CULTURE CONCEPTS

XENOCENTRISM is the belief that the products, styles or ideas of one’s society is inferior to those that originate elsewhere. 

• Xenocentrism is the reverse of ethnocentrism
• Filipinos think that products coming from the US are of the best quality

Dominant culture

Refers to the prevailing, foremost values and norms of larger, predominant society • The governing or the most powerful group in the society

Subculture

A group or category within a society who shares in the general culture but who maintain distinctive ways of thinking, acting and feeling. • This kind of group is usually found in a big and complex society

Counterculture 

A subculture that has values and norms that sharply contradict the dominant values and norms of the larger society

Culture Shock

It is the experience of disorientation and frustration that occur when individuals find them among those who do not share their fundamental premises

Culture lag

• It is the inability of a given society to adapt immediately to another culture as a result of the disparity in the rate of change between the material and non-material elements of culture

Culture universals

This refer to the common cultural elements that are found within all known societies. • They are the norms, laws, language, beliefs and values • While language is a cultural universal, differences in the use of language are evident around the world • The manner in which they are expressed varies from culture to culture

Specialities

The behavior expectations confined to certain subgroups which often requires unusual skill or training and reflect the division of labor and hierarchy of statuses in a culture • These are not shared by the totatl population

Alternatives

The behavior expectations which permit a certain range of choice in human behavior and specify the tolerable variations in behavior. • These are shared by some individuals but are not common to all the members of the society or even to all the members of anyone group.

Cultural  relativism

This cultural attitude implies that values cannot be studied properly unless the meanings they stand for in the society where they are created are taken into account.
• It considers CULTURAL DIVERSITY within and between societies; hence they consider that each society is the creation and the best judge of its own values