Culture as a way of life

Overview

Term culture as sociologists use it, difference between material and non-material culture and cultural universals.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   Define the term culture as sociologists use it.

   Model answer

   Culture is the whole way of life of a group or society, including its knowledge, language, customs, beliefs and objects, learned by each generation from the one before.

2. 2

   What is the difference between material and non-material culture?

   Model answer

   Material culture is the physical things a society makes, such as tools, clothing and buildings, while non-material culture is the shared ideas behind them, such as values, beliefs and language.

3. 3

   What are cultural universals?

   Model answer

   Cultural universals are practices found in every known society, such as language, marriage, religion and the incest taboo, although the form each takes varies widely.

4. 4

   Why do sociologists insist that culture is learned rather than inherited?

   Model answer

   Members of a society acquire their culture through socialisation, which is why a baby raised in a different society grows up with that society's way of life and not the one its birth parents were born into.

5. 5

   Explain what is meant by cultural relativism.

   Model answer

   Cultural relativism is the principle that a practice should be understood and judged by the standards of the culture it belongs to rather than by the observer's own.

6. 6

   Define ethnocentrism.

   Model answer

   Ethnocentrism is judging other cultures by the standards of one's own and treating one's own way of life as normal and superior.

Other ways to work this

The same content, four other ways.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.