Culture refers to the pattern of human activity and the symbols that give significance to these activities.

Culture manifests
itself in terms of the art, literature, costumes, customs, language, religion and religious rituals. The people and their
pattern of life make up the culture of a region. Cultures vary in the different parts of the world. They are different across
the land boundaries and the diversity in cultures results in the diversity in people around the world. Culture also consists
of the system of beliefs held by the people of the region, their principles of life and their moral values. The patterns of
behavior of the people of a particular region also form a part of the region's culture. The word 'culture' that hails from the
Latin word, 'cultura' derived from ‘colere’, means, 'to cultivate'. Hence the way in which the minds of the masses
inhabiting a particular region are cultivated, in some way determines the culture of a region. Let us look at the basic
characteristics of culture and its fundamental elements.

The sociology of culture concerns culture—usually understood as sets of cognitive meanings—as it is manifested in
society. For Georg Simmel, culture referred to "the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which
have been objectified in the course of history".[1]
Cultural sociology first emerged in Weimar Germany, where sociologists such as Alfred Weber used the term
Kultursoziologie (cultural sociology). Cultural sociology was then "reinvented" in the English speaking world as a product of
the "cultural turn" of the 1960s, which ushered in structuralist and so-called "postmodern" approaches to social science.
This type of cultural sociology may loosely be regarded as an approach incorporating cultural analysis and critical theory.
Cultural sociologists tend to reject scientific methods, instead hermeneutically focusing on words, artifacts and symbols.
"Culture" has since become an important concept across many branches of sociology, including resolutely scientific fields
like social stratification and social network analysis. As a result, there has been a recent influx of quantitative sociologists
to the field. Thus there is now a growing group of sociologists of culture who are, confusingly, not cultural sociologists.
These scholars reject the abstracted postmodern aspects of cultural sociology, and instead look for a theoretical backing in
the more scientific vein of social psychology and cognitive science.
"Cultural sociology" is one of the largest sections of the American Sociological Association. The British establishment of
cultural studies means the latter is often taught as a loosely-distinct discipline in the UK

Development of sociology in culture

Early researchers and development of cultural sociology

The sociology of culture grew from the intersection between sociology, as shaped by early theorists like Marx, Durkheim,
and Weber, and with the growing discipline of anthropology where researchers pioneered ethnographic strategies for
describing and analyzing a variety of cultures around the world. Part of the legacy of the early development of the field is
still felt in the methods (much of cultural sociological research is qualitative) in the theories (a variety of critical
approaches to sociology are central to current research communities) and substantive focus of the field. For instance,
relationships between popular culture, political control, and social class were early and lasting concerns in the field.

Karl Marx
As a major contributor to the Conflict Theory, Marx's ideas also dealt with culture. Marx's belief of culture is that the most
powerful members of a society are those who live in the ruling class. These members set up the culture of a society in
order to provide the best interests to that society. He has also talked about how a society's economic status determines
their values and ideologies.

Émile Durkheim
Durkheim had the belief that culture has many relationships to society which include:
Logical- Power over individuals belong to certain cultural categories, and beliefs such as God.
Functional- Certain rites and myths create build social order up more by having people create strong beliefs, the more
people who believe in these myths will strengthen social order.
Historical- Culture had its origins in society, and from those experiences came evolution into things such as classification
systems.

Max Weber
Weber innovated the idea of a status group as a certain type of subculture. Status groups are based on things such as:
race, ethnicity, religion, region, occupation, gender, sexual preference, etc. These groups live a certain lifestyle based on
different values and norms. They are a culture within a culture, hence the label subculture. Weber also had the idea that
people were motivated by their material and ideal interests, which include things such as preventing one from going to
hell. Weber also explains that people use symbols to express their spirituality, and that symbols are used to express the
spiritual side of real events, and that ideal interests are derived from symbols.

Georg Simmel
For Simmel, culture refers to 'the cultivation of individuals through the agency of external forms which have been
objectified in the course of history'.[2] Simmel presented his analyses within a context of 'form' and 'content'.

