SOCI-1015EL Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Subculture, Pierre Bourdieu, Cultural Capital
16 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
SOCI-1015
September 26th, 2017
Culture
What is culture?
•a system of behaviours, beliefs, knowledge, practices, values and material artifacts such
as buildings, tools and sacred items.
•Multiple cultures, dynamic, change
•Contested: what is contested?
•Who/what belongs to a culture?
•Internal and externally contested
•e.g.) authenticity/what is true to a particular culture
How is it talked about in literature?
•distinguished along two central oppositions
1. Dominant VS subculture & counter-culture
2. High cultures VS popular & mass culture.
Dominant Cultures
•have influential political and economic power
•Impose values, language, and ways of behaving, and interpreting behaviour on a given
society
•Who belongs to Canada’s dominant culture?
•white people, english speaking, heterosexual, men- specifically uni grads of European
backgrounds, between ages 30-55, of good health, own homes (middle class
neighbourhoods) in cities in Quebec or Ontario.
Subcultures & Countercultures
•Minority cultures (fewer)
•outside cultural mainstream
•Subculture:
•group of people
•Share distinctive set of beliefs
•share set of practices
•different from dominant culture
