Features of Culture: One Version

This is much closer to a historical anthropological approach to culture than a cultural studies approach. Note the lack of comment on politics and power

from Brislin, Understanding Culture's Influence on Behaviour, 23-24

1. Culture consists of ideals, values, and assumptions about life that guide specific behaviour.
   
   
2. Culture consists of those aspects of the environment that people make.
   
   
3. Culture is transmitted generation to generation, with the responsibility given to parents, teachers, religious leaders, and other respected elders in a community.
   
   
4. The fact summarized in point 3 means that there will be childhood experiences that many people in a community remember happening to them.
   
   
5. Aspects of one's culture are not frequently discussed by adults. Since culture is widely shared and accepted, there is little reason to discuss it frequently.
   
   
6. Culture can become clearest in well-meaning clashes. This term refers to interactions among people from very different backgrounds. They may behave in proper ways according to their socialization, but there is a clash when the people from different cultures interact.
   
   
7. Culture allows people to "fill in the blanks" when presented with a basic sketch of familiar behaviours.
   
   
8. Cultural values remain despite compromises and slip-ups. Even though people can list exceptions, the cultural value is seen as a constant that continues to guide specific behaviours
   
   
9. There are emotional reactions when cultural values are violated or when a culture's expected behaviours are ignored.
   
   
10. There can be acceptance and rejection of a culture's values at different times in a person's life. Common examples involve rebellious adolescents and young adults who accept a culture's expectations after having children of their own.
    
    
11. When changes in cultural values are contemplated, the reaction that "this will be difficult and time consuming" is likely.
    
    
12. When comparing proper and expected behaviour across cultures, some observations are summarizable in sharp contrasts. Examples are the treatment of time, the spatial orientations that people adopt, and the clarity (versus lack thereof) of the rules and norms for certain complex behaviours.