Culture & Identity Notes A

• Folk Culture is a culture created by the local communities and developed through their beliefs & experiences.
• The middle class has their middlebrow taste.
• High Culture and Low Culture are concepts studied by Pierre Bourdieu, who believes that every class has its own culture (habitus), with the high class having their high cultural taste which consists of opera music, theatre drama, ballet, fine arts, literature.
• Subcultures rebel against the dominant culture of society, creating their own anti-school culture where they do not attend lessons and marginalize themselves from the system.
• Identity is linked with work as individuals grow older.
• Social Identity is defined by the social group's individuals, which might include men and women, ethnic or national groups.
• Goffman defines a stigmatized identity as an identity which is undesirable or excludes people from society.
• Stigmatized or Spoiled Identities are those where stigma is associated with a characteristic, for example, being an ex-prisoner or an individual with an impairment.
• Personal identity or individual identity is different from social identity.
• Identity is more fluid as individuals can iterate them as they move through life.
• Multiple Identities refer to an individual having more than one identity, meaning they have different selves in different situations.
• Collective Identity is shared by a group, hence it is called collective.
• Stigmatized identities leave negative impressions on the individual, and people treat them differently.
• Individuals are able to reflect on their identity and can change.
• Social structures, also known as social institutions such as family and religion, are interdependent.
• Giddens believes in the reflexive self, which means that individuals are not passive and do not accept any identity which is handed down to them by the social institutions.
• The media produces major sources of information, ideas, norms, values, lifestyles, especially those of celebrities, which can influence our behavior and identities.
• Peer pressure can be either positive (when your friends influence you in a good way, such as studying harder) or negative (when your friends pressure you to do things that are not seen as good, such as stealing).
• Functionalists view the media as something positive because it increases communication worldwide, leading to social stability.
• We accept and get influenced by everything on the media.
• Through our peer group, we start to form our identity which is independent of the one we form at home.
• Marxists view the media as lulling the masses and making us more passive.
• We start conforming to the rules of work and are also influenced by our work peer group, which influences our performance and attitude at work.
• In the workplace, we learn values such as tolerance and how to work with individuals irrespective of their different race, culture or values.
• Examples of media sources that influence behavior and identities include reality shows like Keeping Up with the Kardashians.
• Marxists such as Bourdieu, Marx & Althusser look at school as an institution which produces the culture of the elites.
• Those students who belong to the lower classes will feel that they do not belong to the school.
• We continue to form our identity when we start forming part of our peer group.
• We learn our culture, norms, values, lifestyle, how to talk, walk and eat.
• Through family, we learn all the essential things we need to know in order to function as full social beings in society.
• An individual learns these aspects either through the open or hidden curriculum.
• We learn what is expected and accepted in our society.
• We feel the need for approval and fear rejection in our peer group.
• Durkheim argues that school is 'society in miniature' because we learn norms, values, and rules that we need to follow.
• Marxists look at school as an institution which justifies social inequalities.
• School is a place where children learn a lot about the society they live in.
• Marcuse argues that the media is producing lots of images which are generating the mass culture with its emphasis on entertainment, relaxation, and consumption through advertisement.
• Livingstone found that writers and producers of TV soap operas, which are popular culture because they are watched by millions, argue that these have positive benefits for society as they make people more aware of certain controversial issues and create public discussions.
• Popular culture is often criticized for making us passive and supporting big businesses because we keep on buying their products.
• The distinction between high culture and popular culture is weakening, according to Storey and Strinoti.