Cultural diversity and sub-cultures

Overview

Cultural diversity, multicultural society and difference between assimilation and multiculturalism as responses to diversity.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Define cultural diversity.

   Model answer

   Cultural diversity is the presence of a range of different cultures within one society or between societies, visible in differences of language, religion, dress and family life.

2. 2

   What is a subculture?

   Model answer

   A subculture is a group within a wider society whose members share values, norms and a way of life that differ in some respects from the mainstream while still belonging to it.

3. 3

   Distinguish a subculture from a counter-culture.

   Model answer

   A subculture differs from the mainstream but coexists with it, whereas a counter-culture actively rejects mainstream values and seeks to replace them, as the hippie movement did.

4. 4

   Name three things a subculture can be based on.

   Model answer

   Three are age, ethnicity and religion, each of which can give a group its own norms, style and sense of belonging.

5. 5

   How do sociologists explain why subcultures form?

   Model answer

   Subcultures form when a group's circumstances, interests or exclusion from the mainstream leave it with problems and pleasures the wider culture does not address, so it develops norms of its own.

6. 6

   What is a multicultural society?

   Model answer

   A multicultural society is one containing several distinct cultural groups whose differences are recognised and, as a matter of policy, respected rather than suppressed.

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