Culture (social anthropology)
Culture is the learned, shared beliefs, practices, values, knowledge, and symbols through which people organize social life and interpret the world.
Socialization: The lifelong process through which people learn norms, roles, values, and ways of participating in society. It describes how people acquire cultural practices and expectations.
Cultural transmission: The process by which cultural knowledge and practices pass between people and generations. It explains how shared ways of life endure without being genetically inherited.
Edward Burnett Tylor: An English anthropologist whose 1871 definition described culture as a complex whole learned by people as members of society. His definition helped establish culture as a central anthropological concept.
Cultural materialism: An anthropological theory that explains cultural patterns through material conditions, including production, environment, and technology. It gives material constraints explanatory priority over symbolic interpretation.
Ethnocentrism: The tendency to evaluate other cultures using the standards of one's own culture. It is a common consequence of treating local norms as universal.
Symbol: A sign, object, or action that conveys meaning through shared convention or association. Shared symbols let cultural meanings travel beyond direct experience.
Enculturation: The process by which people learn and internalize the culture in which they grow up. It names the individual learning through which cultural membership takes shape.
Franz Boas: A German-American anthropologist who challenged racial determinism and emphasized the historical study of distinct cultures. His work redirected anthropology from ranking societies toward studying cultural histories.
Symbolic anthropology: An approach that studies how symbols and meanings organize social experience. It foregrounds interpretation where materialist accounts emphasize practical conditions.
Cultural appropriation: The adoption of elements from another culture, especially amid unequal relations of power or ownership. It raises disputes over cultural exchange, authority, and unequal power.