macro-level analysis look at trends among and between large groups and societies. For example, a micro-level study might look at the accepted rules of conversation in various groups such as among teenagers or business professionals. In contrast, a macro-level analysis might research the ways that language use has changed over time or in social media outlets. The term culture refers to the group’s shared practices, values, and beliefs. Culture encompasses a group’s way of life, from routine, everyday interactions to the most important parts of group members’ lives. It includes everything produced by a society, including all the social rules. Sociologists often study culture using the sociological imagination, which pioneer sociologist C. Wright Mills described as an awareness of the relationship between a person’s behavior and experience and the wider culture that sh...

• Introduction • General Overviews • Edited Volumes • Classic Statements • Contemporary Statements • Methodology in Cultural Analysis • The Culture-Structure Connection • Practice • Belief and Cognition • Discourse • Symbolism and Ritual • Categories and Boundaries • Production • Reception • Politics • Social Stratification • Social Networks • Organizations and Institutions Introduction Culture is the symbolic-expressive dimension of social life. In common usage, the term “culture” can mean the cultivation associated with “civilized” habits of mind, the creative products associated with the arts, or the entire way of life associated with a group. Among sociologists, “culture” just as often refers to the beliefs that people hold about reality, the norms that guide their behavior, the values that orient their moral commitments, or the symbols through which these beliefs, norms, and values are communicated. The sociological study of culture encompasses all these diverse meanings of “culture.” Amid this diversity, what unifies the sociology of culture are two core commitments: that the symbolic-expressive dimension of social life is worthy of examination, both for its own sake and because of its impact on other aspects of social life; and that culture can be studied using the methods and analytic tools of sociology. Within the discipline, the sociology of culture emerged as a bounded subfield during the 1980s. Prior to this period, sociological analyses of culture were found m...

• Sociology • Cultural Identity • Mass Culture Mass Culture Are we being manipulated through our consumption of mass culture? This was the major question of the sociologists of the Frankfurt School. They alerted society to the mass-produced and profit-driven low culture that has replaced colourful folk culture in the age of industrialisation. Their theories and sociological criticism were part of mass culture theory that we will discuss below.We will start… Mass Culture • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Are we being manipulated through our consumption of mass culture? This was the major question of the sociologists of the Frankfurt School. They alerted society to the mass-produced and profit-driven low culture that has replaced colourful folk culture in the age of mass culture theory that we will discuss below. • We will start by looking at the history and definition of mass culture. • Then we will consider the features of mass culture...

Whereas traditional societies can be characterized by a high consistency of cultural traits and customs, modern societies are often a conglomeration of different, often competing, cultures and subcultures. In such a situation of diversity, a dominant culture is one whose values, language, and ways of behaving are imposed on a subordinate culture or cultures through economic or political power. This may be achieved through legal or political suppression of other sets of values and patterns of behaviour, or by monopolizing the media of communication.

Learning Outcomes • Compare material versus nonmaterial culture • Describe cultural values and beliefs Humans are social creatures. Since the dawn of Homo sapiens nearly 250,000 years ago, people have grouped together into communities in order to survive. Living together, people form common habits and behaviors—from specific methods of childrearing to preferred techniques for obtaining food. In modern-day Paris, many people shop daily at outdoor markets to pick up what they need for their evening meal, buying cheese, meat, and vegetables from different specialty stalls. In the United States, the majority of people shop once a week at supermarkets, filling large carts to the brim. How would a Parisian perceive U.S. shopping behaviors that suburban Americans take for granted? Note that in the above comparison we are looking at cultural differences on display in two distinct places, suburban America and urban France, even though we are examining a behavior that people in both places are engaged in. It’s important to note that geographical place is an important factor in culture—beliefs and practices, and society—the social structures and organization of individuals and groups. Almost every human behavior, from shopping to marriage to expressions of feelings, is learned. In the United States, people tend to view marriage as a choice between two people, based on mutual feelings of love. In other nations and in other times, marriages have been arranged through an intricate proce...

In the early 20th century, American sociologists Robert E. Park, Ernest Burgess, and Canadian sociologist Roderick Duncan McKenzie were members of the Chicago School of sociology, scholars in the 1920s and 1930s who studied urban cultures in Chicago and applied what they learned elsewhere. In their now-classic work "The City," published in 1925, they studied cultural diffusion from the standpoint of social psychology, which meant they focused on the motivations and social mechanisms that allow diffusion to occur. • The society or social group that borrows elements from another will alter or adapt those elements to fit within their own culture. • Typically, it is only elements of a foreign culture that fit into the already-existing belief system of the host culture that will be borrowed. • Those cultural elements that do not fit within the host culture's existing belief system will be rejected by members of the social group. • Cultural elements will only be accepted within the host culture if they are useful within it. • Social groups that borrow cultural elements are more likely to borrow again in the future. The Diffusion of Innovations Some sociologists have paid particular attention to how the diffusion of innovations within a social system or social organization occurs, as opposed to cultural diffusion across different groups. In 1962, sociologist and communication theorist Everett Rogers wrote a book titled "Diffusion of Innovations," which laid the theoretical ground...