CHAPTER 4 : Culture and Socialisation NCERT SOLUTION CLASS 11TH Sociology | EDUGROWN NOTES

SHORT ANSWER TYPE QUESTION:

Q1.How does the understanding of culture in social science differ from the everyday use of the word `culture’?

Answer:

The use of the word ‘culture’ in everyday life is limited, which refers to the artistic performances such as dance, music, painting, drama etc. But social science understands culture in a scientific and prescribed way that is not only limited to drawing and painting but more than it. Culture has shaped our life and the society as a whole. In sociological terms, culture implies the common understanding which is learnt and developed through social interaction and then passed on to the next generation.

Therefore, in everyday use, the term culture is used for individuals, whereas in sociology, it is used to denote the entire group or the society.

Edward Tylor was the first anthropologist to define culture that includes abstract and intangible dimensions. Later, Bronislaw Malinowski defined culture, which included the use of materials as well.

Q2.How can we demonstrate that the different dimensions of culture comprise a whole?

Answer:

There are three dimensions of culture cognitive, normative and material that comprise a whole.

(i) Cognitive: It refers to how we learn to process what we see and hear so as to give it a meaning. For example, looking at a flag and associating it with the country to which it belongs. Symbolising the waving of hand as a means of saying goodbye. Thus, every culture has given a different meaning to different actions.

(ii) Normative: It refers to the rules of conduct. Every society has some rules according to which its members have to behave. As a result, this behaviour and action of the individuals become the culture of that society.

(iii) Material: It includes any activity which is made possible by the means of materials. It also includes tools and machines, which is said to be a part of the culture.

In the present industrial societies, advanced technology and machines are used. Some societies use them in abundance such as, USA while some do not make much use of it, such as Afghanistan. Thus, use of various materials in different ways for various purposes shows the culture of that society.

Therefore, culture can be identified as material and non-material. For the proper and integrated functioning of the culture, both material and non-material dimensions work together as a whole. The use of materials having different notions and ways of understanding different signs and symbols with certain rules of conduct as a whole describes the culture of that society.

Q3.Compare two cultures with which you are familiar. Is it difficult not to be ethnocentric?

Answer:

Note: Any answer supported with argument or explanation would solve the purpose.

One sample answer has been provided to you:

The two cultures with which we are familiar are:

(i) Urban culture

(ii) Rural culture

The urban culture represents the life in a city, while the rural culture represents the life in a village. In a city, there are industries for people to work with machines, on the other hand, in a village people work in farms to produce crops. The life in villages is simpler and traditional as compared to that of the life in a city. In a city, there is an emphasis on individualism, while in villages more importance is given to groups.

Hence, the way of life, culture, occupation and thinking is different in urban and rural areas.

Ethnocentrism means giving value to one’s own culture and regarding the other culture as inferior. Yes, it is difficult not to be ethnocentric because people mostly give value and superiority to one’s own culture. If we compare the villages and cities, it would be obvious that the villagers carry the notion that their culture is better because it is embedded with societal norms, values and traditions. On the other hand, the city dwellers would consider their culture superior because it is modern and liberal.

Historically also, the colonialists considered their culture superior and better to that of the colonised countries. The notion of ethnocentrism generates differences and wars between many ethnic and racial groups. For example, the riots of Godhra and Babri Masjid were a result of ethnocentrism.

Therefore, it is correct to say that it is difficult for people not to be ethnocentric even in contemporary societies.

Q4.Discuss two different approaches to studying cultural change.

Answer:

Cultural change is a way in which society changes its patterns of culture. Cultural change takes place through the process of adaptation, contact with other cultures and changes in the natural environment. This change is associated with many sources that can be external factors or can be the internal adjustments of the culture.

There are two different approaches of cultural change:

(i) Evolutionary

(ii) Revolutionary

Evolutionary change is slow, for instance in the case of education. In ancient times, the individuals were often taught orally. Gradually with the discovery of paper, writing and publication of books started. Eventually, new subjects were introduced according to the need of the society. Further, with the introduction of industrialisation, focus on professional courses also increased and with the introduction of information technology and globalisation the new ways of teaching emerged. Finally, several instruments and gadgets like computer and use of internet was invented.

