Culture
What Is Culture?
- Differentiate between culture and society
- Explain material versus nonmaterial culture
- Discuss the concept of cultural universalism as it relates to society
- Compare and contrast ethnocentrism and xenocentrism
Elements of Culture
- Understand how values and beliefs differ from norms
- Explain the significance of symbols and language to a culture
- Explain the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
- Discuss the role of social control within culture
Pop Culture, Subculture, and Cultural Change
- Discuss the roles of both high culture and pop culture within society
- Differentiate between subculture and counterculture
- Explain the role of innovation, invention, and discovery in culture
- Understand the role of cultural lag and globalization in cultural change
Theoretical Perspectives on Culture
- Discuss the major theoretical approaches to cultural interpretation
- Structural Functionalism
- Symbolic Interactionism
- Social Conflict/Critical Theory
The Social Construction of the Self
- The modern “self” as historical product of Christianity and the Enlightenment
- Cross-cultural variation in selves
- Selves as constructed out of situations
- Rational choice – as socially constructed
