Culture and Social Structure
What this domain covers
Questions cover the components of culture and the building blocks of social structure: norms, values, symbols, status, role, groups, formal organizations, and bureaucracy. You will be asked to classify an example and to distinguish closely related pairs.
Core rules and concepts
- Culture splits into material and nonmaterial (symbols, language, values, beliefs, norms). Norms are graded: folkways (etiquette), mores (moral weight), laws (codified), taboos (deep revulsion).
- Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: language shapes perception and thought.
- Ethnocentrism judges others by one's own culture; cultural relativism suspends that judgment; culture shock is disorientation in an unfamiliar setting.
- Ideal culture is what people profess; real culture is what they do. Cultural lag (Ogburn) is nonmaterial culture trailing technological change.
- A subculture shares distinct norms within the mainstream; a counterculture rejects core mainstream norms.
- Status may be ascribed, achieved, or master. A role is the expectation attached to a status. Role conflict pits two statuses against each other; role strain is incompatible demands within one status.
- Groups: dyads and triads (Simmel), primary and secondary (Cooley), in-groups/out-groups, reference groups.
- Bureaucracy (Weber's ideal type): hierarchy, division of labor, written rules, impersonality, merit-based careers. Dysfunctions include ritualism and Michels's iron law of oligarchy; Ritzer's McDonaldization names efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control.
Worked example
A nurse who is also a parent must leave mid-shift: two statuses collide, so this is role conflict. The same nurse torn between comforting a patient and finishing required charting faces role strain within one status.
Traps that cost marks
- Swapping role conflict and role strain.
- Labeling any distinctive group a counterculture.
- Treating ethnocentrism as identical to racism.
- Confusing norms (rules for behavior) with values (what is held desirable).