[11] UCSP - Culture, Society, Politics

Cards (16)

  • Culture - complex whole which encompasses beliefs, practices, values, etc; seen as integral to everyday life; consists of patterns, behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, artifacts, traditions, etc.
  • Characteristics of Culture
    • Learned
    • Relative
    • Shared
    • Symbolic
    • Changes from time to time
  • Enculturation - whole process of learning, learned through participating and interacting
  • Symbol - an object, word or action that stands for something else and is culturally defined
  • Types of Culture
    • Material
    • Non-Material
  • Material Culture - physical objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture; homes, neighborhoods, cities, schools, churches, offices, etc.
  • Non-Material Culture - nonphysical ideas that people have about their culture; beliefs, values, rules, norms, morals, etc.
  • Cultural Anthropology - tries to explain and to understand the biological and cultural origins of species; studies the culture itself, religion, politics, language, and the different environmental set-ups, as well as practices of people like rituals and ceremonies
  • Cultural Studies - an interdisciplinary field drawing on theories and practices from a range of HUMMS disciplines; seeks to investigate ways in which cultures produce and are produced; helps understand the complexity of everyday life; provides you with a range of tools to analyze how cultural practices and meanings are produced, circulated, and exchanged
  • Society - comes from Latin word "societas", from word "socius", meaning comrade, ally or friend; Group of people sharing a common culture
  • Sociology - study of society
  • Politics - activity through which people make, preserve, and amend the rules under which they live; comes from Greek word "polis" (city-state)
  • Politics can be viewed in 4 ways:
    • As the art of government
    • As public affairs
    • As compromise and consensus
    • As power
  • Public Sphere - people involved in governance and public affairs exclusively practicing politics
  • Private Sphere - rest of society (businesses, educational institutions, families) and other citizens who were not involved in running the affairs of the state
  • Political Science - study of politics