Our SHSubculture

HW: Read Kohl's Values Americans Live By in your packet.

Subcultures are smaller worlds within larger cultures.  Subcultures follow the overall culture of a society, but they have distinct elements of their own culture that separate them. 

1.  Individually:  What is a subculture that you are a part of?  Use your notes to help you, if you are not sure what a subculture is.  Why is this group a subculture?  What are some unique, interesting aspects about this group that the non-members will not know?

2.  In small groups, discuss the culture at Stevenson.  What makes us so special that visitors from all over the country come to visit and study us?  Is there enough of a difference to consider ourselves a special subculture?  As a group, find elements of culture that make us different from America:

Today's lesson was about what makes a subculture.  A subculture is part of a larger culture, but it has its own unique cultural aspects.  To illustrate how this works, we used our school as an example.  Why do so many visitors come here to see us?  What makes us so different?  Is our school a subculture?  To examine this, we reviewed these cultural traits and applied them to our school:

• Material Culture;  all the physical stuff unique to our school:  the buildings, uniforms, guidebook
• Mores: really serious norms that would disrupt the culture if violated: Walking on the right side of the hall/stairwell, not stopping in the hall or stairwell, not cheating, not fighting, knowing where to park, knowing how to be called out.  All of these are important norms.  If you violate them, there will punishment or judgement against you.
• Folkways: norms that do not have serious moral implications;  being late to class, saying the pledge, no drinks or snacks outside the commons and not wearing green & gold on spirit days all are norms that are frequently violated without serious disruption to the school culture.
• Taboos; Norms that are so accepted, they are not even talked about:  pregnancy & sex, use of drugs outside of school; these are activities that are embarrassing to even talk about.
• Language: PAC, link, traveller, FMP, LOP, Glass commons, wood commons, 
• Symbols: the Patriot (six fingers :-), the SHS seal, the statue, green and gold, 
• Values: going to college, grades, competitiveness; These values are the most important in shaping our school culture.  They pervade every part of the school culture and they are a part of students, teachers, parents and administrators, but this is the hardest aspect of culture to see.  

For some perspective, here are some examples of other schools' cultures.

Do you see how the values we have here might separate us from other schools?  Do you see how they shape so much of what we do here?  I do not know if it counts as a "subculture" by sociological standards, but I think these values are what many of those visitors are searching for in their own schools. For your own thoughts, what subculture(s) are you a part of? What are the traits that make your subculture unique?

Takeaway (For more info see Ferris and Stein 83-85):

What is a subculture?

Why are values important to a culture?

What is a counter culture?

How did the chicken cross the road?

Yesterday's Mindfulness Takeaway:
Gestures and language.  Why are these important?

Today: Cultural Norms - What is expected behavior?

Levine and Wolff published an article about different ways that social scientists researched time in various cultures.  See the article called Social Time here.

 Using the article, please answer these questions:

1. What is the authors' overall claim?

2. What evidence did the authors cite from Brazil?

3. What evidence does language provide?

4.  What other data did researchers use to study time around the world?

Here is more research about time around how time is socially constructed.

Different cultures' perceptions of time are another component of non-material culture called norms.

Norms are what a culture considers normal, acceptable behavior.  Norms vary around the world. One example of this is the norms centered around time. How do people from different cultures think about time differently? What do they consider late or early? These are norms.  Here is a list of other norms from around the world.  It is important to recognize these norms in cross-cultural communication. If we fail to acknowledge these differences we run the risk of offending someone or worse, a whole culture of people.

And this graphic explains varying norms from around the world.

When traveling to different cultures, 'how' the chicken crossed the road seems to be more relevant than 'why'. When I was in Italy, it took me six days to figure out how to cross the street. There were scooters and cars swerving everywhere and honking. Every time I tried to cross the street, cars would screech to a stop and swear at me in Italian. Then I figured out how to do it. Just walk a steady pace across the street and let them avoid you - and it worked! This knowledge of how to cross the street is an important norm, what sociologists call a more.   Mores are important to the order of a society. If you violate them, it will cause a disruption in the social setting. Other norms that are less important are called folkways. Folkways are not crucial to the order of society and if you were to violate a folkway people would not necessarily judge you. The more of how to cross a street can be found in lots of videos on youtube. Watch this video from India. Note how the person crossing the street is aware of the norms of traffic and so the pedestrian successfully crosses without getting hit. It is worth noting that these mores, although very important to the society, are not necessarily laws. Similar to the ideas of time being a social construct, they are just the way that people operate and even though they are not written into laws, they are important to the function of society. Watch this video of an intersection in India and think about who has the right of way? There may not be a law about it, but those drivers know what they are doing, but would an American?