Anthropology
Anthropologists lay claim to the establishment of modern uses of the culture concept as defined by Edward Burnett Tylor
in the mid-19th century. Some of the 20th century scholars include Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, and Mauss.

Bronisław Malinowski
Malinowski collected data from the Trobriand Islands. Descent groups across the island claim parts of the land, and to
back up those claims, they tell myths of how an ancestress started a clan and how the clan descends from that ancestress.
Malinowski's observations followed the research of that found by Durkheim.

Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown

Radcliffe-Brown put himself in the culture of the Andaman Islanders. His research showed that group solidification among
the islanders is based on music and kinship, and the rituals that involve the use of those activities. In the words of
Radcliffe-Brown, “Ritual fortifies Society”. Radcliffe-Brown's observations also followed the research of that found by
Durkheim.

Marcel Mauss
Marcel Mauss made many comparative studies on religion, magic, law and morality of occidental and non-occidental
societies, and developed the concept of total social fact, and argued that the reciprocity is the universal logic of the
cultural interaction.

Claude Lévi-Strauss
Lévi-Strauss, based, at the same time, on the sociological and anthropological positivism of Durkheim, Mauss, Malinowski
and Radcliffe-Brown, on the economic and sociological marxism, on freudian and Gestalt psychology and on structural
linguistics of Saussure and Jakobson, realized great studies on areas myth, kinship, religion, ritual, symbolism, magic,
ideology (souvage pensée), knowledge, art and aesthetics, applying the methodological structuralism on his investigations.
He searched the universal principals of human thought as a form of explaining social behaviors and structures.

Characteristics of Culture

Culture is shared, by which we mean that every culture is shared by a group of people. Depending on the region they live
in, the climatic conditions they thrive in and their historical heritage, they form a set of values and beliefs. This set of their
principles of life shapes their culture. No culture belongs to an individual. It is rather shared among many people of a
certain part of the world. It belongs to a single community and not to any single human being.

Culture is learned. The members of a culture share certain ideals, which shape their lives. Generations learn to follow
these ideals and principles. Culture propagates through generations, which adopt their old customs and traditions as a
part of their culture. The ideals they base their lives on is a part of their culture. Cultural values are imparted from one
generation to another, thus resulting in a continual of traditions that are a part of culture. The language, the literature and
the art forms pass across generations. Culture is learned, understood and adopted by the younger generations of society.
No individual is born with a sense of his/her culture. He/she has to learn it.

What are the elements of culture? The language, other forms of expression as also the thoughts and emotions of the
people, their social and cultural norms, their principles and beliefs are the basic elements of culture. For an effective
transfer of culture from one generation to another, it has to be translated in terms of symbols, which represent the
cultural values of a community. Language, art and religion form the system of symbols that render a deep meaning to
culture.

Despite the efforts of the older generations to transfer their cultural values to the forthcoming generations, many tend to
remain unaware of their culture. People are often found to have an incomplete knowledge of their culture. People seldom
know their culture completely.

A gradual change is characteristic to almost every culture. Cultures are subject to change. Culture loses some of its traits
and gains new ones. The aspects of culture that change vary across societies. With the passage of time, new technologies
emerge, new modes of work come up, social thinking undergoes transitions and so does culture. Every culture changes in
time although the rate of change of every culture varies.

Studies have brought out a fact that no culture can remain in isolation. There is hardly any social community that is
completely isolated from the rest of the world. Every culture hence, is mostly influenced by cultures of the
surroundingregions. Cultural values are prone to be affected by the values of communities in close vicinity. The cultures,
which emerged during the same periods of time often, show certain similarities. Modern times have witnessed an intermix
of cultures. Cultures are blended together giving rise to shared cultures.

Elements of Culture

Whereas social structure refers to the organization of society, culture refers to the meanings and ways of life that
characterize a society. The elements of culture include beliefs, values, norms, sanctions, and symbols.