Contrary to this, revolutionary change is fast. For instance, revolutionary change takes place through political intervention, as in the case of France. After the French Revolution the estate system of ranking was destroyed and the values of liberty and equality in the society were established. This was a radical change in the society and its culture.

Q5.Is cosmopolitanism something you associate with modernity? Observe and give examples of ethnocentrism.

Answer:

Cosmopolitanism means valuing other cultures for their difference. A cosmopolitan perception is always ready to adapt other cultures and share its own culture with others.

In this process of sharing, neither foreign culture becomes the legitimate part of one’s own culture, nor does the indigenous culture lose its base. Hence, it respects every culture.

Cosmopolitanism is associated with modernity, in contemporary period, as it is emerging in most parts of the world. Since modernity has to deal with time, cosmopolitanism is phenomenon of the modern world.

Ethnocentrism, on the other hand, refers to the standard cultural values that are considered more superior to that of cultural values of others. For example, the British people were ethnocentric as they regarded the Indian culture as primitive and orthodox. Similarly, the people belonging to cities consider the people of villages inferior to them. The above examples show that unlike cosmopolitanism, ethnocentrism ranks the culture as superior or inferior.

Q6.What in your mind is the most effective agent of socialisation for your generation? How do you think it was different before?

Answer:

Note: Any answer supported with argument or explanation would solve the purpose.

One sample answer has been provided to you:

In contemporary time, the mass media has emerged as a strong agent of socialisation. Earlier, family and the peer group was the socialising agent in an individual’s life. However, now, due to penetration of information technology into the house, people spend more time in front of computers and television sets, than being with their families and friends.

Children have started adopting new ways from what they watch on televisions. For instance, they choose their own career and lead a self-chosen lifestyle. They stay connected with their friends through internet and they even depend on the internet for their studies. Hence, their dependence on visual media is much more than that of print media.

Not only children, but even women, men and old age people are getting affected by mass media. Magazines, newspapers, radio, advertisements, etc. provide information on various aspects such as health, decoration, eating habits etc. Mass media has therefore spread itself in every sphere of our lives.

It gives a shape to our personality and ideas at every stage of life. It had its influence on the society earlier as well but this influence was little.

Thus, it is a boon for our society, as mass media has connected the world with one touch. For instance, on internet, information is available with just one click and with a touch one can view everything on television. Mass media has affected the society and also promoted globalisation. It has decreased the distance between different parts of the world.

Life before introduction of mass media was very different as people had very little information of the rest of the world. There was no television, radio, newspaper or internet. People in earlier days had to make a lot of effort to gather information and also to spread it.

Long Answer Type Questions :

Q1.Discuss dimensions of culture.
Answer:
Cognitive-Ideas and beliefs
Normative-Norms (Value, norms, sanctions).
Customs or normative something is right or wrong-not an idea of something. Cognitive, myths, superstition, belief, customs, stories (mostly not true)

• Ideas etc. which refer to the thinking of the people, our understanding, how we absorb all information we get from the society. ‘
• Little tradition: It is transmitted orally from generation to generation in the form of songs/plays, stories (folklores) etc. It moves in illiterate and rural societies.
• Great tradition: It is transmitted from generation to generation through written work. Usually in literate societies ideas are recorded, written down and are available to us in the form of books etc.
• It is the cognitive dimension of culture which helps us to comprehend and relate to the societies.
• Little and great tradition can be converted into each other.
• Universalisation—converting great to little tradition.

Normative
It deals with controlling people’s behaviour by rules, norms, customs, values. It is basically different ways of controlling deviant behaviour.
To make society disciplined, to behave in a particular way etc.

Q2.How laws are different from norms?
Answer:
Laws may be formal and written exercised by institutions e.g.; Parliament, police.
Laws are explicit-very clear on paper and are the same for everybody in that society. They also provide severe, specific, unchangeable punishment. Rewards in forms of citations, medal, honor, cash prize, Bharat Ratna. Formal laws are the same everywhere and depend upon societal requirement.
Norms: Norms are informal and unwritten. They are exercised by the primary group which includes family and friends.
Laws are:

• Implicit: Ambiguity can be there, depends upon the people and situations.
• Punishment given in indifferent contexts.
• Informal reward like pat on back etc. hug etc.
• Differs from person to person, place to place, based on values/cultures of society.

