Characteristics

of Culture

@nicolegelique
1. Dynamic,Flexible and Adaptive
2. Shared, Contested and Challenged
3. Learned through socialization and
enculturation
4. Patterned social interactions
5. Integrated
6. Transmitted through socialization or
enculturation
7. Requires language and other forms of
communication
Dynamic,Flexible
and Adaptive
Dynamic,Flexible and Adaptive

✣ This basically means that cultures

interact and change.
✣ It changes based on the current
situation of our society.
✣ Culture continuously restores itself so
it will remain relevant.
 Shared,
Contested and
Challenged
Shared, Contested and Challenged

✣ As we share culture with others, we are

able to act in appropriate ways as well
as predict how others will act.
✣ Despite the shared culture,that doesn't
mean that culture is HOMOGENOUS.
✣ If culture is learned and shared, it is
also contested in different ways and
situation.
Shared, Contested and Challenged

✣ Because of the diversity, culture is

subjected to debate and analysis.
✣ It may be challenged by the presence
of modernization, industrialization
and globalization.
Learned through
socialization and
enculturation
Learned through socialization and
enculturation
✣ It is not biological, we do not enherit it
but LEARNED.
✣ We learn, absorb and acquire culture
from families, peers, institutions and
the media.
✣ SOCIALIZATION is an ongoing
process of learning language,
behaviors, customs, values and others
to acquire identity.
Learned through socialization and
enculturation
✣ ENCULTURATION is the process by
which an individual adopts the
behavioral patterns of culture in
which the person is immersed.
AGENTS OF SOCIALIZATION

1. FAMILY
2. COMMUNITY
3. MASS MEDIA
4. RELIGION
Patterned social
interactions
Patterned social interactions
✣ Culture as normative system has the
capacity to define and control human
behaviors.
✣ Social interactions can help us filter
the parts of our culture that we
learned so that we can define what
suits us and what does not.
Patterned social interactions
✣ Social interaction is “THE
MUTUAL INFLUENCE
OF TWO OR MORE
PEOPLE ON EACH
OTHER'S BEHAVIOR”.
There are 5 patterns of social
interaction:
1. EXCHANGE
2. COOPERATION
3. COMPETITION
4. CONFLICT
5. COERCION
Integrated
 INTEGRATED
✣ This is known as HOLISM,
or the various parts of a
culture being interconnected
and interlinked.
 Transmitted
through
socialization or
enculturation
 Transmitted through
socialization or enculturation
✣ As we share our culture with
others, we were able to pass it on
new members of society or the
younger generation in different
ways.
✣ It can be transmitted from one
person to another and even one
society to another.
Requires language
and other forms
of communication
Requires language and other
forms of communication
✣ In the process of learning and
transmitting culture, we need
symbols and language to
communicate with others in
society.
 ETHNOCENTRISM,
XENOCENTRISM AND
CULTURAL RELATIVISM AS
ORIENTATIONS IN
VIEWING OTHER CULTURES
 ETHNOCENTRISM
a term coined by william summer, is
the tendency to see and evaluate
other cultures in terms of one
race, nation and culture. This
rests on the belief of superiority
of one's own culture or ethnic
group compared to others.
 XENOCENTRISM

Is the preference for the

products, styles or ideas
of someone else's culture
rather than of one's own.
 CULTURAL RELATIVSM

IS the principle that an individual

human's belief and activities should be
understood by others in terms of that
individual's own culture. It highlights
the perspective that no CULTURE IS
SUPERIOR TO ANY OTHER CULTURE WHEN
COMPARING TO MORALITY,LAWS,ETC.
 CULTURAL RELATIVSM

CULTURAL RELATIVSM DOES NOT MEAN THAT

WE SHOULD IMMEDIATELY ACCEPT AND
TOLERATE CULTURAL DIFFERENCES. INSTEAD
IT REQUIRES UNDERSTANDING THAT
CULTURE OF OTHER PEOPLE IN THEIR OWN
CULTURAL CONTEXT FROM ANOTHER'S BIASES
 HOW CULTURAL
RELATIVSM MITIGATES
ETHNOCENTRISM?
HOW CULTURAL RELATIVSM
MITIGATES ETHNOCENTRISM?
✣ It is believed that each person , in one way or
another, possess an ethnocentric attitude or
behavior. It is widely believed in the field of
sociology that ethnocentric behavior may be
mitigated through the recognition and
application of cultural relativsm. A person can
practice cultural relativsm by recognizing that
our culture shapes what we consider to be
beautiful, ugly, appealing , disgusting , virtous,
funny and abhorrent and that this should not
be the basis for evaluating other culture.