Have you experienced a different set of norms from another culture either by traveling somewhere or by meeting a foreigner here in America? What was it like? Were there misunderstandings?
Something else that you might want to inquire about is another culture's norms;  where you would like to travel?  What are all of the norms you should know if you travel there?  Find out what unique norms exist in their culture. Here is a link to cultural etiquette around the world.

This port-a-potty was the creation of an artist in Switzerland.  Would you be able to use it?
It looks like this from the inside:

Would you be able to use a toilet if it looked like everyone could see you, even though you knew they could not? This is a taboo because even though people could not see us, the mere thought of them seeing us would make us hesitant. In other words, simply thinking about doing this is embarrassing and so we don't want to even think about it. Perhaps, that is why we have so many euphemisms for using the toilet: using the john, the restroom, the bathroom, the lavatory, the men's room, etc...

Takeaway:

Norms 

Folkways

Mores

Taboos

           

            Moral holidays

Moral holiday places

Sanctions 

For more info see Ferris and Stein 79-80

Okay? You called me a what?! Gestures and Language

Homework:  Before our next class, please read Social Time.



We have been examining the components of culture. The non-material aspects of culture are often the most important but we are often unaware of them.

One type of non-material culture is symbolic culture, or gestures and language.

Gestures are important to understanding and communicating within a culture.  Understanding a culture's gestures can also help us avoid ethnocentrism and culture shock.  Here is a guide for international business travelers to help them understand the impact gestures can have on their interaction with other cultures.  Here is a link to a list of some single hand gestures from around the world.

Gestures are also an example that culture is resut of shared meaning among people.  And among groups of people, meaning can change over time.  Here is a post about the Bellamy Salute, a gesture that has changed its cultural meaning over time.

Language

Look at these two shapes.  One is called a maluma and one is called takete.  Which is which? Even if you don't know, take a guess. Write it down without telling anyone what your answer is.

Now Look at these three color chips.  Which one does not belong?

Another important aspect of symbolic culture is Language.  first studied by Saphir and Whorf. Sapir-Whorf has been critically contested in recent years, but the NY Times ran a story about how there is still some merit to the idea of language affecting our thoughts. See that article here. Also, see this post about politics and how the use of English frames every debate especially the debate over gun violence.
Here is a list of untranslatable ideas about love from around the world.
Here is a book that highlights untranslatable words from around the world.
Language is important too as it affects how we think. When we think about something, we are using language inside of our heads so if we use certain words or do not have certain words, it may affect how think about things especially how we categorize something. Here are 11 words that have no translation. When bilingual students think about some ideas they have to shift from one language to another because sometimes it is easier to think about something or express an idea in one language because there are not proper words to describe it in another.

Here (see page 43 of this doc) is a lesson from Carol Mukhopadhyay on classifying in other cultures.  For each of the following sets, choose the item that does not belong:

Set 1. Auto, turtle, basket, bird

Set 2. Laundry, beer, clothing


Set 3. A chair, a spear, a couch 

After you have made your selections, click here for an explanation. 


The ASA's Society Pages shares research by sociologist Matt Wray highlighted on NPR's Code Switch.  Why would the term "White Trash" be derogatory to other races?

This New Yorker article explains the research of professor Adam Alter on the hidden power of words and naming.

Also, here is a study explaining that with out language, numbers do not make sense.

Here is a link to Rabbi Heschel who insightfully explained "words create worlds."

Hidden Brain is a social science podcast from NPR and this episode explores how language shapes how we think.


Takeaway:

What are examples of symbolic culture? 

Why is it necessary to understand symbolic culture? 

            What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? What are examples of it in our culture?

For more info, see Ferris and Stein page 77-79.