Culture

Culture includes the shared belief systems, rituals, and conversational styles of small groups, as well as societally pervasive ways of seeing that are passed from generation to generation. Culture is anything created by the mind, hand, or mouth of humans.

Learning Goals:

1. Understand how sociologists think about culture. This involves becoming aware of the taken-for-granted nature of culture, and recognizing that some of what people consider "normal" may seem very strange to someone else who does not share their culture.
2. Understand the concepts of ethnocentrism, cubcultures, countercultures, and something about global culture.
3. Understand the concepts of norms, values, and the distinction between "high" culture and everyday life.
4. Be able to identify norms and values when they are observed in daily life or the media.
5. Understand that the concept of the modern "self" and the value of individualism are socially situated in a particular time and place.
6. Become familiar with the sociological concepts of culture as a script and a "toolbox" and the idea of cultural "schemas," or sets of ideas.

Outline:

There is an outline for this unit, course narrative, and an Instructor's Manual (IM) for it.