LESSON 2.

DEFINING CULTURE

PERSFECTIVE ON CULTURE
ACTIVITY NO.1 MY PREDICTION

Culture is a people’s way of life. This classic definition appears generic, yet prefigures both the
processes and structures that account not only for the development of such a way of life, but also for the
inherent systems that lend it its self-perpetuating nature.

According to British literary scholar, Raymond Williams, the first thing that one has to acknowledge in
defining culture is that culture is ordinary. This means that all societies have a definite way of life, a
common way of doing and understanding things.

Culture is a complex whole since it is a collection of knowledge, experiences, belief, values, attitudes,
meanings and language and material objects and possessions which is acquired by people in the course
of generation through individual and group struggle. It is a system of knowledge shared by a large group of
people.

Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by
symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment, in artifacts,
ideas and their attached values.

Sociological Perspective about Culture

1. FUNCTIONALIST THEORY
This viewpoint believe that culture meets human needs, from basic needs for food and shelter to the
higher needs for psychological security, social harmony and spiritual fulfillment. Culture ensures social
order and stability because it helps explain perplexing cultural practices. This theory believe that culture
bind the people that cause peace, harmony and stability.
2. CONFLICT THEORY
This theory discusses that culture dominates the poor and powerless through manipulation and
support of the status qou of social inequality. It argues that culture generate enormous inequality through
giving benefits to some groups at the expense of others.

3. SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM
 Symbolic interactionism is a sociological perspective that is most concerned with the face-to-face
interactions between members of society. Integrationists see culture as being created and maintained by
the ways people interact and in how individuals interpret each other's actions.

Types of Culture

1. Material culture includes all the tangible and visible parts of culture which includes clothes, foods, and
even buildings. The concrete and tangible objects created and used by man to satisfy his varied needs
and wants.

2. Nonmaterial culture includes all the intangible parts of culture which consist of values, ideas, norms and
knowledge.

Elements of Culture

To understand culture, it is necessary to understand the different elements that compose it:
1. Symbol is anything that carries a particular meaning which is recognized by the member of society. It is
the basis and the very foundation of culture.

2.Language is a system of symbols that allows members of the society to communicate with one another.
It is the most important means for cultural transmission which is known as oral cultural tradition. And from
all of this, language can free human imagination.

3.Values shape our personality, our family, friends, school and religious group influence us on how to think
and act according to the approved principles.

4.Norms are rules that guided our behavior, this are the standards and prescriptions created by people
within the society. It is a social construct, providing us with what we should not do.

5. Social control is is more of punishment and reward, it could be formal or non-formal. Sanction lies in the
heart of a culture’s system.

Social control is the active or passive process of a group regulating itself according to its beliefs, principles,
and values. A major purpose of social control is to stop or prevent negative deviance, which is a break from
established laws and values that may be damaging to others. Just keep in mind that what is considered
normal, moral, valuable, ethical, or deviant varies from social group to social group.
Informal Control
When asked who are the most important people in your life, you may say your parents, siblings, or friends. And
when asked who are the people that have influenced you most in your life, again you may say your parents,
friends, or maybe even colleagues.

Family, friends, and colleagues are three types of people that exert informal social control, a type of social
control that stems from the approval or disapproval of people we associate with and consider important.

When we are growing up, it is our family that teaches us the foundations of what is 'normal' thought or behavior
and what our values should be. These behaviors and values may be particular to the family or they can be
particular to society in general.

Our family helps us develop and understand morals as well as the self or a conscience. This is the part of
ourselves that exhibits self-awareness, is able to feel guilt, exercise self-control, and a lot more. Our friends
and colleagues can do similar things. They can teach us important lessons, or they may exert peer pressure
that will cause us to behave in different ways.
Formal Control
While friends, family, and colleagues often exert subtle or informal forms of social control that we may even
choose to disregard, the same is harder to say for some types of formal social control. This refers to
organizations or systems that use strict and delineated rules, values, morals, and the like that we are
commonly told or compelled to obey.

Whereas informal social control involves people we see on a regular basis and sometimes on a whim, formal
social control involves people we sometimes never see at all (like elected officials) or, if we do, it's in a very
structured way.

Examples of formal social control include the government. The government uses laws and courts to exercise
social control. The government tries to protect those following the rules and capture and punish those who do
not.

Governmental social control goes beyond the legal system. Another example of this is healthcare. The
government tries to persuade many of us to go get our teeth cleaned on a regular basis or go for an annual
check-up. Why?

