Culture of pakistan

1. Week 3
Culture

2. What is culture
• Culture is the knowledge, language, values, customs, and material
objects that are passed from person to person and from one
generation to the next in a human group or society.
• As previously defined, a society is a large social grouping that
occupies the same geographic territory and is subject to the same
political authority and dominant cultural expectations (composition of
people).
• A culture is composed of ideas, behavior, and material possessions.
• Society and culture are interdependent; neither could exist without
the other.

3. Types of Culture
• Material culture a component of culture that consists of the physical
or tangible creations (such as clothing, shelter, and art) that members
of a society make, use, and share.
• Nonmaterial culture a component of culture that consists of the
abstract or intangible human creations of society (such as attitudes,
beliefs, and values) that influence people’s behavior

4. Components of Culture
• Symbol anything that meaningfully represents something else.
• Language a set of symbols that expresses ideas and enables people to
think and communicate with one another.
• Language not only expresses our thoughts and perceptions but also
influences our perception of reality. According to the Sapir– Whorf
hypothesis, language shapes the view of reality of its speakers.
• Values are collective ideas about what is right or wrong, good or bad,
and desirable or undesirable in a particular culture

5. • Norms established rules of behavior or standards of conduct.
• Sanctions and rewards
• Rewards are for appropriate behavior and penalties/sanctions are for
inappropriate behavior.
• Folkways informal norms or everyday customs that may be violated
without serious consequences within a particular culture.
• Mores strongly held norms with moral and ethical connotations that
may not be violated without serious consequences in a particular
culture.

6. Technology, Cultural Change and Diversity
• Technology the knowledge, techniques, and tools that allow people to
transform resources into a usable form and the knowledge and skills
required to use what is developed.
• Cultural lag is a gap between the technical development of a society
and its moral and legal institutions.
• Cultural change take place through:
• Discovery the process of learning about something previously unknown or
unrecognized.
• Invention the process of reshaping existing cultural items into a new form.
• Diffusion the transmission of cultural items or social practices from one group
or society to another

7. Cultural Diversity
• Cultural diversity refers to the wide range of cultural differences
found between and within nations.
• Subculture is a group of people who share a distinctive set of cultural
beliefs and behaviors that differs in some significant way from that of
the larger society.
• A counterculture is a group that strongly rejects dominant societal
values and norms and seeks alternative lifestyles
• Culture shock is the disorientation that people feel when they
encounter cultures radically different from their own and believe they
cannot depend on their own taken-for-granted assumptions about
life.

8. Ethnocentrism, Xenocentrism and Cultural
Relativism
• Ethnocentrism is the practice of judging all other cultures by one’s
own culture
• The term xenocentrism refers to the desire to engage in the elements
of another's culture rather than one's own.
• Cultural relativism is the belief that the behaviors and customs of any
culture must be viewed and analyzed by the culture’s own standards.

9. Sociological Analysis of Culture
Sociological Analysis of Culture
Functionalist Perspectives Culture helps people meet their biological, instrumental,
and expressive needs.
Conflict Perspectives Ideas are a cultural creation of society’s most powerful
members and can be used by the ruling class to affect the thoughts
and actions of members of other classes.
Symbolic Interactionist
Perspectives
People create, maintain, and modify culture during their everyday
activities; however, cultural creations can take on a life of their own
and end up controlling people.