Reformas Educativas (LOEI – Reglamento a la LOEI Plan decenal) Bachillerato LOEI.

The concept of culture has several definitions. To many, culture represents the totality of way of life of a people. More clearly, culture is defined as the complex whole of man’s acquisitions of knowledge, morals, beliefs, art, custom, technology etc which are shared and transmitted from generation to generation (Otite and Ogoinwo: 1979).

Culture is therefore everything that is socially learned and shared by members of a society. The concept of culture is used in reference to a group or society. The architectural designs and responses to environmental cues which we collectively refer to as culture are not God given but are deliberately fashioned out by members of a society to guide life and living in all aspects of society. This implies that different societies have different cultural patterns.

Culture develops out of the desire by a group to overcome their problems as they try to control their environment so as to improve their economic, religious, security and technological needs. As a group work towards providing its needs, it becomes necessary to devise rules and norms of behavior, create values and principles that will govern social interaction and relationship. Culture is therefore a distinctive and transmissible network of symbols which characterize a designated aggregate of people (Eddiefloyd: 2003). Culture embraces such things that

are man -made, artifacts (Chairs, Cars, planes etc), ideals, beliefs and feelings (e.g. about the existence of God). Culture thus covers all aspects of life religion inclusive.

In scientific usage, culture is often defined in blanket terms as the total of life of a people. More specifically, culture is defined as the complex whole of man’s acquisitions of knowledge, morals, belief, art, custom, technology etc which are shared and transmitted from generation to generation. Many anthropologist and sociologist accept this definition of culture which was given by E.B.Tylor in his primitive culture first published in 1891. The definition stresses that culture is not a personal item. Culture is used with reference to a society or a group of societies.

Culture does not die with the death of an individual or a group of such people vanish under such mishaps as earthquakes. Even here there is the possibility that the materials and the technology of such a people may be dug up at some future date by archeologist and the buried culture of the society reconstructed.

Culture has both material and non-material aspects. Material culture relates to overt or explicit aspect of culture. It is a reference to the visible or concrete acquisition of man in society. Examples of material culture include bridges, hoes, houses, cooking utensils, handicrafts etc.

on-material aspect of culture consist of knowledge, moral, philosophy, language, attitudes, values, norms, religion etc of a people shared and transmitted in a society. Non-material aspects of culture are not visible or tangible but are manifested through thinking and behavior of a people.

Both of these aspects of culture – material and non-material go together as the culture of a people. They are however important in the analysis of cultural patterns of a people, that is their general mode of conduct the systematic and integrated content of behaviour which is characteristic of that society. Because of this, it is possible to predict or anticipate the behaviour of members of a given culture.

In Sociological studies we do not consider any society and individual as uncultured. Every person who is a member of a society has a culture.

Ideally, no one culture is better than another. The concept of cultural relativity is an important one in sociological studies. By this concept, every cultural trait or behaviour is judged in the context of the particular culture and its value system. The concept implies that both the diversities of cultures and their comparative appraisals. Whereas there are universal traits in culture, there are also traits which are found only in certain cultures. Hence there are specific elements which characterize a culture and general elements which cut across cultures. However, because culture is an abstraction, it is impossible to say even in scientific terms that one

culture is richer than the other. The richness and comparability of such cultural elements as language, morality, systems of ideas, philosophy etc are obviously impossible to measure.

Cultural accumulation is the process by which new traits or elements are added to a particular culture. Hence there is cultural growth. This increases in the number of items or traits in a culture is possible through inventions or discoveries by members of the society or though diffusion.

These processes of cultural accumulation and of cultural evolution are fraught with change. culture is not static. It has continuous growth and is therefore always changing through the acquisition of more cultural traits and borrowing. The introduction of a cultural element may mean the introduction of an initial conflict. But such conflict usually disappear as the cultural trait becomes accepted. However, it is not in every case that new cultural traits are accepted. A new cultural element can be rejected by a society and also there can be continuities and discontinuities in the culture of a people. There may be continuities in the central traits of a culture whereas only the peripheral ones may be discontinued. Cultural change, sometimes refered to as cultural dynamics occurs when the culture of a people is modified though time. A people’s culture can be is shown in their behaviour and manifested in their artefacts and art forms.

Culture therefore cannot be observed directly . What we can observe is the behaviour of people and their techniques and manner of constructing material artefacts. Similarly, dancing is not culture itself; it is one form through which culture manifest itself. Human behaviour, speeches, dances, songs etc are important in a study of culture only because of the light they shed into the way people are trained and brought up to be members of a society. What we refer to earlier as material and non material aspects of culture including carvings, paintings, dress, philosophy, etc represent the end product of culture of a people.

Every culture is distinct, with its own history and dynamics. Because of this it can only be evaluated in its own terms hence the term cultural relativity. In its dynamic yet distinct form, culture functions as a mechanism of adaptation to a particular environment be it social or physical. It is because of this adaptation that a people and their culture can survive in a particular environment.

Changes in culture are thus caused by several factors: ecological changes and the need to survive, inventions to exploit the environment efficiently, culture contact leading to the availability of alternatives, elements, innovations, process of cultural transmission from generation to generation and the dynamic process involved in the interaction between society and its culture.

Self Assessment Exercise

Define the concept of culture and explain its various aspects.