Chapter – 4

Culture and Socialisation

In this post we have given the detailed notes of Class 11 Sociology Chapter 4 (Culture and Socialisation) in English. These notes are useful for the students who are going to appear in Class 11 board exams.

Chapter 4: Culture and Socialisation

Introduction

• Culture is a term used frequently and sometimes vaguely.  
• Sociologists and anthropologists study the social contexts within which culture exists.  
• Culture is the common understanding, which is learnt and developed through social interaction with others in society.  
• Cultures are never finished products.  
• They are always changing and evolving.  
• The capacity of individuals to develop a common understanding with others and to draw the same meanings from signs and symbols is what distinguishes humans from other animals.  
• Creating meaning is a social virtue as we learn it in the company of others in families, groups and communities.  
• We learn the use of tools and techniques as well as the non-material signs and symbols through interaction with family members, friends and colleagues in different social settings.  
• Much of this knowledge is systematically described and conveyed either orally or through books.  

Diverse Settings, Different Cultures

• Humans live in a variety of natural settings like in the mountains and plains, in forests and clear lands, in deserts and river valleys, in islands and main lands.  
• They also inhabit different social set up like in villages, towns and cities.  
• In different environments, people adapt different strategies to cope with the natural and social conditions.  
• This leads to the emergence of diverse ways of life or cultures.  
• Cultures cannot be ranked but can be judged adequate or inadequate in terms of their ability to cope with the strains imposed by nature.  
• For example, the ‘primitive’ tribal communities in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands like the Onges, Jarawas, Great Andamanese or Shompens who had no access to modern science and technology, foresaw the calamity based on their experiential knowledge and saved themselves by moving on to higher ground during the devastating tsunami of 26 December 2004.  

Defining Culture

• Often the term ‘culture’ is used to refer to the acquiring of refined taste in classical music, dance forms or painting.  
• This refined taste was thought to distinguish people from the ‘uncul-tured’ masses, even concerning something we would today see as individual, like the preference for coffee over tea!  
• By contrast, the sociologist looks at culture not as something that distinguishes individuals, but as a way of life in which all members of society participate.
• Every social organisation develops a culture of its own.
• One early anthropological definition of culture comes from the British scholar Edward Tylor: “Culture or civilisation taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor 1871).
• Two generations later, the founder of the “functional school” of anthropology, Bronislaw Malinowski of Poland (1884-1942) wrote: “Culture comprises inherited artifacts, goods, technical process, ideas, habits and values” (Malinowski 1931:621-46).  
• Clifford Geertz suggested that we look at human actions in the same way as we look at words in a book, and see them as conveying a message.  
• The search is not for a causal explanation, but for an interpretative one, that is in search for meaning (Geertz 1973:5).  
• Likewise Leslie White had placed a comparable emphasis on culture as a means of adding meaning to objective reality, using the example of people regarding water from a particular source as holy.  

Dimensions of Culture

• Three dimensions of culture have been distinguished:
  • Cognitive: This refers to how we learn to process what we hear or see, so as to give it meaning (identifying the ring of a cell-phone as ours, recognising the cartoon of a politician).  
  • Normative: This refers to rules of conduct (not opening other people’s letters, performing rituals at death).  
  • Material: This includes any activity made possible by means of materials. Materials also include tools or machines. Examples include internet ‘chatting’, using rice-flour paste to design kolam on floors.  

Cognitive Aspects of Culture

• The cognitive aspects of one’s own culture are harder to recognise than its material aspects (which are tangible or visible or audible) and its normative aspects (which are explicitly stated).  
• Cognition refers to understanding, how we make sense of all the information coming to us from our environment.  
• In literate societies ideas are transcribed in books and documents and preserved in libraries, instititutions or archives.  
• But in non-literate societies legend or lore is committed to memory and transmitted orally.  
• There are specialist practitioners of oral tradition who are trained to remember and narrate during ritual or festive occasions.  
• In his influential book, Orality and Literacy Walter Ong cites a study of 1971 that states that only 78 of the approximately 3,000 existing languages possess literature.  
• Ong suggests that material that is not written down has certain specific characteristics.  
• There is a lot of repetition of words, to make it simpler to remember.  
• The audience of an oral performance is likely to be more receptive and involved than would be readers of a written text from an unfamiliar culture.  
• Texts become more elaborate when they are written.  

Normative Aspects of Culture

• The normative dimension consists of folkways, mores, customs, conven-tions and laws.  
• These are values or rules that guide social behaviour in different contexts.  
• We most often follow social norms because we are used to doing it, as a result of socialisation.  
• All social norms are accompanied by sanctions that promote conformity.  
• We have already discussed social control in Chapter 2.  
• While norms are implicit rules, laws are explicit rules.  
• A law is a formal sanction defined by government as a rule or principle that its citizens must follow.  
• Laws are explicit.  
• They are applicable to the whole society.  
• And a violation of the law attracts penalties and punishment.  
• Laws, which derive from the authority of the State are the most formal definitions of acceptable behaviour.  
• While different schools may establish different norms for students, laws would apply to all those accepting the authority of the State.  
• Unlike laws, norms can vary according to status.  
• Dominant sections of society apply dominant norms.  
• Often these norms are discriminating.  

