Define The Concept Of Culture Essay

‘Culture’ is the ways in which a society lives. A culture may share the same religions, beliefs, values, class or status, a culture can dress in a certain way and act in a way that follows the norms of how their society carries out life and what they deem as acceptable, culture can shared by a large group of people or a smaller group within society. For example there are ‘subcultures’, a subculture is a small group which have different way of life opposed to the majority of society; they may dress, talk and act in a different way. An example of subculture is a religious group, being a part of a religion may mean that people that are part of it dress differently, and have different values and ideas on life and live in a different way to the majority in society. Another example of a culture is ‘popular culture’ this is a culture that involves a large majority, and is highly influenced by the media, for example football is a sport that is frequentl y covered by the media by television, radio, news etc. And is a popular sport with a large following; other examples of pop culture are: pop music, bingo and mainstream fashion. Pop culture has a variety of people from different backgrounds being part of the same thing called a common culture which is shared by the masses. ‘High culture’ is another example of a culture that is shared with people and their families from a ‘higher class’. People that are part of the high culture are wealthy and have an ascribed status or come from a family with an ascribed status, meaning that they or the head of the family worked towards their success/wealth. They take part in activities associated with upper class such as: polo, lacrosse, hunting, and watching arts such as operas, ballets, orchestras. High culture attempts not allow people who are not from the same class or have the same status as them to join in with their clubs and activities this is called ‘social closure’ but this is difficult as more people can achieve super rich lifestyles, buying their way into high culture that may of came from a low class background. Pop culture is known as ‘low culture’ as people from ‘high culture’ are meant to be higher compared to them in class and status, th erefore people from low culture would not be wanted in high culture activities.