Entry by Lubna Bin Zayyad and Kyra Araneta

Definition:

The term culture commonly refers to a shared set of values, ideas, concepts, and rules of behaviour attached to a particular group of individuals in society. 

Historical context:

Culture and anthropology

In the nineteenth century, culture was typically used by anthropologists as a synonym for “civilization” to understand the evolution of cultural systems. The term was first used in this way by the English founder of cultural anthropology, Edward B. Tylor in his book Primitive Culture (1871) which referred to culture as:

that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.

Similarly, American anthropologist Lewis Henry Morgan, who was influenced by Charles Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1859), sought to understand the totality of human culture in time and space. Both Tylor and Morgan shared the understanding that there were broad similarities across different cultures around the world so in response, they developed their own typologies for categorizing these cross-cultural patterns (Haas, 1996). 

In more modern times however, the analysis of culture began to expand and shift.  

It is important to note that what we’ve provided above is more of a working definition of culture as it is still a highly-contested concept, and therefore defined in numerous ways. In a critical review of the term, Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) identified 164 different attempts to define culture, using them to come up with the following synopsis:

Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning elements of further action. (1952:357 cited in Groh, 2019:5).

Therefore focusing on the latter point made here, to understand culture means to understand the historical and locational aspects that can affect it, as well as the external and internal factors that may cause culture systems to change. 

Culture in contemporary society

Theorists in sociology often define culture as a product of human definition and interpretation or in other words, socially-constructed. Similar to the ideas expressed previously, this would make cultures dynamic and highly contextual. Bourdieu (1977; 1985) examines how culture relates to themes of power, status and class. With roots in Marxist theory, Bourdieu coined the term “habitus” – to refer to the deeply internalised culture that provides the basis for an individual’s ways of acting, seeing and making sense of the world. Habitus is class-specific and often operates below the level of consciousness so members of the same class are likely to share similar experiences and behaviours.

Separately, Bauman’s Contesting Culture (1996) studies a densely-populated, multi-ethnic ghetto in London to understand how various immigrant groups come to terms with one another and with the dominant, if distant, host culture. Bauman shows how individuals negotiate their cultural identities and debate the meaning of their cultural heritage.

Similarly in postcolonial discourse, theorists like Bhamba (1994) refer to hybridity in which the identity of the colonial subject is formed in a space of iteration and translation by the colonizer. Although the original theoretical development of hybridity aimed to capture and critique the narratives of cultural imperialism, Bhabha’s work also comprehends the cultural politics of the condition of being “a migrant” in the contemporary metropolis.

Culture and education

The need to address culture within higher education is based on the idea that there are a variety of cultural boundaries within the scientific and non-scientific disciplines, and as universities diversify and increase their international studentship and faculty, culture becomes more important than ever. 

A significant body of literature can be found on pupil subcultures in education, though a well-cited text in this area is Paul Willis’s study, Learning to Labour (1977). In his series of interviews and observations of a socially cohesive group of twelve “lads”, Willis set out to answer the questions of why working class children get working-class jobs. He found that this was largely due to the subcultures they belonged as the anti-school subculture they belonged to, counteracted the values of the institution, and was more aligned with their aspirations (masculine, working-class manual-labour jobs). 

Similarly, Archer et al (2007) sought to understand the lower rates of participation in higher education for working-class and ethnic minority students. Drawing on the work of Bourdieu (1997), they suggested that one of the reasons for the lower rates for these groups was the cultural divide between the habitus of working-class pupils and the institution of higher education which was better suited to the habitus of the white middle-class – hence, they did not see university as a space ‘for them’.

Related terms: (OCR, 2015) 

Subculture — A smaller group within a larger group that has its own values, which are different to the wider group.

High Culture —  High culture is a term that relates to the kinds of culture enjoyed by those with higher status (position) in a society. High culture would include activities such as opera, classical music and particular forms of art and certain types of aesthetic objects (objects which are seen as desirable and pleasing).

Popular culture —  Popular culture is every aspect of culture, which is not high culture. It is sometimes referred to as ‘mass culture’. Some claim that this form of culture is a simple or less sophisticated version of culture. The origins of popular culture lie in the growth of the mass media, which made particular forms of music, media and consumer items widespread. 

Global culture —  Globalisation is the wider process leading to the global culture, which can be defined as the compression of time and space, in other words the world is becoming a much smaller place now as many people can communicate and travel much more easily.

Consumer culture — Consumer culture is a set of ideas that encourages people to buy a range of never ending products. A consumer culture is closely connected to the global culture since the mass media is used to promote and advertise products for people to buy. Consumerism has become part of many people’s culture, buying goods has become a way of people’s lives. Often people buy products to express their culture. 

Questions to ask:

• Which cultural perspectives are present in my curriculum? Which are absent? 
• How can my learning and teaching reflect my understanding of different cultures?

Suggested readings:

Baumann, G. (1996). Contesting culture: Discourses of identity in multi-ethnic London (Vol. 100). Cambridge University Press.

Bhabha, H. K. (2012). The location of culture. Routledge.

Groh, A. (2019). Theories of culture. London: Routledge.

Ingram, N. (2009). Working‐class boys, educational success and the misrecognition of working‐class culture. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 30(4), 421-434.

Willis, Paul. (1977). Learning to labour: how working class kids get working class jobs. London: Saxon House.

Archer, L., Hollingworth, S., & Halsall, A. (2007). University’s not for Me—I’m a Nike Person’: Urban, Working-Class Young People’s Negotiations ofStyle’, Identity and Educational Engagement. Sociology, 41(2), 219-237.

References: 

Groh, A. (2019). Theories of culture. London: Routledge.

Haas, J. (1996). A Brief History of Cultural Evolution: Stages, Agents, and Tinkering. New Mexico: Santa Fe Institute

Kroeber, A. L., & Kluckhohn, C. (1952). Culture: a critical review of concepts and definitions. Papers. Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, Harvard University, 47(1), 23.

Nathanson, W. Culture vs. Civilization. The Open Court, 1923 (9), 7.

OCR. (2015). Different types of culture and cultural hybridity. Retrieved from: https://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/178667-different-types-of-culture-and-cultural-hybridity-teacher-instructions-and-answers.pdf