Happy Monday
• Pick up the handout at the front of the room and read about the “odd” Naciramen culture. Think: Does this sound a place you’d like to live???
• Take out your class notes
What is culture?
What is culture and how can it change over time?
Culture Is:
1.All the features of a society’s way of life.
Brainstorm…
Think…
• Which culture do you think is most diverse?
• Which do you think is least diverse?
Why?
North Korea vs. America
Culture Is:
2.Learned and passed down from generation to generation.
Think: Santa Claus
Culture Is:
3. Includes all of a society’s shared values, beliefs, institutions, and technologies.
Think: US Flag, Freedom of Speech
Culture:
4.Gives roles to individuals and establishes relationships within groups in a society.
Think: School relationships
Cultural Traits
•Activities and behaviors that people repeatedly practice.
•They can vary
Think: eating US: fork, knife, spoon China: chopsticks Malaysia: fingers/hands
Culture Traits, cont.
•Change through time
Think: clothing styles in the USA from colonial period to today
How do cultures change?
•Assimilation•Innovation•Diffusion•Acculturation
Assimilation
1. When one culture group adapts to the attitudes, belief systems and ways of life of another culture. Usually, a weaker culture is absorbed by a more dominant culture
Think: Native Americans
Innovation
2. New ideas that are accepted into a culture.
Think: Horse v. cars, etc.
Diffusion
3. The spreading of culture; an innovation or cultural trait of one place is adopted by another culture. The spread can be gradual.
Think: Hip Hop or Rap Music
Think…
• What causes cultural diffusion?
• Does cultural diffusion threaten cultural diversity?
Music Clips
Acculturation
4. When one culture changes a great deal through its meeting with another culture. Usually a two-way process in which each culture changes the other.
Think: USA fast food and the growth of ethnic foods.