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anthropology
social science specifically focused on the study of cultural differences and similarities among the world's many people
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Cultures
consists of the values the members of a given group hold, the languages they speak, the symbols they revere, the norms they follow, and the material goods they create, from tools to clothing
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values
- abstract ideas
- ex. monogamy
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norms
- definite principles or rules people are expected to observe; they represent the do's and don'ts of social life
- ex. how couples are supposed to behave toward each other
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material goods
- physical objects that a society creates, which influence the ways in which people live.
- includes the goods we consume, from the clothes we wear to the cars we drive
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society
- is a system of interrelationships that connects individuals together.
- no culture could exist without a society. no society could exist without culture
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cultural turn
describe sociology's recent emphasis on the importance of understanding the rold of culture in daily life
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sociobiology
refers to the application of biological principles to explain the social activities of animal's including human beings
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subcultures
small societies tend to be culturally uniform, but industrialized societies are themselves culturally diverse or multicultural
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assimilation
process by which different cultures are absorbed into a single mainstream culture
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multiculturalism
calls for respecting cultural diversity and promoting equality of different cultures
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ethnocentrism
judging other cultures in terms of the standards of one's own
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cultural relativism
the practice of judging a society by its own standards
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cultural universals
when human behavior is found in virtually all societies
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language
primary vehicle of meaning and communication in a society, language is a system of symbols that represent objects and abstract thoughts
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marriage
is cultural universal, as are relgious rituals and property rights
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linguistic relativity hypothesis
- a hypothesis based on the theories of Sapir and Whorf that perceptions are relative to language
- argues that the language we use influences our perceptions of the world
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signifier
any set of elements used to communicate
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semiotics
- study of the ways in which nonlinguistic phenomena can generate meaning-as in the example of a traffic light
- analysis of nonverbal cultural meanings-opens up a fascinating field for both sociology and anthropology
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hunting and gathering societies
- whose mode of subsistence is gained from hunting animals, fishing, and gathering edible plants
- small groups or tribes often numbering no more than thirty or forty people
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pastoral societies
- whose subsistence derives from the rearing of domesticated animals
- relied mainly on domesticated livestock
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agrarian societies
- sovieties whose means of subsistence are based on agricultural production
- grew crops (practiced agriculture)
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industrialization
- process of the machine production of goods
- emergence of machine production based on the use of inanimate power resources
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industrialized societies
- strongly developed nation-states in which the majority of the population work in factories or offices rather than in agriculture, and most people live in urban areas
- discoveries and inventions in one field lead to more in other.
- the pace of this technological innovation is extremely rapid compared with that of traditional social systems
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nation-states
political communities with clearly delimited borders dividing them from each other, rather than the vague frontier areas that used to separate tradition states.
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developing world
- less-developed societies, in which industrial production is either virtually nonexistent or only developed to a limited degree. The majority of the world's population live in less-developed countries
- second category are mostly at a much lower level of industrial development and are often referred to as less developed societies
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Third World
- a term used during the cold war to describe developing nations
- originally part of a contrast drawn between 3 main types of society found in the early 20th century
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First World
- group of nation-states that possesses mature industrialized economies based on capitalistic production
- countries were (and are) the industrialized states of Europe, US, Canada, Australia.
- have multiparty, parliamentary systems or government
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Second World
- before the 1989 democracy movements, this included the industrialized Communist societies of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union
- societies meant the communist countries of what was the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, including Hungary
- were planned economies which allowed little role for private property or competitive economic enterprise
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newly industrialized economies
developing countries that over the past two or three decades have begun to develop a strong industrial base, such as Singapore and Hong Kong
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nationalism
- set of beliefs and symbols expressing identification with a national community
- sense of identification with one's people that is expressed through a common set of strongly held beliefs
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colonialism
process whereby Western nations established their rule in parts of the world away from their home territories
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instincts
fixed patterns of behavior that have genetic origins and that appear in all normal animals within a given species
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