| Non-Rationalised Sociology NCERT Notes, Solutions and Extra Q & A (Class 11th & 12th) | |||||||||||||||||||
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Chapter 4 Culture And Socialisation
I Introduction
"Culture," similar to "society," is a term frequently used but often vaguely defined. This chapter aims to provide a more precise definition and appreciate its various aspects.
In everyday conversation, "culture" might refer narrowly to the arts or specific lifestyles of certain groups or countries.
Sociologists and anthropologists study culture within its social contexts, analysing its components and their interrelationships.
Culture can be thought of as a "map" or guide for navigating social life. It's the shared understanding that people in a society learn and develop through interaction.
This common understanding distinguishes groups from one another and contributes to their identity. However, cultures are not static; they are dynamic, constantly changing and evolving as elements are added, removed, or modified.
The human capacity to develop shared meanings from signs and symbols through social interaction is a key characteristic that sets humans apart. This ability to create meaning is learned within families, groups, and communities.
We acquire knowledge, including the use of tools, techniques, and non-material symbols, through interaction with others in various social settings. This knowledge, transmitted orally or through written means, prepares individuals to fulfil their roles and responsibilities in society.
Early learning within the family is termed primary socialisation, while learning in schools and other institutions is secondary socialisation.
Activity 1 encourages reflecting on greetings in one's culture, how they vary based on the person being addressed, and how awkward experiences can lead to the expansion and modification of cultural knowledge.
Ii Diverse Settings, Different Cultures
Human societies inhabit diverse natural and social environments (mountains, plains, forests, cities, villages). People adapt to these conditions using different strategies, leading to the emergence of varied ways of life, or cultures.
Differences in coping mechanisms are evident when comparing communities facing the same natural event. For example, during the 2004 tsunami, some modernised communities suffered significant losses, while indigenous tribal groups in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, relying on traditional ecological knowledge, were able to anticipate the danger and protect themselves.
This illustrates that cultures are not inherently superior or inferior and cannot be ranked. Their adequacy can be judged by their ability to help people cope with environmental or social challenges.
Activity 2 prompts discussion on how natural settings influence cultural aspects like food habits, dwelling patterns, clothing, and religious practices in different regions.
Defining Culture
In everyday language, "culture" often refers to refined tastes in arts. Sociologically, culture is understood more broadly as a shared way of life that involves all members of a society.
Early definitions of culture from anthropology highlight different aspects:
- Edward Tylor (1871): Defined culture as a "complex whole" encompassing knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and other capabilities acquired as members of society. This early definition focused on both tangible (art, custom, law) and intangible aspects.
- Bronislaw Malinowski (1931): Defined culture as "inherited artifacts, goods, technical process, ideas, habits and values." His emphasis on fieldwork stressed the importance of experiencing a society firsthand.
- Clifford Geertz (1973): Viewed culture as "webs of significance" that humans create and are suspended in, emphasising culture's role in conveying meaning and requiring an interpretive approach to understand human actions.
- Leslie White: Also stressed culture as a means of adding meaning to objective reality.
These definitions collectively highlight that culture is learned, shared, involves both material and non-material elements, and functions to guide behaviour and provide meaning.
Activity 3 asks for Indian language equivalents for 'culture' and their associations.
Activity 4 suggests comparing these definitions with common uses of the word 'culture' (e.g., "eighteenth-century Lucknow culture," "Western culture") to see which definitions best capture those meanings.
Dimensions Of Culture
Culture can be understood through three key dimensions:
- (i) Cognitive: How we learn to interpret and make sense of sensory information from the environment (e.g., recognising a phone's ring, interpreting a cartoon). In non-literate societies, this involves oral traditions; in literate societies, information is preserved in writing.
- (ii) Normative: The rules, values, and guidelines that shape social behaviour in different contexts (e.g., social norms, customs, laws).
- (iii) Material: The physical objects, tools, technologies, buildings, and means of production/communication that are part of a culture (e.g., mobile phones, machines, transportation).
Understanding these dimensions separately provides important insights, though they are interconnected in social processes.
Cognitive Aspects Of Culture
Cognition relates to how a culture understands and makes sense of the world. This is less tangible than material culture but reflected in how information is processed, preserved, and transmitted.
In literate societies, knowledge is written down; in non-literate societies, it's maintained through oral traditions, often with specialist practitioners.
Writing and literacy have historically been tied to privilege. Sociological studies examine making literacy relevant to different communities.
