Professional Documents
Culture Documents
UCSP1
UCSP1
Traditionally defined by English anthropologist Sir Edward Burnett Taylor in 1871, culture is a
complex whole which encompasses belief, practices, values, attitudes, law, norms, artifacts,
symbols, and knowledge that a person learns and shares as a member of society.
- Leslie White
Culture refers to an organization of phenomena that dependent upon symbols and includes acts,
objects, ideas, and sentiment.
- Richley Crapo
He describes culture as a system of ideas, feelings, and survival strategies shared in a particular
group. He claims that culture is the structure that unifies a human group and gives an identity as
a society.
Aspect of Culture
culture has essential characteristics that need to be acknowledge for anyone
to understand clearly its nature and dynamism.
• Norm- one special distinct element of culture is the norm. A set of norms is a society’s
standards of acceptable behavior.
• Mores- the term mos, from which mores was coined, is a Latin word which means
“custom.” in a sociological perspective, mores are the custom folkways a society needs to
adhere to strictly.
• Laws- formalized mores that legislated, approved, and implemented in a society.
• Beliefs- Richley Crapo defined beliefs as the means by which people make sense of their
experiences, or ideas that people hold to be true, factual, and real.
• Symbols- are illustrations used to represent to a particular meaning of something.
Leslie White, a renowned American anthropologist, has proposed that the use f
symbols is the origin of all human behavior.
• Language- is defined as the system of symbols that individuals utilize to communicate,
interact, and share their views, thus creating an understanding among individuals.
• Values- as desirable, transsituational goals that vary in importance and serve as guiding
principles in people’s lives.
Social Institutions
institution is defined as the organized system of social relationships which
embodies certain common values and procedures.