Role-Play

Hispanic Americans are one of the largest subcultures in American society. Many Hispanics in the United States speak only Spanish; this is true for children as well as for adults suppose that the legislature in the state of Texas—which has a large Spanish—speaking population—is considering a bill that would provide special funds for bilingual elementary education. The bill would finance schooling in both English and Spanish for Grades 1 through 6, and would cost a great deal of money. The debate in the legislature is intense: some say that program is a waste of time and money; others say that the program is essential.

You have been called in as an expert in cultural sociology. You are asked to prepare a brief statement on the advantages and disadvantages of funding a program of bilingual education. Organize your report so that it describes the advantages and disadvantages of the program for the following four groups:

1) The Hispanic population of Texas.

2) The non-Hispanic taxpayers of Texas.

3) Teachers in Texas elementary schools.

4) Managers of businesses and corporations in Texas.

Unit 7 Types of culture

1. What are the relationships among dominant cultures, subcultures, and countercultures?

The elements of culture described above are woven together, to some extent, into a complex whole. Cultural integration is the degree to which the parts of a culture form a consistent and interrelated pattern. Cultures can be more or less integrated, but in all cases there is at least some interdependence among the set of beliefs, values, and technological artifacts. This interdependence is evident in situations where changes in one realm of culture force changes in other realms. For example, the introduction of television into virtually every American home has substantially revised the relationship between " public" and " private" spheres of social life.

The dominant culture consists of those values, beliefs, traditions, and outlooks which certain groups impose on other members of society. American society includes a number of groups whose lifestyles and attitudes make them different from the " mainstream" dominant culture. If members of such groups identify themselves in terms of their distinctive norms and values, sociologists say that they belong to a subculture. Subcultures form around common ethnic or religious heritages, occupational traditions, or socioeconomic status.

Sociologists disagree about the relationship between the dominant culture and subcultures. Those who adopt a functional perspective see the dominant culture as necessary for uniting people by means of a broadly shared set of understandings. If a dominant culture were not available, the various subcultures that make up a pluralistic society could disintegrate into cultural fragments with little common understanding or few shared values. Those who adopt a power orientation see the dominant culture as a means by which powerful groups impose their beliefs and values on subor­dinate groups. According to this view, one should find tension and conflict between the dominant culture and its subcultural variations. A counterculture is a group whose distinctive norms, values, and beliefs clash with or are opposed to the dominant culture. During the late 1960s, hippies and flower children formed a counterculture by rejecting the dominant American values of competi­tiveness and materialistic success.

One rapidly growing ethnic subculture in the United States is made up of Hispanic-Americans, whose distinctive value system includes a strong emphasis on a person's inner worth and on the closeness of family and one-to-one friendship ties. These values lead to behaviour patterns that differ from those in the dominant Anglo-American society. For example, elderly members of Hispanic-American families are rarely placed in nursing homes. Old people enjoy a special status in this culture, and the extended family is expected to assume responsibility for care of the elderly.

Subcultures interact with the dominant culture in ways that change both. Anglo-American society has been influenced by the popularity of Hispanic features, such as Mexican food and Caribbean salsa music, but traditional Hispanic culture has changed even more because of its migration to the United States. Hispanic children now must grow up in a society that speaks a different language and subscribes to different values; individualism and competitiveness often make it difficult to sustain strong ties among members of the extended family. In one sense, the Hispanic subculture is atypical: unlike many other ethnic groups entering American society, Hispanic-Americans have not merged readily into the dominant culture.

The concept of assimilation refers to the process by which members of a subculture come to accept the cultural patterns of the larger society. Assimilation is a gradual process. First, members of the subculture learn and adopt enough of the dominant culture, such as the dominant language, to get along effectively in the society, without necessarily relinquishing their self-identification as a part of a distinct ethnic group. This is cultural assimilation. Second, members of the subculture may start to interact regularly with those who are not part of the subculture, as by joining certain clubs or organizations of the dominant culture. This is structural assimilation. Finally, members of the subculture may intermarry with those from outside, a process of marital assimilation. Subcul­tures experience assimilation to varying degrees: blacks in America are much less assimilated than are white ethnics from northern European heritages.

2. How are the values and norms of another culture to be evaluated?

Cultural ideas vary widely from society to society. For example, in Europe today it is customary and acceptable for adults to greet each other in public with a kiss on the cheek. In traditional Japanese society, however, kissing an adult in public is thought to be obscene and unacceptable.

How might an American college student respond to these different norms about kissing in public? The ethnocentric response is to see one's own culture as superior to others and to evaluate negatively any cultural ideas that are different from one's own. If the American college student were to adopt an ethnocentric position, he or she would say that the European practice of greeting other adults publicly with a kiss is affected or artificial behaviour. Likewise, the traditional Japanese attitude toward kissing would be condemned as prudish. The cultural standards of the college student's society would be used to measure the acceptability of norms or values of other societies; to the extent that there are differences, the culture of one's home society would be considered better or preferable. Ethnocentrism is a source of unity within groups but a source of friction or conflict between groups with different cultures.

The cultural relativist position requires one to suspend judgement about the cultural ideas of other societies. Any element of culture is relative to a particular time, place, and set of circumstan­ces. In this case, the American college student would try to understand the European and the traditional Japanese norms about kissing in terms of the overall culture and social structure of these two societies. For example, the apparent prudishness of the Japanese might seem perfectly reasona­ble and might be consistent with a broader set of rules that define sex roles in that society. Unlike ethnocentrism, the position of cultural relativism encourages mutual understanding and tolerance between groups.

3. How do biological characteristics shape the evolution of culture?

Sociobiology is a theoretical perspective which suggests that social groups adapt to their environ­ments primarily by the evolution of genetically determined traits. Sociobiologists contend that much of our social behaviour is controlled by our genes and is transmitted biologically from parent to offspring. As evidence, they point to the existence of cultural universals: those behaviour patterns and institutions found in all known cultures. In nearly every human society, for example, it is considered wrong for parents to have sexual intercourse with their children. The universality of incest taboos, say the sociobiologists, is due to the fact that humans who possess a gene that prevents incestuous behaviour (by making them see close relatives as sexually undesirable) are better able to adapt to the environment than are humans who do not possess this gene. Research has shown that the offspring of incestuous relations are more likely to be deformed and thus are less likely to be able to reproduce another generation. Eventually, humans without this gene die out; all remaining societies have norms prohibiting incest as part of their culture.

The sociobiological perspective has undergone various criticisms. Some critics point out that sociobiologists have not yet been able to identify a specific gene that determines some specific pattern of behaviour. Other critics suggest that the rapid pace of change in human societies could not possibly have been achieved through biological mechanisms, which ordinarily are slow. Also, the fact that particular social responses can be learned or extinguished within one generation suggests that biology alone cannot determine human culture. Most critics of sociobiology agree that genes do not determine human behaviour in any precise way, and that historical change is due more to the evolution of culture than to the evolution of biological traits.

Assignment