Explain What a Culture Is

We live in a vast area of multi cultural communities and culture exists in our societies all over the world. The meaning of culture is ambiguous in nature, it is used to describe many different things. Culture has been interpreted with lots of definitions over time by various research. For instance American anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckohn (1963 [1962] ) looked at the various meanings of 'culture' that was available in literature. They found 164 definitions of what the term 'culture' could mean. We can look at culture as having numerous elements consisting of values, norms, beliefs, ideas, language, tradition, symbols, history and tools of social order by passing down particular ways of behaviour in certain situations. Therefore it is a shared set of rules for behaviour, for what is right or wrong, or for what is desirable or undesirable. These values start from the day we are born from family around us, continuing to influence us throughout our life by means of religion, education, the state and economic system to name a few. Culture is what we learn and share socially, allowing us to relate with one another. It is transmitted from person to person through communication. Different races and societies all over the world have their own specific culture which is due to the above said elements and the geographical area, conditions and ways of life. Within cultural differences we need to be careful not to generalize or stereotype. For instance I could meet an asian lady and assume that she has a large family, this would be stereotyping her. Yet if I said to myself that asian women tend to have large families, I wonder if the asian lady does, then I would be generalizing. Cultural diversity is normal, but it does sometimes have elements which are universal. 'How a particular group thinks about and does certain things is a function not of instinct but of the culture of the group'. (Mead 1938) symbols in cultures send messages to us. This can consist of anything that carries meaning that we can read and understand. The emergency services uniform for example, whether it be paramedic, police or fire service. Some symbols may send different messages to different cultures though, and can cause offence. A simple raised hand gesture that means thank you to ourselves when driving can be a rude gesture to another culture elsewhere.

Language is used in every culture for communication. Chinese is the most spoken and English is the most universal language spoken. Depending on the country we are from or reside in depends on the language spoken.

Written language is easily abstracted from culture. The English used is similar to that in the United States yet the two cultures remain apart. They both have within it many sub cultures. In China they speak many dialects and share common written language that can be pronounced depending on the local patterns. Values and beliefs are another element providing a guideline for behaviour. These include aspects like killing/war, assisted suicide, respect, family, death penalty and marriage. Cultural universals also occur. Marriage and funerals are two, but the way we conduct the ceremony/service may be different from culture to culture. One culture may celebrate vibrantly with a marriage with lots of the community involved, whereas other cultures may be on a very quiet reserved scale. The same goes for funerals. Other cultural universals include birth, family, clothes, body adornment, music, personal names and more.

As well as the cultural universals we have structural universals that shape our lives in some form of communication. These could be language, family, religion, which all have role allocation in different ways in society. There are rules in how to live, behave etc. Norms are the rules and expectations for behaviour in culture. Manners, courtesy and respect we learn from being young from our parents and can be passed down from generation to generation. Norms may include when someone is speaking, it is polite to listen and not interrupt. Norms are enforced by two lots of sanctions. If an individual broke the law, then they would be prosecuted, this would be enforced by formal sanction. On the other hand if someone was swearing, people would move away, so we would correct / modify our behaviour to where we are or who we are with. For example it could be a friend or family member. This would be informal sanction. This can also be viewed as socialisation, the process in which we learn what is socially acceptable via family, school, friends, work and the media. We can use our own cultural values when we are evaluating beliefs and customs of other cultures with different values. The term for this is Ethnocentrism. It can be of use to bond members in a society but can also cause conflict with the people of other cultures. If we look at the evolutionary scale it could be like the caveman at one end, then through the evolutionary scale to civilisation. In other words a belief that our culture has reached civilisation and so a need to bring others up to speed.

There are theories of cultural behaviour. These are through functionalism, conflict and interaction. Functionalism is a consensus based structualist view ( group dynamics) based on consensus. As long as it is working well within the the organs of the body society as a whole will work well. Those who do well will be ranked highly and probably be rewarded. The positions are filled with those individuals who are capable of taking on the specific roles through training. The most important roles are filled with by the most qualified people. Socialisation is important, and through the socialisation is the norm of of teaching the norms of society. The values and rules create the stability for society to function well. We have sure start centres across the country that teach family values and norms in under privileged areas. Consensus theorists acknowledge disagreement over cultural values and norms but see this as being positive.

Conflict theory is a conflict based structualist approach. It suggests that behaviour is shaped by the structures around us and can cause conflict with each other. It is not a consensus surrounding culture but more in the way groups, individuals and classes are in competition with each other. For the Marxist's view, economic inequality is at the heart of societies. If we use the core of hegemony (superstructure) to gain consent, the base of society and the superstructure feed through each other. Inequality therefore could be seen as a good thing, as inequality naturally makes us want more, this inequality