Culture and Society Mrs. Ashford

Contemporary Issues Spring Semester

Bellwork Question

• What do you know about depression?

• Why do you feel most people do not talk about the impact of mental illness in this society?

• What is the stigma to mental illness?

Bellwork-Culture Gallery Walk

• Students will get into groups of 5 and share out what are the common stereotypes of each group.

• Groups will rotate and continue until all groups has completed all groups.

World Migration

• Africa• Asia• Australia• Western Europe• Eastern Europe• North America• South America

What is a Society?

Mrs. AshfordU.S. Government Spring Semester

Society

• Group of people with shared territory, interaction and culture.

• Made up by friendship or common interest

• Groups of two or more people

Pluralistic Society

• United States is pluralistic

• Composed of many different kinds of people

• Members retain some ethnic traditions and beliefs from their old society

Types of Societies

• Hunting and gathering• Horticultural-hand tools to raise crops • Pastoral-domestication & breeding of animals• Agricultural/agrarian-raise crops by the plow• Industrial –machines replace humans• Postindustrial- economy based on services &

technology than production

Term

Assimilation

In order to fit into their new society, however, members must give up some of these original traditions.

WHAT IS A CULTURE?

Mrs. AshfordU.S. Government

Culture

• Everything made, learned, or shared by the members of a society

Types of Culture

• Material-physical thingsExample-food, clothing, jewelry, etc.

• Nonmaterial-beliefs and valuesExample-thinness as a standard of beauty

Levels of Culture

• Dominant-held by majority

• Subculture-within the dominant

• Counterculture-opposes the dominant

Terms

Ethnocentrism

• View other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture.

• Consider their culture superior to other cultures.

Cultural Relativism

• Interpreting other cultures based on one’s culture

Culture Shock

• Practices of other cultures seem unfamiliar, scary or shocking.

Cultural Diffusion

• Item of culture spreads throughout a culture or from one culture to another.

Quick Quiz

1. Society is

(A) a political entity (B) the same as culture or nation(C) limited by geographical boundaries(D) organized interaction of people sharing land and culture

2. Culture includes

(A) only material things such as cars or jewelry(B) our thoughts, our beliefs, and our possessions(C) the land we share(D) only nonmaterial things such as values or beliefs

3. Which of the following types of societies came first?

(A) industrial(B) agricultural(C) mass(D) horticultural and pastoral

• Place migration of world population in order.