Beliefs Beliefs refer to definitions and explanations about what is assumed to be true. The belief of an individual or group
influence whether that individual or group views a particular social condition as a social problem. Does secondhand smoke
harm nonsmokers? Are nuclear power plants safe? Does violence in movies and on television lead to increase aggression
in children? Our beliefs regarding these issues influence whether we view the issues as social problems. Beliefs not only
influence how a social condition is interpreted, they also influence the existence of the condition itself. For example, men
who believe that when a woman says "no," she really means "yes" or "maybe" are more likely to commit rape and sexual
assault than men who do not have these beliefs (Frank, 1991).

Values Values are social agreements about what is considered good and bad, right and wrong, desirable and undesirable.
Frequently, social conditions are viewed as social problems when the conditions are incompatible with or contradict
closely held values. For example, poverty and homelessness violates the value of human welfare; crime contradicts the
values of honesty, private property, and nonviolence; racism, sexism, and heterosexism violate the values of equality and
fairness.

Norms and Sanctions Norms are socially defined rules of behavior. Norms serve as guidelines for our behavior and for our
expectations of the behavior of others.
There are three types of norms: folkways, laws, and mores. Folkways refer to the customs and manners of society. In
many segments of our society, it is customary to shake hands when being introduced to a new acquaintance, to say
"excuse me" after sneezing, and to give presents to family and friends on their birthdays. Although no laws require us to
do these things, we are expected to do them because they are part of the cultural traditions, or folkways, of the society in
which we live.

Laws are norms that are formalized and backed by political authority. A person who eats food out of a public garbage
container is violating a folkway; no law prohibits this behavior. However, throwing trash onto a public street is considered
littering and is against the law.

Some norms, called mores, have a moral basis. Violations of mores may produce shock, horror, and moral indignation.
Both littering and child sexual abuse are violations of law, but child sexual abuse is also a violation of our mores because
we view such behavior as immoral.

All norms are associated with sanctions, or social consequences for conforming to or violating norms. When we conform
to a social norm, we may be rewarded by a positive sanction. These may range from an approving smile to a public
ceremony in our honor. When we violate a social norm, we may be punished by a negative sanction, which may range
from a disapproving look to the death penalty or life in prison. Most sanctions are spontaneous expressions of approval or
disapproval by groups and individuals--these are referred to as informal sanctions. Sanctions that are carried out according
to some recognized or formal procedure are referred to as formal sanctions. Types of sanctions, then, include positive
informal sanctions, positive formal sanctions, negative informal sanctions, and negative formal sanctions. [William Graham
Sumner developed the concept of how norms and sanctions work within society.]

CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE

1. Culture is learned and acquired. Not all things shared generally by a population are cultural- for it to be considered
cultural it must be first learned as well as shared.
2. Culture is shared and transmitted. Culture is passed on to succeeding generations primarily through Language/
Communication.
3. Culture is social. Product develops by many people interacting in a group. No man is an island; he is always a part of a
group.
4. Culture is ideational. Culture uses ideas and symbols to give meanings to his environment and experiences. Every
individual sees and approaches his world according to standpoint of his culture.
5. Culture gratifies human needs. Human has biological needs such as food, shelter, clothing, protection, love, security and
sex.
6. Culture is adaptive.
7. Culture is cumulative. People are able to retain certain features of their culture that are significant.

Functions of Culture

1. Trademark or special feature that distinguishes one society from another.

2. Brings together, contains and interprets the values of a society in a more or less systematic manner.
3. Provides one of the most important bases for social solidarity. Social Solidarity inspires loyalty and devotion. When the
nation has common feelings, common objectives it results to common national pride.
4. Provides a blueprint of, as well as the materials for social structure.
5. The culture of any society is the dominant factor in establishing and molding the social personality. Social stamp is
expected despite differences of individuals.
6. Culture of a society provides behavioral pattern. It also provides norm to follow. This explains why student will not come
in class wearing her bathing suit.
7. Culture provides individual with the meaning and direction of his existence.