SOCA01H3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Orthodox Marxism, Occupational Segregation, Economic Determinism
Document Summary
Culture is the sum of ideas, practices, and material objects that people create to survive in a complex & changing environment. This definition is very broad it can include the whole of society. The definition of social structure can also be expanded to include the whole of society. Need to distinguish culture from social structure. Philip smith defines culture as the ideal, the spiritual, and the non- spiritual . Baumann: culture consists of elements of social life that have meaning that members of society communicate and understand. This distinguishes culture from the concrete elements of social life (baumann lived experience ), which are embodied and enacted by actual objects & people. Gender role attitudes are elements of culture. Occupational segregation by gender is an element of social structure. Religious institutions & religious discrimination are elements of social structure. Abstraction is the capacity to generalize: it leads to creation of ideas, including symbols.
