Defenition of Culture

Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs,

values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial
relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions
acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual
and group striving.
Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of
people.
Culture is communication, communication is culture.
Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a
person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more
briefly, behavior through social learning.
A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values,
and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that
are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the
next.
Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's
skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols
are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired
and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human
groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture
consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture
systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other
hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.
Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are
generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from
generation to generation.
Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members
of one group or category of people from another.

ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

Creates social structure by organizing its members into small units to meet basic
needs.
Family Patterns: family is the most important unit of social
organization. Through the family children learn how they are expected to act and
what to believe.
Nuclear family: wife, husband, children. This is a typical family in an industrial
society (US).
Extended family: Several generations living in one household, working and living
together: grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins. Respect for elders is strong.
Social classes: rank people in order of status, depending on what is important to
the culture (money, job, education, ancestry, etc.)

CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS

Rules of Behavior are enforced ideas of right and wrong. They can be customs,
traditions, rules, or written laws.

RELIGION

Answers basic questions about the meaning of life.

Supports values that groups of people feel are important.
Religion is often a source of conflict between cultures.
Monotheism is a belief in one god.
Polytheism is a belief in many gods.

Atheism is a belief in no gods.

LANGUAGE

Language is the cornerstone of culture.

All cultures have a spoken language (even if there are no developed forms of
writing).
People who speak the same language often share the same culture.
Many societies include a large number of people who speak different languages.
Each language can have several different dialects.

ARTS AND LITERATURE

They are the products of the human imagination.

They help us pass on the cultures basic beliefs.
Examples: art, music, literature, and folk tales

FORMS OF GOVERNMENT

People form governments to provide for their common needs, keep order within
society, and protect their society from outside threats.
Definition of government: 1. Person/people who hold power in a society;
2 Societys
laws and political institutions.
Democracy: people have supreme power, government acts by and with
consent.
Republic: people choose leaders who represent them.
Dictatorship: ruler/group holds power by force usually relying on military
support for power.

ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

How people use limited resources to satisfy their wants and needs.
Answers the basic questions: what to produce, how to produce it, and for whom.
Traditional Economy: people produce most of what they need to survive
(hunting, gathering, farming, herding cattle, make own clothes/tools).

Market Economy: buying and selling goods and services

Command Economy: Government controls what/how goods are produced and
what they cost. Individuals have little economic power
Mixed Economy: Individuals make some economic decisions and the
government makes others.