Q3.What do you mean by cultural lag? Discuss its main features.
Answer: Cultural lag: When the material culture is moving ahead and fast with times, but the non-material culture is not able to keep up with the fast pace of material culture propounded the theory a cultural lag.

• Let us consider the basic need of hunger. We know that it has a biological basis, which is common among animals and human beings, but the way this need is gratified by human beings is extremely complex. For example, some people eat vegetarian food, while others eat non-vegetarian food.
• Sexual behaviour can be taken as another example. We know that this behaviour involves hormones and reflexive reactions in animals and human beings alike.
• While among animals sexual behaviour is fairly simple and reflexive (all animals indulge in sexual behaviour almost in the same manner).
• It is so complex among human beings that it can hardly be described as reflexive.
• Partner preferences are a key feature of human sexual behaviour. The bases of these preferences widely differ within and across societies.
• Human sexual behaviour is also governed by many rules, standards, values, and laws.
• These examples illustrate that biological factors alone cannot help us very much in understanding human behaviour.
• Human nature has evolved through an interplay of biological and cultural forces. These forces have made us similar in many ways and different in others.

Q4.Explain the concept of culture.
Answer:
Concept of culture
Human behaviour is fundamentally social. It involves relationships with other people, reactions to their behaviour, and engagement with innumerable products made available to us by our predecessors. Although many other species are also social like us, human beings are cultural as well.

In the simplest terms, culture refers to “the man-made part of the environment”. It comprises diverse products of the behaviour of many people, including ourselves. These products can be material objects (e.g., tools, sculptures), ideas (e.g., family, school). We find them almost everywhere. They influence behaviour, although we may not always be aware of it.

Let us look at some examples. The room you might be in now is a cultural product. It is the result of someone’s architectural ideas and building skills. Your room may be rectangular, but there are many places where rooms are not rectangular (e.g., those of Eskimos).

You might be sitting on a chair that some people designed and built some time ago. Since sitting in a chair requires a particular posture, this invention is shaping your behaviour. There are societies without chairs. Just try to think how people in those societies would be sitting in order to do some reading.
Much of our life as human beings involves interacting with various cultural products and behaving in accordance with them. This means that culture shapes our behaviour in a significant manner.

Q5.How culture and society are related to each other?
Answer:
The terms ‘culture’ and ‘society’ are often considered to carry similar meaning. Let us note at this point that they are not the same thing. A society is a group of people who occupy a particular territory and speak a common language not generally understood by neighbouring people. A society may or may not be single nation, but every society has its own culture. It is culture that shapes human behaviour from society to society. Culture is the label for all the different features that vary from society to society. It is these different features of society whose influences psychologists want to examine in their studies of human behaviour. Thus, a group of people, who manage their livelihood through hunting and gathering in forests, would present a life characterised by certain features that will not be found in a society that lives mainly on agricultural produce or wage earnings.

Q6.Discuss various socialisation agents of society.
Answer:
Socialisation agents of society:

• A number of people who relate to us possess power to socialise us. Such people . are called “socialisation agents”.
• Parents and family members are the most significant socialisation agents.
• Legal responsibility of child care, too, lies with parents. Their task is to nurture children in such a manner that their natural potentials are maximized and negative behaviour tendencies are minimized or controlled.

Parents

• Parents have most direct and significant impact on children’s development. Children respond in different ways to parents in different situations.
• Parents encourage certain behaviours by rewarding them verbally (e.g., praising) or in other tangible ways (e.g., buying chocolates or objects of child’s desire). They also discourage certain behaviours through non-approving behaviours.
• They also arrange to put children in a variety of positive experiences, learning opportunities, and challenges. While interacting with children parents adopt different strategies, which are generally known as parenting styles.
• A distinction is made between authoritative, authoritarian and democratic or permissive parenting styles.
• Studies indicate that parents vary enormously in the treatment of children in terms of their degree of acceptance and degree of control.
•  The conditions of life in which parents live (poverty, illness, job stress, nature of family) also influence the styles they adopt in socialising children.

