The Elements of Culture
1. Symbols: Anything that carries particular meaning recognized by people who share the same culture.
2. Language: A system of symbols that allows people to communicate with one another.
3. Values: Culturally defined standards of desirability, goodness, beauty and many other things that serves as broad guidelines for social living.
4. Beliefs: Specific statements that people hold to be true.
5. Norms: Rules and expectations by which a society guides the behaviour of its members. The two types of norms are mores and folkways. Mores are norms that are widely observed and have a great moral significance. Folkways are norms for routine, casual interaction.
Read more about this topic: Sociology Of Culture
Famous quotes containing the words elements and/or culture:
“A party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life.”
—John Stuart Mill (1806–1873)
“Both cultures encourage innovation and experimentation, but are likely to reject the innovator if his innovation is not accepted by audiences. High culture experiments that are rejected by audiences in the creator’s lifetime may, however, become classics in another era, whereas popular culture experiments are forgotten if not immediately successful. Even so, in both cultures innovation is rare, although in high culture it is celebrated and in popular culture it is taken for granted.”
—Herbert J. Gans (b. 1927)