Walter Ong notes that oral cultures tend to use more repetition to aid memory compared to written texts. He also suggests different engagement levels for oral audiences versus readers.
Contemporary media (electronic, print) likely impact cognitive culture and attention span, a topic of ongoing study.
Normative Aspects Of Culture
The normative dimension consists of rules, values, and guidelines for social conduct, including folkways, mores, customs, conventions, and laws.
These norms are learned through socialisation and are often followed due to habit or social pressure. Sanctions (rewards or punishments) enforce conformity to norms (related to social control, discussed in Chapter 2).
- Norms: Implicit or explicit rules guiding behaviour, often context-specific (e.g., family rules).
- Laws: Explicit, formal rules defined by the state, applicable to all citizens, with penalties for violation. Laws represent the most formal definition of acceptable behaviour and can vary from informal norms. Dominant groups often impose their norms, which can be discriminatory (e.g., caste-based restrictions, limits on women's public movement).
Sociologists like Pierre Bourdieu highlight the importance of understanding implicit cultural understandings behind seemingly simple actions (e.g., timing of a thank-you gift).
Material Aspects Of Culture
The material dimension includes all tangible aspects related to technology and physical objects used in a culture. This encompasses tools, technologies, machines, buildings, transportation, and communication devices.
The widespread use of technology in urban and rural life (mobile phones, ATMs, motor pumps) reflects technological adoption.
Culture has two main dimensions: material and non-material (cognitive and normative). For a culture to function effectively, material and non-material aspects should be integrated.
However, rapid technological change (material culture) can outpace changes in values and norms (non-material culture), leading to culture lag.
Culture And Identity
Identities are not fixed at birth but are shaped through individual and group interactions with others. Social roles played by individuals contribute to their identity. In modern society, individuals hold multiple roles with specific responsibilities and powers.
Identity is also shaped by the recognition and acknowledgment of roles by others, often conveyed through language specific to certain groups or contexts.
Within a larger culture, there can be subcultures – groups with distinct styles, tastes, and associations, often identifiable by their speech patterns, dress codes, music preferences, and interaction styles (e.g., youth subcultures, elite subcultures). Subcultures provide a sense of identity to their members and can function as cohesive units with shared purposes.
Activity 5 asks to identify and describe subcultural groups in one's locality.
Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is the tendency to judge other cultures based on the values and standards of one's own culture, often leading to the belief that one's own culture is superior.
This sense of cultural superiority is evident in colonial contexts, such as Thomas Macaulay's aim in India to create a class of Indians who were culturally English.
Ethnocentrism is the opposite of cosmopolitanism, which values cultural differences and promotes cultural exchange and borrowing. A cosmopolitan outlook encourages incorporating diverse cultural influences to enrich one's own culture, as seen in the development of the English language or the popularity of Hindi film music, which borrow from various traditions.
Modern, cosmopolitan societies are open to global influences, but these influences are often blended with indigenous elements, creating unique hybrid forms.
The box on 'Hinglish' illustrates the incorporation of foreign words, contributing to the dynamic nature of language and identity in a globalised world.
Cultural Change
Cultural change refers to how societies alter their cultural patterns over time. Change can be driven by internal factors (e.g., new farming methods boosting production) or external factors (e.g., conquest or colonisation causing deep societal changes).
Changes in the natural environment (ecology) or contact with other cultures also drive cultural change. Loss of forest access for tribal communities, for instance, dramatically alters their way of life.
Cultural change can be evolutionary (gradual adaptation) or revolutionary (rapid, radical transformation of values and meanings). Revolutions (political, technological, ecological) can initiate such radical shifts (e.g., the French Revolution's impact on French society). The rapid expansion of media also prompts questions about whether it causes evolutionary or revolutionary change.
Understanding cultural change requires analysing the interplay of various factors and the processes by which new understandings prevail, leading to shifts in values, norms, and practices.
This discussion on culture sets the stage for the next section on socialisation, explaining how individuals acquire and internalise culture.
Iii Socialisation
At birth, a human infant is essentially without social knowledge. Socialisation is the lifelong process through which the helpless infant gradually becomes a self-aware, knowledgeable individual, capable of participating in the ways of their culture and society.
Without socialisation, individuals would not develop the behaviours, skills, norms, and values considered typically "human." Accounts of "wolf-children," reportedly raised in isolation from human contact, illustrate the critical role of socialisation in human development.
