Angkor Khemara University Cultural Studies

Cultural Studies301
I. To define key terms following here:
 Culture: consists of knowledge, language, values, customs, and physical objects that
are passed from generation to generation among member of a group.
 Culture divides into two: Material culture and Non-material culture.
 Society: A group of people who live in a defined territory and participate a common
culture.
 Instincts: are genetically inherited pattern of behavior and instincts are not enough to
solve the problems that humans face.
 Heredity: the process by which characteristics are given from a parent to their child
through the genes.
 Reflexes: are biologically inherited which automatic reaction to physical stimulus.
 Drives: refers to impulse to reduce discomfort.
 Sociobiology: the scientific study of biological aspects of social behavior for human
and animals.
 Symbol is a thing that stands for or represents something else in other to
communicate to people around us, and we can show a symbol by gesturing or action.
 Language: the system of communication in speech and writing that is used by people
of a particular country or area.
 Hypothesis of linguistic relativity said that language is our guide to reality and our
perceptions of the world depend in part on the particular language we have learned.
 Norms: are the rules which guide us what we should do and shouldn’t do and know it
what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior and are followed by all people in a
society.
 Folkway: norms that cover customary ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving but
lack of moral significance.
 Mores: norms that have moral dimension and that should be followed by members of
the society, it is emerge slowly and are often unconsciously created by someone.
 Taboo: is the most serious mores of norms and its violation demands punishment by
the group of people or a society.
 Law: a norm that is formally defined and enforced by officials.
 Sanctions: are rewards and punishments used to encourage people conformity to
follow norms. Sanctions can be formal and informal.
 Formal sanctions: are sanctions that may be applied only by officially designated
persons such as judge and teachers. It has positive formal sanctions and negative
formal sanctions.
 Informal sanctions: are sanctions that can be applied by most members of group. It
can be positive informal sanctions and negative informal sanctions.
 Values: are broad ideas we consider what is good or desirable shared by people in a
society.
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 Nonmaterial culture: ideas, knowledge, and belief, that we cannot touch, or see,
and influence people’s behavior.
 Beliefs: are the ideas about the nature of reality. On the other hand, beliefs can
be true or false. Beliefs will be false when if they deeply belief in gods or
something too much. For example, Cambodian people beliefs that when we die,
we will be born. Furthermore, beliefs will be true based on factual evidence. For
instance, if a glass falls on the rock, it will be broken.
 Material culture: is the concrete, tangible objects of a culture that we can touch
such as building, chair, furniture, books and so on.
 Ideal culture: is the cultural guideline that that group member claim to accept,
and it consists of goals, imagination, models, so on and so forth.
 Real culture: refers to actual behavior patterns of members of a group, which
often conflict with these guidelines.
 Culture changes for three reasons: discovery, invention, and diffusion.
 Discovery: the process of finding something that already exists.
 Invention: the way of create something new.
 Diffusion: the borrowing of aspects of culture from other cultures.
 Culture diversity: culture difference exists in all societies which is a result of
social categories, that share a social characteristic such as age, gender, or religion
difference.
 Social categories: groupings of persons share a social characteristic such as age,
gender, or religion.
 Subculture: a group that is part of the dominant culture (whole culture of
country) but that differs from it in some important respects.
 Counterculture: a subculture deliberately and consciously opposed to certain
central beliefs or attitudes of dominant culture.
 Ethnocentrism : using our own culture other culture standards.
 Cultural universals: general culture traits that exist in all cultures.
 Cultural particulars: the way in which a culture expresses universal traits.
 Cultural universals exists because :biological similarity, physical environment,
and the same social problems.
 Socialization: is the cultural process of learning to participate in a group of
societies.
 The way to know how socialization important is to do the experiment on the two
groups of children which divides into control group and uncontrol group.
 Needs : divides into two physical needs and emotional needs.
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Week3

