Material culture refers to the physical objects, resources, and spaces that people use to define their culture. These include homes, neighborhoods, cities, schools, churches, synagogues, temples, mosques, offices, factories and plants, tools, means of production, goods and products, stores, and so forth. All of these physical aspects of a culture help to define its members' behaviors and perceptions. For example, technology is a vital aspect of material culture in today's United States. American students must learn to use computers to survive in college and business, in contrast to young adults in the Yanomamo society in the Amazon who must learn to build weapons and hunt.
Non‐material culture refers to the nonphysical ideas that people have about their culture, including beliefs, values, rules, norms, morals, language, organizations, and institutions. For instance, the non‐material cultural concept of religion consists of a set of ideas and beliefs about God, worship, morals, and ethics. These beliefs, then, determine how the culture responds to its religious topics, issues, and events.
When considering non‐material culture, sociologists refer to several processes that a culture uses to shape its members' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Four of the most important of these are symbols, language, values, and norms.
1.
Human culture is ___________________ .
a)
partly inherited genetically
b)
entirely learned
c)
limited to relatively rich societies with sophisticated technologies
d)
all of the above
2.
Which of the following statements is true of culture?
a)
Languages are cultures.
b)
Archaeologists dig up culture in their excavations.
c)
Culture is a powerful human tool for survival.
d)
all of the above
3.
Who first defined culture as "that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society?"
a)
E. B. Tylor
b)
the author of this tutorial
c)
Tylor Edwards
d)
none of the above
4.
A _________________ is a regional, social, or ethnic group that is distinguishable from other groups in a society by the fact that its members share a common identity, food tradition, dialect or language, and other cultural traits that come from their common ancestral background and experience.
a)
culture
b)
subculture
c)
multi-ethnic society
5.
Which of the following things would be cultural universals?
(Think in term of the way "cultural universal" is used in this tutorial.)
a)
the language that you speak
b)
the kinds of clothes that you wear
c)
the specific knowledge that you acquired in school
d)
none of the above
6.
Culture is ____________________ .
a)
the same thing as society
b)
limited to humans
c)
possessed only by males
d)
none of the above
7.
Societies are ____________________ .
a)
groups of interacting organisms
b)
only found among humans
c)
created only by technologically sophisticated peoples such as those in the industrialized nations of the world
d)
none of the above
This page was last updated on Tuesday, June 28, 2005.
Copyright � 2002-2005 by Dennis O'Neil. All rights reserved.