Culture and Socialization
Culture
Culture is the shared knowledge, beliefs, values, norms, and material objects of a society. Material culture is physical (tools, architecture); nonmaterial culture is symbolic (ideas, values). Values are broad ideals; norms are rules for behavior, split into folkways (customary, mild sanctions), mores (morally serious), and laws (codified and enforced). Sanctions reward conformity or punish deviance. Ethnocentrism judges other cultures by one's own standards; cultural relativism suspends that judgment to understand a culture on its own terms. Subcultures share a distinctive set of norms within a larger culture; countercultures actively oppose dominant values. Cultural universals are traits found in all societies, while culture shock and cultural lag (material change outpacing nonmaterial adaptation) describe disruption.
Socialization
Socialization is the lifelong process of learning culture and becoming a social self. Cooley's looking-glass self holds that we see ourselves as we imagine others see us. Mead distinguished the I (impulsive, spontaneous) from the me (internalized social expectations) and traced development through imitation, play, and game stages, where children move from significant others to the generalized other. Freud framed socialization as tension between id, ego, and superego. Agents of socialization include family (primary), school, peers, media, and religion; anticipatory socialization prepares for future roles, and resocialization (often in total institutions) replaces prior identities.
Traps
Do not confuse folkways with mores, or ethnocentrism with cultural relativism. Mead's I is spontaneous; the me is the socialized self.
Rule of Thumb
For any norm, ask how severe the sanction is: mild embarrassment means folkway, moral outrage means more, formal penalty means law.