 There are three theoretical perspectives: functionalist perspectives, conflicts perspectives,

and symbolic interactionism.
 Functionalist perspectives: the way in which groups work together to create a stable society.
Moreover, if it does not exist in the whole country, it would be fragmented and chaotic.
 Conflicts perspectives: as the way of perpetuating (continued) the status the same situation
and it maintains the social, political, and economic advantages of the higher classes.
 Symbolic interactionism: nature is biologically determined and human is a product of
society.
 Symbolic interactionism help us understand socialization by:
 Self-concept: an image of yourself as having an identity separate from other people and help
you to know whom you are.
 Looking glass self: an image of yourself base on your thinking of other people thinking and
judgment of you.
 Looking glass self process works in three steps based on Cooley:
 First, we imagine how we appear to others (others ‘perception).
 Next, we imagine the reaction of others to our appearance (imagined).
 Finally, we evaluate ourselves according to how we imagine how others have judged
us.
 Significant others: those people whose reactions are most important to your self-concept.
 Role taking: assuming the viewpoint of another person and using that viewpoint to evaluate
the self-concept.
 Role taking divided into three stages:
 The imitation stage: around one and a half of two years, the child imitates (without
understanding) based on the physical and verbal behavior of significant others.
 The play stage: at the age of three or four, the stage during which children take on
role others one at a time.
 The game stage: this is the stage which should continue throughout life, that children
can take responsibilities by themselves.
 Generalized others: an integrated cooperation of the norms, values, and beliefs of one’s
community or society.
 I: the part of self that accounts for unlearned and spontaneous acts.
 Me: the part of self that already learned or socialized through socialization.
 Hidden curriculum: the informal and unofficial aspects of culture that children are taught in
school.
 Peer group: Set of individual of roughly the same age and interests.
 Mass media: means of communication designed to reach the general population.
 People: productive people and destructive people.
 Total institution: places where residents are separated from the rest of society and control
them by keeping them away from people and keep them in the mental hospital, cults, and
prison. All of them are already socialized.
 If people is not successfully socialized, and they behave badly in the society, so we are take
them in the Total institution and practice 4 steps:
 Desocialization: the process of giving up old norms, attitudes, values, and behaviors.
Angkor Khemara University Cultural Studies

 The way to desocialization and resocialization: extreme form (prison) and less-extreme
form.
 Resocialization: the process of adopting new norms, attitudes, values, and behaviors.
 Anticipatory socialization: the voluntary process of preparing in advance to accept new
norms, attitudes, values, and behaviors. In addition, you change because you want to get the
better the way/course of life and want to get something new.
 Reference group is the group they use to evaluate themselves and from which they acquire
attitudes, values, beliefs, and norms.
Family
 Family refers to a group of people related by marriage, blood, or adoption. In addition, it has
two are family of orientation and family of procreation.
 Family of orientation is the family which we were born and live with our family.
 Family of procreation is the family which marry already and make a new family.
Type of family
 Nuclear family ( parents and children)
 Extended family ( parents, children, and other close relatives)
 Blended family ( consists of step mother/father)
 Single parent family
 Dual career family.
 Pattern of family:
 Inheritance
 Authority
 Place of resident.
 Inheritance: determine to someone who becomes head of the family for purpose of descent
and owns the family property. Inheritance divided into three: Patrilineal, Matrilineal and
Bilateral.
 Patrilineal: the descent and inheritance is passed through the male line
 Matrilineal: the descent and inheritance is passed through the female line.
 Bilateral: descent and inheritance are passed equally through both parents.
 Authority: someone who has power to lead the family. It divided into three: Patriarchy,
Matriarchy, and equalitarian.
 Patriarchy: the pattern in which the oldest man in the family has authority to lead the
family.
 Matriarchy: the pattern in which the oldest woman in the family has authority to lead the
family.
 Equalitarian: family structure in which authority is evenly shared between husband and
wife.
 Place of residents refers to the newly married couples set up their household based on each
culture. There are three: patrilocal, matrilocal, and noelocal.
 Patrilocal: refers to patterns in which married couple live with or near the husband’s
parents.
 Matrilocal: refers to patterns in which married couples live with or near the wife’s parents.
 Neolocal: refers to the newly married couples set up their own households.
 Types of Marriage: Monogamy and polygamy.
 Monogamy: the marriage consists of one man and one woman.
Angkor Khemara University Cultural Studies

 Pologamy: the marriage of a male or female to more than one person at a time. It divided
into two : polygyny and polyandry.
 Polygyny: the marriage of one man to two or more women at the same time.
 Polyandry : the marriage of one woman to two or more men at the same time.
 Choosing a mate: refers to how to select or fine someone who really fair or appreciated to
us in other to making married. Those are four: Exogamy, endogamy, homogamy,
heterogamy.
 Exogamy: the practice of marrying outside one’s group.
 Endogamy: marriage within one’s own group as required by social norms.
 Homogamy: the tendency to marry someone similar to yourself.
 Heterogamy: marriage between people with differing social characteristics.

Thanks!