Material Aspects of Culture

• The material aspect refers to tools, technologies, machines, buildings and modes of transportation, as well as instruments of production and communication.  
• In urban areas the widespread use of mobile phones, music systems, cars and buses, ATMs (automated teller machines), refri-gerators and computers in everyday life indicates the dependence on technology.  
• Even in rural areas the use of transistor radios or electric motor pumps for lifting water from below the surface for irrigation demonstrates the adoption of technological devices for increasing production.  
• In sum there are two principal dimensions of culture: material and non-material.  
• While the cognitive and normative aspects are non-material, the material dimension is crucial to increase production and enhance the quality of life.  
• For integrated functioning of a culture the material and non-material dimensions must work together.  
• But when the material or technological dimensions change rapidly, the non-material aspects can lag behind in terms of values and norms.  
• This can give rise to a situation of culture lag when the non-material dimensions are unable to match the advances of technology.  

Culture and Identity

• Identities are not inherited but fashioned both by the individual and the group through their relationship with others.  
• For the individual the social roles that s/he plays imparts identity.  
• Every person in modern society plays multiple roles.  
• For instance within the family s/he may be a parent or a child but for each of the specific roles there are particular responsibilities and powers.  
• It is not sufficient to enact roles.  
• They also have to be recognised and acknowledged.  
• This can often be done through the recognition of the particular language that is used among role players.  
• In a culture there can be many sub-cultures, like that of the elite and working class youth.  
• Sub-cultures are marked by style, taste and association.  
• Particular sub-cultures are identifiable by their speech, dress codes, preference for particular kind of music or the manner in which they interact with their group members.  
• Sub-cultural groups can also function as cohesive units which impart an identity to all group members.  

Ethnocentrism

• It is only when cultures come into contact with one another that the question of ethnocentrism arises.  
• Ethnocentrism is the application of one’s own cultural values in evaluating the behaviour and beliefs of people from other cultures.  
• This means that the cultural values projected as the standard or norm are considered superior to that of the beliefs and values of other cultures.  
• We have seen in Chapter 1 and in Chapter 3 (particularly in the discussion on religion) how sociology is an empirical and not a normative discipline.  
• Underlying ethnocentric compari-sons is a sense of cultural superiority clearly demonstrated in colonial situations.  
• Ethnocentrism is the opposite of cosmopolitanism, which values other cultures for their difference.  
• A cosmopolitan outlook does not seek to evaluate the values and beliefs of other people according to one’s own.  
• It celebrates and accommodates different cultural propensities within its fold and promotes cultural exchange and borrowings to enrich one’s own culture.  

Cultural Change

• Cultural change is the way in which societies change their patterns of culture.  
• The impetus for change can be internal or external.  
• Cultural change can occur through changes in the natural environment, contact with other cultures or processes of adaptation.  
• Changes in the natural environment or ecology can drastically alter the way of life of a people.  
• Along with evolutionary change there can also be revolutionary change.  
• When a culture is transformed rapidly and its values and meaning systems undergo a radical change then revolutionary change takes place.  
• Revolutionary change can be initiated through political intervention, technological innovation or ecological transformation.  

Socialisation

• Socialisation can be defined as the process whereby the helpless infant gradually becomes a self-aware, knowledgeable person, skilled in the ways of the culture into which s/he is born.  
• Indeed without socialisation an individual would not behave like a human being.  
• Socialisation is a life-long process even though the most critical process happens in the early years, the stage of primary socialisation.  
• Secondary socialisation as we saw extends over the entire life of a person.  
• While socialisation has an important impact on individuals it is not a kind of ‘cultural programming’, in which the child absorbs passively the influences with which he or she comes into contact.  
• Even the most recent new-born can assert her/his will.  
• S/he will cry when hungry.  
• And keep crying until those responsible for the infant’s care respond.  

Agencies of Socialisation

• The child is socialised by several agencies and institutions in which s/he participates, viz. family, school, peer group, neighbourhood, occupational group and by social class/caste, region, religion.

  • Family:

    • Since family systems vary widely, the infants’ experiences are by no means standard across cultures.  
    • While many of you may be living in what is termed a nuclear family with your parents and siblings, others may be living with extended family members.  
    • In the first case, parents may be key socialising agents but in the others grandparents, an uncle or a cousin may be more significant.  

  • Peer Groups:

    • Another socialising agency is the peer group.  
    • Peer groups are friendship groups of children of a similar age.  
    • In some cultures, particularly small traditional societies, peer groups are formalised as age-grades.  

  • Schools:

    • Schooling is a formal organisation: there is a definite number of subjects studied.  
    • Yet schools are agencies of socialisation in more subtle respects too.  
    • Alongside the formal curriculum there is what some sociologists have called a hidden curriculum conditioning children’s learning.  

  • Mass Media:

    • Mass media has increasingly become an essential part of our everyday life.  
    • While today the electronic media like the television is expanding, the print media continues to be of great importance.  

Socialisation and Individual Freedom

• It is perhaps evident that socialisation in normal circumstances can never completely reduce people to conformity.  
• Many factors encourage conflict.  
• There may be conflicts between socialising agencies, between school and home, between home and peer groups.  
• Yet socialisation is also at the origin of our very individuality and freedom.

• In the course of socialisation each of us develops a sense of self-identity, and the capacity for independent thought and action.  
• Socialisation may also be seen as the process through which individuals learn to participate in social life successfully.  

How Gendered is Socialisation?

• Socialisation can be gendered, meaning that it can be different for boys and girls.  
• For example, boys may be allowed to play in the streets more freely than girls.  
• This can lead to different experiences and opportunities for boys and girls, which can have a lasting impact on their lives.  

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