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Culture is a relative concept because cultural norms only make sense within the context of a specific worldview and location. Language, gestures, and other cultural signifiers are meaningless in and of themselves. However, it is so easy to take our own cultural ideas for granted; we assume that our concepts of culture are 'the norm.' For example, in America, it was considered shocking during World War II when Japanese kamikaze pilots sacrificed their lives on bombing missions. This idea was a profound affront to American ideas of the importance of the individual. However, someone from outside of mainstream American culture, such as a devout Quaker, might take a stand as a conscientious objector and state that all war is morally wrong, seeing no difference between the Japanese sending bombers out with only enough fuel for a one way flight and Americans sending their own young men out to a slightly less likely, but still possible, demise during the same war.
Cultural values...
In relatively high-context cultures, where social gestures mean a great deal, refusing to dine at someone's house by saying "I am not hungry" might be regarded as a tremendous affront. However, someone from a low-context culture, where meanings are literal rather than highly dependent upon relationships, might simply mean that he or she was not hungry in the refusal of the dinner invitation. Perceptions of power relationships may also vary from culture to culture. In some high-context cultures, age and/or a position on a hierarchy means that a person must be deferred to, regardless of the quality of his or her ideas. In lower-context cultures, the quality of the idea, regardless of the origin is given predominance.
In this analysis, it might seem that the values of 'saying what you mean' and ignoring social status indicate that low-context cultures are somehow superior to high-context cultures. However, our perceptions…
This is not hubris or the idea that the author of this response is any "better" than that of Giddens. However, sociology texts and summaries seem to leave out the idea that some actions, thought patterns and mindsets that are cultural and/or societal in nature make little to no logical or basic sense in the grand scheme of things. However, perhaps a covering of that dynamic would be too
(Frazer 8) to this end she develops the categories of "affirmation" and "transformation." In understanding Frazer's view it is imperative to bear in mind that older regimes of theory cannot achieve the synthesis that she is looking for and that new and more creative modes of political and social theory are necessary. In essence what Fraser suggests is that in order to overcome this antimony between redistribution and recognition and
There is some suggestion on observation that many students of the dominant norm on campus do not engage in activities that might help Asian or other minority students feel as though they were members of a unique family or society with no racial or cultural boundaries. Rather, there is much in the way of stereotypical behaviors observed among the subtype population and the larger student body (Anderson & Taylor,
Sociology The difference between micro and macro perspectives in sociology is that the latter looks into the role of social institutions in influencing social life and interaction, while the former is centered on studying social interaction itself, which happens between individuals or people who are also members of the society. The distinction between the two perspectives become easier to understand when applied in the context of a particular social phenomenon, such as
Sociology: Changing Societies in a Diverse World (Fourth Edition) George J. Bryjak & Michael P. Soroka Chapter One Summary of Key Concepts Sociology is the field of study which seeks to "describe, explain, and predict human social patterns" from a scientific perspective. And though Sociology is part of the social sciences (such as psychology and anthropology), it is quite set apart from the other disciplines in social science; that is because it emphasizes
Sociology Symbolic-interactionism is a dynamic theory of society that emphasizes process and change over institution and structure. In Symbolic Interactionism, Joel Charon describes the theory and applies it to a more general study of sociology. In Terrorism and the Politics of Fear, David Altheide applies various theories of sociology including symbolic-interactionism toward understanding how a society collectively agrees upon fear-based symbols and messages. In Chapter 11, "Society," Joel M. Charon defines society