Socialisation is a two-way process; the birth of a child also leads to new learning experiences for caregivers (parents becoming grandparents, older siblings adjusting). While the most intense socialisation happens in early childhood (primary socialisation), it continues throughout life (secondary socialisation).
Socialisation is not simply passive "cultural programming." Even infants exercise agency (crying to communicate needs). The process involves interaction and negotiation.
The concepts of status/role, social control, groups, stratification, culture, norms, and values are essential for understanding how socialisation occurs. A child is born into various groups (family, kinship, caste, region, religion, etc.), each imposing norms and values, and individuals learn to perform roles associated with these memberships (son, daughter, student).
Norms and values vary across families, castes, regions, classes, and urban/rural settings. Even the language one speaks is shaped by the social context of the family and community.
Agencies Of Socialisation
Several institutions and groups, known as agencies of socialisation, play a role in shaping an individual's development:
- Family
- School
- Peer group
- Neighbourhood
- Occupational group
- Social class/caste, region, religion
Family
Family systems vary widely, meaning children's early experiences differ. In nuclear families, parents are key socialisers; in extended families, grandparents, uncles, or cousins may be more significant.
The family's position within society (caste, class, region) significantly impacts socialisation patterns, often determining an individual's social position later in life. Children learn characteristic behaviours from their family, neighbourhood, and community.
Activity 6 suggests reflecting on the different experiences of children from different socio-economic backgrounds (e.g., domestic worker's child vs. employer's child) to understand how family background shapes socialisation and potential sharing/exchange of cultural elements.
Activity 7 prompts reflection on how access to resources (possessions, space), time constraints, opportunities (travel, classes), and social connections within the family and community influence individual development.
Peer Groups
Peer groups (friendship groups of similar age) are another crucial socialising agency. While formal age-grades exist in some societies, informal peer groups are common, especially from age 4-5 onwards.
Peer relationships tend to be more egalitarian than family dynamics, allowing children to test behaviours and explore rules within a different context than the authority structure of the family.
Peer relationships remain important throughout life, influencing attitudes and behaviour in various adult contexts (e.g., workplace peer groups).
Activity 8 suggests comparing interactions with friends versus parents/elders to see how roles and statuses differ and influence interaction patterns.
Schools
Schools are formal socialising agencies with a defined curriculum. However, they also socialise children in subtle ways through a "hidden curriculum" – implicit lessons about norms, values, and behaviour (e.g., expectations about gendered tasks like sweeping classrooms, though some schools try to counter this).
Mass Media
Mass media (television, print, digital) is increasingly influential in socialisation, providing access to vast information and exposing individuals to diverse experiences and cultures far from their own. The extent of media influence is significant, although predicting its precise effects (e.g., the link between on-screen violence and aggression) is debated.
Activity 9 suggests exploring how people relate to media content from different cultures or how generational differences affect media viewing habits, perhaps noting cultural exposure or changing viewpoints.
The report on the 'Shaktimaan' serial highlights the potential for children to imitate media content, sometimes with dangerous consequences, underscoring the media's role as a socialising agency and the importance of understanding its influence.
Other Socialising Agencies
Besides family, peers, school, and media, other contexts like the workplace are important socialising settings, especially in industrial societies where work is separate from home.
Socialisation And Individual Freedom
While socialisation deeply shapes individuals, it does not completely eliminate individuality or free will. Conflicts between socialising agencies (e.g., home vs. school, home vs. peers) can arise, and individuals can push back against societal expectations.
Socialisation is fundamental to developing a sense of self-identity and the capacity for independent thought and action. It provides the framework within which individuality emerges.
How Gendered Is Socialisation?
Socialisation is heavily gendered; individuals learn different norms, behaviours, and expectations based on their gender. This is evident in how boys and girls are socialised regarding their use of public space (e.g., boys using streets for play, girls primarily for travel), fear of assault, and freedom of movement (illustrated in the quote about street use).
Traditional gender roles (breadwinner vs. homemaker) are reinforced through socialisation, though individuals can challenge and redefine these roles.
Activity 11 provides an extract depicting a girl's experience that illustrates several concepts from the first four chapters: the individual-society relationship (girl's rebellion), normative culture (different norms in town vs. village, regarding touching the temple bell), ascribed status (priest's daughter's privilege), conflict between socialising agencies (school friends vs. family norms), gendered socialisation (expected behaviours for girls), and informal social control (punishments like silence or withholding food).