Types of norms

1. Mores –moral values-the vital norms to a society, the society’s code of ethics and moral standards
a. Positive mores/duty-the behavior that must be done because it is good (“thou shall behavior”)
b. Negative mores/taboo-the behavior that must not be done because it is bad (“thou shall not
behavior”)

2. Laws – formal rules or the formalized norms enacted by people with legitimate authority; have formal
sanctions

Sanctions is the system of reward and punishment to ensure norms are followed

3. Folkways –repetitive behavior/ the habitual ways of doing something without giving much thought do
not have particular moral and ethical significance

4. Rituals are the performance of ceremonial acts prescribed by tradition or by sacerdotal decree. Ritual
is a specific, observable mode of behavior exhibited by all known societies. It is thus possible to view ritual
as a way of defining or describing humans.

ACTIVITY NO.2 MODIFIED MATCHING TYPE

Direction: Column B consists of scrambled words. Form the correct answer and match them in the given
definition in Column

Colunm A
1. It is the most important means of cultural transmission.
2. It is a social construct, providing us with what we should not do.
3. It is the basis and the very foundation of culture.
4. It is the formalized norms enacted by people with legitimate authority
5. It consists of values, ideas, norms and knowledge.
6. It is the society’s code of ethics and moral standards.
7. It is a system of reward and punishment to ensure norms are followed.
8. It is the perspective that stresses the importance of culture as a human creation
9. It is a system of knowledge shared by a large group of people.
10. It is the visible part of culture.
 Column B
a. Material Culture
b. Laws
c. Symbol
d. Culture
e. Nonmaterial culture
f. Language
g. Mores
h. Sanctions
i. Norms
j. Symbolic interactionism

Aspects of Culture

Since culture is very complex, there are important aspects of culture that contribute to the development of
man’s social interaction.

1. Dynamic, flexible and adaptive

This means that culture change. The changes occur according to the current situation of the
environment and society. As culture changes continuously, it reestablishes itself to fit appropriately on the
situation.
2. Shared and contested
As we share culture with other, we are able to act in appropriate ways as well as predict how others
will act. Despite the shared culture, it does not mean that culture is homogenous. If culture is learned and
shared, it is also contested in different ways and situation.
3. Learned through socialization or enculturation
We do not inherit culture; it is not biological but learned through socialization or enculturation. We
learn, absorb and acquire culture from families, peers, institutions and media. Socialization is an ongoing
process of learning language, behaviors, customs values and others to acquire identity. Enculturation is
the process by which an individual adopts the behavioral patterns of culture in which the persons is
immersed. The agents of socialization are family, community, mass media and religion.
4. Patterned on social interactions
Culture as normative systems has the capacity to define and control human behaviors. Social
interactions can help us filter the parts of our culture that we learned so that we can define what suits us
and what does not.
5. Integrated and at times unstable
  For a society or group, cultures are not only shared as it is, it can be combine with the existing one,
remember that its transmission is largely depends on the willingness of people to give and receive it.
6. Transmitted through socialization
  Culture is inherently passed on through generations. Some cultures are also acquired through social
learning. It is by imitating the act of others and through communication and language.
7. Requires language and other forms of communication
Cultures are cannot be transmitted or learned without language and other forms of communication.
Language is considered as the most important part of culture. It serves as “the soul” of culture. Language
can be called as “the store house” of culture. It is the most important means of transmitting culture.
Language is a shared set of spoken or written symbols and rules used in meaningful ways.
 
 Cultural Heritage

What is Cultural Heritage

Cultural Heritage is an expression of the ways of living developed by a community and passed on from
generation to generation, including customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions and values.
Cultural Heritage is often expressed as either Intangible or Tangible Cultural Heritage (ICOMOS, 2002).

As part of human activity Cultural Heritage produces tangible representations of the value systems, beliefs,
traditions and lifestyles. As an essential part of culture as a whole, Cultural Heritage, contains these visible
and tangible traces form antiquity to the recent past.

Cultural Heritage is a wide concept. We prefer to concentrate on the similarities between the various heritage
sectors, instead of on their differences.

Cultural Heritage types

Cultural Heritage can be distinguished in: 

 Built Environment (Buildings, Townscapes, Archaeological remains)

 Natural Environment (Rural landscapes, Coasts and shorelines,  Agricultural heritage)
 Artefacts (Books & Documents, Objects, Pictures)

Driving force behind all definitions of Cultural Heritage is: 

       it is a human creation intended to inform (John Feather, 2006).

