Sociology of Culture - The Elements of Culture

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:

    The popularity of that baby-faced boy, who possessed not even the elements of a good actor, was a hallucination in the public mind, and a disgrace to our theatrical history.
    Thomas Campbell (1777–1844)

    Whatever offices of life are performed by women of culture and refinement are thenceforth elevated; they cease to be mere servile toils, and become expressions of the ideas of superior beings.
    Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)