SOCI 102 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Cultural Relativism, Ethnocentrism, Digital Divide
Document Summary
Culture: the complex system of meaning and behavior that defines the way of life for a given group or society. Material culture: consists of the objects created in a given society- its buildings, art, tools, toys, literature, and other tangible objects. Nonmaterial culture: includes the norms, laws, custom, ideas, and beliefs of a group of people. Ethnocentrism: the habit of seeing things only from the point of view of one"s own group. Cultural relativism: the idea that something can be understood and judged only in relation to the cultural context in which it appears. Culture shock: the feeling of disorientation when one encounters a new or rapidly changed cultural situation. Symbols: things or behaviors to which people give meaning. Sapir-whorf hypothesis: asserts that language determines other aspects of culture because language provides the categories through which social reality is defined. Norms: the specific culture expectations for how to behave in a given situation.
