It deals the culture. It is a key concept in both Sociology and Anthropology.

1. Culture and Society:
Concepts of Culture, Types and Components
Dr. Anil Kumar
Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
STJM PG College, Bilhaur, Kanpur
E-mail: anil.aina@gmail.com, Mob. 9451087122

2. Culture: Introduction
 Culture is a key concept in both Sociology and Anthropology.
 Culture shapes our, values, beliefs, norms and, to a great extent,
our attitudes and the way we perceive the world around us.
 A society is a group of interacting individuals who share a
common culture. So culture is what member of the group have in
common, the material things they own as well as the intangible
non-material things such as beliefs, values, and rules of behaviour
which they share.
 Culture is a total way if life of a social group, meaning everything
they are, they do, and they have. It is a complex system that
consists of beliefs, values, standards, practices, language and
technology shared by members of a social group.
 Like other animals human must eat, sleep, reproduce, protect
their young, and adapt themselves to the environment. They
(animals) are depends on their instinct nature, where humans
could manipulate, deliberately change behaviour as a cultural
response.

3. Culture: Introduction ………
 For example: Human also feel hunger and sexual urges which are
biological facts, but it is culture which determines how these
biological urges are channeled/fulfilled.
 Culture influences not only what we eat, but also how we eat and
how often we eat?
 Most of Hindus are not eating beef, where pork is taboo for Jews
and Muslims.
 Some parts of North Eastern parts of India and other South Asian
Countries people eat dogs, snakes etc.
 Indian eats with their fingers where Chinese and Japanese use
Chopsticks. People of America and other western countries use
fork and knives.
 Patterns of Marriage and Family are also products of culture.
 Ritual Prostitution and Untouchability were the part of Indian
Culture.

4. Definitions of Culture
 Edward B. Taylor has given famous definition “culture is the
complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, art, morals,
law, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired
by man as a member of society.’
 According to MacIver & Page culture is “the realm of styles of
values of emotional attachments of intellectual adventures
(Society).
 In the words of Bronislaw Malinowski “culture is the
cumulative action of a man”.
 In the words of Robert Bierstedt “culture is the complex
whole that consists of all the ways we think and do and
everything we have as members of society (The Social Order).

5. Characteristics of Culture
• Culture could be learned
• It could be shared and transferred from one
generation to another
• It vary from one society to another
• Culture makes human as social animal.

6. Types of Culture
• A number of sociologist have classified the content of the culture
into large components material culture and non-material culture.
Ogburn has even used this distinction as the basis for a theory of
cultural change.
• Types of culture:
• Material Culture
• Non material Culture
• Folk culture- culture related to tribal society
 Ideal Culture- Mandated by the society's norms and
expectations.
 Real Culture- People Actually have

7. Related Concepts
• Cultural Lag- Term Coined by Ogburn
• Cultural lag is a situation in which some parts of a culture change at a
faster rate than others related parts resulting in the disruption of
integration and equilibrium of the culture
• For Example- The material culture changes more rapidly than the non
material culture.
• Culture of Poverty was coined by Oscar Lewis (1965) to describe the
combination of factors that perpetuate patterns of inequality and
poverty in society.
• He described how the poor feel alienated in society. Because of their
frustrations with their inability to transcend poverty, a culture develops
which supports behaviors providing short term gratification and other
conditions of poverty as ‘‘normal.’’
• This is largely due to the conviction that it is impossible to improve
their lives.
• These beliefs and behaviors are then instilled from one generation to
the next, which eventually develops into a culture of poverty.

8. Components of the Culture
 Values- are shared agreements among members of the society-
what desirable in social life. Good/Bad, Beautiful/Ugly
 Beliefs- is an idea or statement about which people accept as
true. It may be based on past experience- religious, scientific.
 Language- is the most important element of symbolic culture.
Structured communication, it expresses and preserve heritages.
Language is a product of culture but culture is also shaped by
language.
 Norms- are established standards of social behaviour. Rules of
conduct.
 Explicit Norms- Stated Formally- for example- college uniform.
 Implicit Norms- Non-Written Rules – Understood by the members.
Patterns of hug or kiss.
 Ideal Norms- Strict – Honesty the best policy
 Real Norms- standard of behaviour in real situation- why we missed the
class.

9. Components of the Culture
 Folkways- are appropriate ways of doing things. Informal rules
regulating the everyday life – Matter of etiquette are the best
examples of folkways.
 Mores- are norms considered to be vital and morally important.
Their violation is punishable in various ways. Some mores are
enforced by state and the law. i.e. Rape, Murder, Child Abuse
etc.
 Laws- Rules formally established by the state or other
organisations. DV Act, IPC. Hindu Marriage Act, Sharda Act etc.
 Sanctions-are means by which a society enforce its norms.
 Positive sanctions express good behaviour- Smile, Thank You, Award
Trophy etc.
 Negative sanctions express bad behaviour/violation of norms- avoidance,
suspension, penalty etc.

10. Components of the Culture
 Customs- The uniform approved ways of acting we follow are customs,
transmitted from generation to generation, by tradition and usually made
effective by social approval. Anderson and Parker, Society- 34. Eg. – Putting
of Sindur on forehead, marriage of girls before puberty etc. Some times fight
between custom and laws.- Khap Panchayats
 Fashion- is the socially approved sequence of variation on a customary
theme. MacIver and Page, Society-181.
 Religion- Religion is attitude towards superhuman powers. Ogburn and
Nimkoff.
 Morality- There must be one legal code for all but moral code vary as much
as the individual characters of which they are the expression. MacIver
 Technology- refers to material things as well as the accumulated
knowledge about them.
 Art- is the creation of works or expression of thoughts in a cultural
perspective.