SOC 001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Ethnocentrism, American Sign Language, Cultural Relativism

• School: College of The Sequoias
• Department: Sociology (SOC)
• Course: SOC 001
• Professor: silva

Document Summary

Language: a system of shared symbols that enables people to communicate with one another. We are not born with it, we learn it. It directs our thinking, controls our actions, and gives us a sense of belonging. Value contradictions: values that seem in direct opposition to each other. Functionalists focus on culture as a cement that binds society. Conflict theorists argue that culture can generate enormous inequality. Interactionists study how people interpret and transmit culture. Multiculturalism refers to the coexistence of many cultures in the same geographic area, without any one culture dominating another. A subculture is a group or category of people whose distinctive ways of thinking, feelings, and acting differ somewhat from those of the larger society. Subcultures can be based on ethnicity, religion, politics, age, physical disability, or social class. A counterculture deliberately opposes and consciously rejects some of the basic beliefs, values, and norms of the dominant culture.