culture and socialization

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  1. Nature vs Nurture
  • Nature - The environment you are born in
  • Nurture – What you take in?(nutrition)

II. “Sociological Imagination” (C. Wright Mills 1959)

-An awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society

(Private troubles  public issues e.g. poverty; unemployment; “unsuccessful” students )

-Do not take things for granted! (i.e. don’t ever believe that what you see at present is the natural or the only way of behaving or organizing social relationships.)

Sociological Focuses:

  • the recurring patterns in people’s attitudes and action
  • how such patterns are formed culturally, socially, economically and politically
  • how such patterns vary across time, societies, & social groups (e.g. classes)
  • how such patterns generate social inequalities (e.g. gender inequality) & social conflicts

III. Culture

“The culture of a society is the way of life of its members, the collection of ideas and habits which they learn, share & transmit from generation to generation.” (Linton)

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The particular content of culture varies from place to place, but all human cultures have the same basic elements: values, norms, symbols, language, and knowledge.

  • Value:  shared general ideas about what is good, right & desirable (e.g. equality).

  • Norm :         shared rules that prescribe the behavior appropriate in a given situation (explicit or implicit norms)

Cross-Cultural Understanding

How to deal with inter-cultural differences? Two different responses:

  • Ethnocentrism -        viewing everything through the eyes of our own culture and its values.
  • Relativism -         looking at things in terms of the meanings ...

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