Tangible & Intangable Heritage

Having at one time referred exclusively to the monumental remains of cultures, cultural heritage as a concept
has gradually come to include new categories. Today, we find that heritage is not only manifested through
tangible forms such as artefacts, buildings or landscapes but also through intangible forms. Intangible
heritage includes voices, values, traditions, oral history. Popularly this is perceived through cuisine, clothing,
forms of shelter, traditional skills and technologies, religious ceremonies, performing arts, storytelling.
Today, we consider the tangible heritage inextricably bound up with the intangible heritage. In conservation
projects we aim to preserve both the tangible as well as the intangible heritage.
 Heritage Cycle

The Heritage Cycle diagram gives us an idea how we can make the past part of our future (Simon Thurley,
2005). In a clockwise direction the wedges and arrows read:

  By understanding (cultural heritage)

o     people value it 
 By valuing it
o     people want to care for it
 By caring for it
o     it will help people enjoy it
 From enjoying it
o     comes a thirst to understand 
 By understanding it………..etc

References:

ICOMOS, International Cultural Tourism Charter. Principles And Guidelines For Managing Tourism At
Places Of Cultural And Heritage Significance. ICOMOS International Cultural Tourism Committee. 2002.

John Feather, Managing the documentary heritage: issues fro the present and future. In: (Gorman, G.E. and
Sydney J. Shep [eds.]), Preservation management for libraries, archives and museums. London: Facet.
2006, pp. 1-18.

Simon Thurley, Into the future. Our stategy for 2005-2010. In: Conservation Bulletin [English Heritage],
2005 (49).

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) is the primary
transnational entity that manages and negotiates matters relating to human heritage. It defines cultural
heritage as follows:
Cultural heritage is not limited to material manifestations, such as monuments and objects that have
been preserved over time. This notion also encompasses living expressions and the traditions that
countless groups and communities worldwide have inherited from their ancestors and transmit to their
descendants, in most cases orally. (UNESCO, 2010)

This definition provides us with a two-part meaning of cultural heritage. One is the tangible heritage in the
form of structures, monuments, historical sites and other artifacts. The other one is the intangible heritage in
the form of literature, oral traditions, concepts and values. Tangible heritage could be divided into two
categories the movable and immovable. The difference in these two categories is the size of the heritage.
Movable heritage pieces are often removed from the sites where they were found and transferred to museums
for safekeeping and maintenance. Immovable tangible heritage pieces are left to the elements of nature which
makes them vulnerable to decay and corrosion. Due to the constant exposure of these objects to these
elements, conservation is more challenging.

conserve
preserve
CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Diversity is the state or condition of having or being composed of different elements or variety. It is
also a situation where people living together have different races, ethnicity and culture. It is the conclusion of
different types of people in a group or organization. There are two components of Cultural Diversity:

1. Cultural Relativism means that people came from different culture and because of this people practice,
speak, think different from each other. Example, in the Philippines abortion is a crime while in China because
of the two child policy, abortion is legal. This shows that cultural practices vary from society to another.

2. Ethnocentrism is an understanding that our world is closely knitted to our own particular way of life. It is the
belief that one’s society is the center of the world and this enhances morale and solidarity among members

Ethnocentrism is a term coined by william summer, is the tendency to see and evaluate other cultures in terms
of one race, nation and culture. This rests on the belief of superiority of one's own culture or ethnic group
compared to others.

. Is the preference for the products, styles or ideas of someone else's culture rather than of one's own.
XENOCENTRISM

IS the principle that an individual human's belief and activities should be understood by others in terms of that
individual's own culture. It highlights the perspective that no CULTURE IS SUPERIOR TO ANY OTHER
CULTURE WHEN COMPARING TO MORALITY,LAWS,ETC. CULTURAL RELATIVSM

CULTURAL RELATIVSM DOES NOT MEAN THAT WE SHOULD IMMEDIATELY ACCEPT AND TOLERATE
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES. INSTEAD IT REQUIRES UNDERSTANDING THAT CULTURE OF OTHER
PEOPLE IN THEIR OWN CULTURAL CONTEXT FROM ANOTHER'S BIASES CULTURAL RELATIVSM

HOW CULTURAL RELATIVSM MITIGATES ETHNOCENTRISM?

✣ It is believed that each person, in one way or another, possess an ethnocentric attitude or behavior. It is
widely believed in the field of sociology that ethnocentric behavior may be mitigated through the recognition
and application of cultural relativism. A person can practice cultural relativism by recognizing that our culture
shapes what we consider to be beautiful, ugly, appealing, disgusting , virtuous, funny and abhorrent and that
this should not be the basis for evaluating other culture.

https://www.slideshare.net/AlqueenAlmonte/philippine-cultural-system
https://www.britannica.com/topic/ritual
https://pressbooks.howardcc.edu/soci101/chapter/3-2-the-elements-of-culture/
http://www.cultureindevelopment.nl/Cultural_Heritage/What_is_Cultural_Heritage