School

• School is another important socialising agent. Since children spend a long time in schools, which provide them with a fairly organised set up for interaction with teachers and peers.
• Nowadays school is being viewed as a more important agent of child socialisation than parents and family. Children learn not only cognitive skills (e.g., reading, writing, doing mathematics) but also many social skills (e.g., ways of behaving with elders and age mates, accepting roles, fulfilling responsibilities).
• They also learn and internalise the norms and rules of society.
• Several other positive qualities, such as self-initiative, self-control, responsibility and creativity are encouraged in schools.

Peer Groups

• Friendship acquires great significance in this respect.
• It provides children not only with a good opportunity to be in company of others, but also for organising various activities (e.g., play) collectively with the members of their own age.
• Question ualities like sharing, trust, mutual understanding, role acceptance and fulfilment develop in interaction with peers.
• Children also learn to assert their own point of view and accept and adapt to those of others.
• Development of self-identity is greatly facilitated by the peer group. Since communication of children with peer groups is direct, process of socialisation is generally smooth.

Media influences

• In recent years media has also become the medium of socialisation.
• Through television, newspapers, books and cinema the external world has made/ is making its way into our home and our lives.
• While children learn about many things from these sources, adolescents and young adults often derive their models from them, particularly from television and cinema.
• There is a need to use this agent of socialisation in a better way in order to prevent children from developing undesirable behaviours.

Q7.What is acculturation?
Answer:
Culture is determined by dynamic and evolving process. It is not static. Cultural changes occur due to acculturation and defusion.

• Acculturation refers to cultural and psychological changes resulting from contact with other cultures.
• Contact may be direct (e.g., when one moves and settles in a new culture) or indirect (e.g., through media or other means).
• It may be voluntary (e.g., when one goes abroad for higher studies, training, job, or trade) or involuntary (e.g., through colonial experience, invasion, political refuge).
• In both cases, people often need to learn (and also they do learn) something new to negotiate life with people of other cultural groups. For example, during the British rule in India many individuals and groups adopted several aspects of British lifestyle.
• Acculturation can take place any time in one’s life. Whenever it occurs, it requires re-leaming of norms, values, dispositions, and patterns of behaviour.
• For any acculturation to take place contact with another cultural group is essential. This often generates some sort of conflict. Since people cannot live in a state of conflict for a long time, they often resort to certain strategies to resolve their conflicts.
• Studies carried out with immigrants to western countries and native or tribal people in different parts of the world have revealed that people have various options to deal with the problem of acculturative changes. Thus, the course of acculturative change is multidirectional.
• Changes due to acculturation may be examined at subjective and objective levels. At the subjective level, changes are often reflected in people’s attitudes towards change. They are referred to as acculturation attitudes. At the objective level, changes are reflected in people’s day-to-day behaviours and activities. These are referred to as acculturation strategies.

Q8.Discuss differences between social change and cultural change.
Answer:
Malinowike, Gillin and Gillin and others gave their same opinions regarding social and cultural changes.
However Prof. Dawis has pointed out some difference between the two. According to him, change in social structure only represents social change.

Some important differences between social and cultural changes are:
Social Change:

• Change in social relations
• Change in social structure and relationship is a must.
• Scope of social change is limited.
• Social change effects culture.
• Society has its roots in the present, hence change in it has relative implications.

Cultural Change

• Changes in religion and art, language or literature which in turn effect social relationships.
• Cultural change is primarily responsible for new discoveries, inventions and change in cultural activities.
• Scope of cultural change is large.
• Cultural change effects social change.
• As culture has got its roots in their past, hence change in it has relatively less implications.

If society is a tributary while culture is the main river, cultural changes are more relevant. Still both the changes cannot be taken independently from each other as they effect mutually.

Q9.How material culture is different from non-material culture?
Answer:
Material Culture: Anything paid for stuff or money related is example of material culture. Material culture is tangible, concrete, physical, quantified and can be replaced. Non-material Culture: Values, respect, honesty, consideration, gratitude etc. are non-material culture.

Values are basically morals.
Values are those which are concerned with the morals of human beings. They are either right or wrong. They guide us as to how we are supposed to behave in society.
They define, what is proper and improper for an individual in order to reach his/her goal as per societal norms.
Non-material culture is standard of social life. Certain values which everyone has to follow in social life are: honesty, respect, integrity, responsibility.