Sociology A Level- Culture.

What is culture?

Sociology is the study of what it means for the individual to belong to a society, or maybe what society 'does', therefore it makes sense to pay a lot of attention to the idea of culture as the effect of the life of the individual in their social group.

There is no single answer provided by sociologists to the question of the definition of culture, but it might be helpful to consider some of the following definitions: 1) A shared system of meanings and symbols amongst a group of people. 2) Something which goes beyond instinct in shaping human behaviour. 3) Common languages, traditions and history. 4) Value systems which are passed down through generations via learning and socialisation within society. 5) The way in which the society we belong to influences our view of ourselves and our behaviour. 6) The way we differentiate between different societies and account for the plurality of human ways of life. 7) The feature of human social groups which differentiate us from other animals.

These ideas are all interconnected and when we consider them together, we might get a good idea of what sociologists mean when they talk about culture.

1) A shared system of meanings and symbols amongst a group of people. Consider the following cultural symbols: the Union Flag, a hand doing the `peace` sign, a crucifix. What do they mean to you/the society to which you belong?

2) Something which goes beyond instinct in shaping human behaviour. Consider the difference between human action and the actions of animals. The human action is governed by self-conscious choice, whereas the instincts of animals are not subject to such a choice. A bird will instinctively look after its young whereas a human mother might be subject to the process of choosing whether to do so and might choose not to. Further, there are cases where children have not benefited from the appropriate psychological care as they are maturing. Some of these cases are quite disturbing and demonstrate that instinct is not what shapes human behaviour because these children have grown up without the ability to do even basic things. It can be argued that this shows us that instinct is not responsible for our basic actions such as walking because without these being taught to us, evidence shows that we are not capable of doing it.

3) Common languages, traditions and history. You might say that the things about your culture which make it your own are the history and traditions that you share with other members of your society, for example, celebrating Christmas or remembering the fallen soldiers on Remembrance Sunday. We might also say that language barriers constitute cultural barriers. If you were in a group of people and they were all talking in a language you didn't understand, you would feel unable to access the shared meanings, interests and issues that were important to these people. Even if one of them was able to translate for you, you might still feel as though you weren't able to access the conversation and thus share in the culture of these people.

4) Behaviours which are passed down through generations via learning and socialisation within society. Socialisation is a very important concept in sociology. It deals with how a child is taught to behave and think in a way that means they are able to belong to society. Think about the above example of the mother who does not want to care for her child. If we recognise that this happens and therefore the mother's impulse to rear her children cannot be the simple product of instinct, we come across the problem of how we might account for behaviours such as this which are important to the wellbeing of society. Sociologists might point to the notion of socialisation and say that people are socialised to behave in certain acceptable ways and if this socialisation process is successful, then they will function in a socially desirable way e.g. want to care for their children, however if this process is not successful, then they might fail to do what society expects of them.

5) The way in which the society we belong to influences our view of ourselves and our behaviour. When we consider our conception of ourselves, we might reflect on why we say we are hardworking, reliable, trustworthy, or alternatively why we might think of ourselves negatively. The reason that we think these things about ourselves is that the society we belong to has taught us what it believes to be important and worthy in an individual and we thus conceive of ourselves within these cultural categories. There are some societies, perhaps non-capitalist societies, where the focus is not on being a productive individual who contributes to the economy which might have less of a focus on these personal attributes. Thus, we can say that the way we conceive of ourselves is shaped by our culture.

6) The way we differentiate between different societies and account for the plurality of human ways of life. If we consider modern capitalist societies such as Britain, we might be struck by the contrast between them and other societies such as tribal societies. Sociologists might point to the idea of culture when considering the differences between these societies. Their shared meanings and values are different because the culture within which the members of society have been socialised is different.

7) The feature of human social groups which differentiate us from other animals. As outlined above, sociologists will see human society as differing from animal social groups in various ways. These differences can be understood in terms of the division between instinct and culture explored above in the example of a mother looking after her children and how this differs from parental care in the animal kingdom.

Points for thinking: -How might we understand cultural change with reference to the ideas about culture explored above? -Is the concept of instinct really a helpful one when looking at the difference between the behaviour of animals and humans? - Is it possible for someone to belong to more than one culture? - Who decides what the culture of a society is? Might those who get to define the culture of a society be in a position to silence the voices of vulnerable minorities? -What do the potential discoveries of culture among other great apes mean for the importance of the concept of culture when discussing human society?

Conceptions of Culture

mass culture, popular culture, subculture, folk culture, global culture, high and low culture.

Brief Overviews.

Mass Culture Might also be referred to as commercial culture. Culture 'created' for mass consumption. Appears in the industrialised capitalist society and is manufactured for profit. It might be seen as passive and inauthentic for these reasons. The masses who participate in this type of culture do not actively construct it; it is constructed for them by commercial organisations.

Popular Culture There are definitely lots of cross-overs between mass culture and popular culture. Popular culture refers to mainstream interests, ideas and forms of entertainment.

Subculture A small group of a larger whole that differentiates itself from the masses, for example, the LGBT community.

Folk Culture Practices, behaviours and interests that are seen as the authentic and perhaps traditional state of a group of people. These might be destroyed or damaged by the impingement of popular mass culture onto a population.

Global Culture Something which is shared by peoples around the world, for example, music and religion.

High Culture vs Low Culture High culture refers to interests and activities that are intellectually stimulating, such as philosophy or 'classic' literature. Low culture, on the other hand, is a derogatory term used to describe interests which are seen as less intrinsically valuable, such as reality TV or celebrity gossip. We might understand this with reference to folk culture as opposed to the less valuable phenomena of popular or mass culture.