Joseph Burrows: 17/10/2014 Compare culture and social organisation in any two societies, making reference to at least two different sociological theories and key concepts associated with them. Within every society, and every community or settlement across the globe, there is undoubtedly one thing that they have in common; we identify this as ‘culture’. “Culture is a design for living” (Clyde Kluckhohn, cited in Halambros et al, 2013: 5), it describes the norms, values, beliefs, and practises of a people. The economic base and division of labour, political structure, religion, and strata of the Nama Tribe …show more content…
In contrast, England is an individualist society promoting self-reliance and independence and was referred to by Edmund Adamus as a; ‘selfish and hedonistic wasteland’ (Telegraph, 2014). This relates to the theory of social mobility, and is again intertwined in capitalism. The political structure is a representative democracy, which in contrast to the Nama communities involves the option for the population voting for a party who’ll make decisions on their behalf; the majority vote will determine who is awarded power for a period of four years. Often the party in power will make decisions that, due to the nature of representative democracy, have not been made on a formed consensus, these decisions can be made in favour of the upper classes or the wealthy, neglecting the needs of the poor, this ties in with Marx’ theory of class struggle and could be seen as Oligarchy. In England social stratification is more complex than that of the Nama, and can be identified by a class system. In the epoch of Queen Victoria (1837-1901) - the times of the industrial revolution and The Communist Manifesto - England was believed to have a ‘functionalist’ (Durkheim) class system operating very much like that of a beehive, where all had their role. The class system arguably still resides, and is simplified to Upper, Middle, and Working class. This social stratum is generally identified by income. The Nama are a homogenous, mono cultural people. Although they have, over
Culture is one of the most relevant elements that can define not only a society but also a country’s cumulative beliefs and system. Often noted as the origins of a country, culture is definitive in the sense that it harbors all the elements that can provide justification on the traditions and norms set by the society for its members. More often than not, the society members follow norms in order to create a harmonious community, and the beliefs and the traditions serve as the poles or grounding rules for each member to follow. Culture is very dynamic in the way that it can change over a variety of foreign influences but what is permanent about it is that original elements about it often lingers with the influences, therefore making it multi-faceted and broad. More importantly, culture serves as an individual and unique trait each society has, and therefore sets it apart from other countries and other societies.
The author begins the article by preparing the audience what is about to come. Telling the audience that cultures around the world have unusual customs and an anthropologist would even seek out a culture that has one when everyone seems to agree. He then talks about the Nacirema tribe and the extremities of their practices.
If this statement were still applicable to today’s society, then it would establish social class as the most important factor of voting behaviour. The question is whether British society is still as clearly separated into two classes and whether the members of each class are still as aware of it as they seemed to be when the statement was made.
Between the years of 1945-1970 social class dominantly shaped the voting behaviour of individuals. Whilst there has been a decline in prominence of class voting: Labour remains the most popular working class party and Conservatives perform best among middle-class voters. Social classes are defined by economic and social
Permeating every aspect of society yet never openly spoken of, culture, on the surface is a collection of items, norms, thought processes, foods, rituals, and traditions which form the everyday experiences we face. The culture we reside within, gives a set of clear standards for those who reside within it as to how to act. Yet these “guidelines” though well established are not always taken as law. Within each society, is a schism between those who mind the “guidelines”, and those who
In this form of government, there is a rigid social structure that makes class mobility near impossible. This fixed position leads to “[each citizen] always see[ing] a man above himself whose patronage is necessary to him, and below himself another man whose co-operation he may claim.” (Tocqueville, 78) This was not the only form of government seen however. Democracy was becoming increasingly popular, where “duties of each individual to the race are much more clear, devoted service to any one man becomes more rare; the bond of human affection is extended, but it is relaxed.”
In this week’s assignment, we will discuss Horace Miner’s analytical study of tribal behavior and Body Ritual among the Nacirema tribe by answering the following questions. First was I surprised when the true identity of the Nacirema tribe was revealed? Then how does Body Ritual among the Nacirema help us understand our own view of other cultures and how we are viewed by other cultures? Next why do some of the practices and rituals of other cultures seem odd or foreign to us? Finally, how do our own cultural norms affect our understanding and perception of other cultures?
British society is split into hierarchical categories with “higher” “middle” and “lower working” class. The British class structure is shaped like a pyramid cut into three
I was born in Thailand and had seen many changes from time to time. Especially the shopping mall in my country, I always see the American brand names and fast foods which I LOVE in every corner, this makes me used to with American lifestyle. Whereas, some big grocery stores in Thailand were taken over by an American company. Surprisingly, Thailand is just a small developing country in Asia. I agree with the author that Asia is similar to the U.S. ideology, for example; the Asia gets an influence from U.S. culture by foods and clothes, and importantly democracy in political system. Therefore, the author is right about reversing brain drain phenomenon because . . .
In the first paragraph, I selected to use a quotation from one of the assigned textbooks of my course. Since, the definition of a culture has been vague and there are wide ranges of different definitions that were explained by many anthropologists. Therefore, first of all, I used one citation from the Kottak’s book to integrate and define the view of culture.
culture are intricately interwoven; they do not exist in vacuums but rather influence each other in
There are two sociological theories that are known to share and differentiate on certain perspectives. Conflict and functionalist are those following theories. Conflict theory also known as the Marxist theory consist of social inequality, dominant or elite groups, bourgeoisie, and subordinate groups. Conflict is also a perception towards sociology that accentuate the social, political, and disparity of a group. Functionalism contracts with social order functions, dysfunctions, social institutions, shared values, norms and social disorganization.
Based on recent research there are now 7 social classes in the United Kingdom (UK), thus showing the UK is more stratified and unequal than ever before. This supports arguments such as those by the likes of Keith Hart (2001) who argue that “the world is becoming rapidly more unequal as we grow closer together” and thus as a reaction to managing the gap between rich and poor social distance is increasing. However, he also argues this is not new with such inequality having existed since agrarian civilization. This is inherent to the notion of social class. This essay will examine changing inequalities within the sphere of social class structure and the way in which changes to labour, production and the technologizing world today impact social class structure. Through using a basis of social class that focuses on social, economic and cultural capital this essay will argue shifts in labour models, such as the shift from manufacturing economies to services, combined with globalisation and other cultural/social factors are impacting the way social class structure transpires in the UK.
Defining Class is hard to do as there are many different approaches to defining class one can take. We can look at class as a subjective location, “how do people, individually and collectively, locate themselves and others within a social structure of inequality?” Or we could define class as the relational explanation of economic life chance “What explains inequalities in economically-defined life chances and material standards of living of individuals and families?” The challenging nature of class in contemporary society comes from the fact that there has never been an academic consensus the definition of class (due to the fact that class in its very nature is an abstract and subjective term). However, this essay will argue that class is an amalgamation of how individuals and the collective locate themselves, and the relational explanation of economic life chance as well as policy and politics. This is done using Weberian and Marxian definitions of social class and exploring the role of power and power relations in creating a class society. Exploring the similarities as well as differences between the definitions of class presented by Karl Marx and Max Weber; in order to inform the approach this essay will be taking in discussing whether or not ours is a class society.
In this essay on social classes in Britain I will mostly concentrate on structure of various classes in Britain and relations between them. I will also describe some changes and movements which this classes went through over the years. Furthermore, I will put emphasis on today's important issue in Britain, the problem of class struggle i.e. disparity between the rich and the poor. Although there are various definitions of social class, we may say that social class is connected with factors such as wealth, level of education and occupation. To be more precise in defining it, a social class is "a status hierarchy in which individuals and groups are classified on the basis of esteem and prestige acquired