Culture and Education – Basic Concepts
What is culture?
Systems of agreed-upon meanings
Symbolic meaning is bestowed by users
People share cultural knowledge
(suspended webs of significance he himself has spun – Geertz, 1973:5)
Culture is shaped, constructed through language
Guidelines for conduct (groups live according to these meanings)
Acquired through learning (life-long process, early experiences important)
Patterned and social phenomena
Patterns of behavior, customs, beliefs acquired as members of society
Excludes individual actions and idiosyncrasies
Socialization/ Enculturation
Process by which cultural patterns are acquired; begins at birth
Children have no choice in the matter of enculturation
We all inherit ancient ways (methods refined in the past by thousands of minds)
Cultural transmission
Implicit, ongoing socialization process, especially for adults
Symbols in art, myth, ritual, story, media, public performances, conferences
Imitation of others; "cues" from others provided
Pervasive
We are receptors of "a constant flow of impalpable signals from…various sources, all of which combine to form attitudes, values, and conceptions about the surrounding world." (Barrett 1991: 67)
Cultural Code
A mental map of how the world works
Involves knowledge of norms, rules - Specifies conduct under specific conditions
Results in predictability (traffic rules, harvest time, courtship expectations)
Unconscious
Consequences of Culture
Moral dimension
Beliefs about what is "natural"
Ethnocentrism
Differences are often disruptive, disturbing
We exclude those who are culturally different
Supports adaptation to various environments (makes rapid change possible)
Cultural persistence, stability over time
Individual variations are inevitable
Variations in socialization process (role models, expectations, resources, SES/class
Socialization process is imprecise
Humans have agency, capacity for "resistance"
Last update: 10/12/01Back to Human Development Handouts Page