What is Culture?

"Culture is the "glue" that binds a group of people together." 
(Douglas-Brown- 1994).

"Culture" includes everything people learn to do. It is everything humans have learned. Culture shapes our thoughts and actions, and often does so with a heavy hand" (Seelye,1993).

What is culture? It is anything typical of a country that ‘binds’ (joins) people together. It is anything that joins British people together or anything that binds Japanese people or French people together. British people like talking about the weather, it is cultural, and British people like to complain, (or so many people say, especially the Australians who say ‘winging poms’!) it is also cultural.
Things that bind people together are:

Sometimes festivals with the same name are different in different countries. Christmas is very different in Britain and Japan.

Big CULTURE or Small CULTURE?

Culture can be SMALL, like the culture of a university or a company  (TODAI culture, GPWU culture, TOSHIBA culture) or a whole country like Japan or America, or Egypt . Small scale or large scale.
Inherited
When sociologists talk about ‘culture’ they are talking about human behaviour that is learned, not  inherited.
Bowing is learned behaviour
Blinking is inherited behaviour

Visable & Invisible: Tangible & intangible

Culture has both INTANGIBLE (INVISIBLE) areas such as beliefs, ideas and values
and TANGIBLE (VISIBLE) rules and behaviour.
An intangible example of culture would be when people say:
‘I think eating McDonalds while walking along the street talking to my friend is ok’. This is a belief (a common opinion), these people (in Britain) think it is ok to walk along the street while eating food. It is a very common sight in Britain, not in Japan. We cannot see people’s beliefs opinions, so this is an invisible (intangible) part of British culture.

A visible/tangible example of culture would be queuing- ‘You must queue when waiting to buy things’ is a rule.
Queuing to buy lotto 6 tickets is a rule. Many countries do not queue but fight to get to the front.

MORE ABOUT CULTURE: THE CCC MODEL

Culture is convention, connotation conditioning
1- Convention: this WHAT PEOPLE THINK is normal. How people in a given culture typically behave in common, everyday situations.
2- Connotation: these are the important meanings that are associated with words. Typical Japanese words/typical British words.
3- Conditioning: this is the way people are taught to behave. There are rules in cultures, and people are culturally conditioned to follow these rules.

Convention & Conditioning: Values and Norms

All cultures have ideas which are considered important, such as 'university education is good', the 'individual is more important than the group' or the group is more important than the individual. These are the values of society. Norms are the rules of behaviour which show the values of a society. For example queuing up to buy LOTTO 6 tickets in Japan is a norm, because Japanese people think it is normal to be polite to each other when buying things Britain values individuality more than Japan, and for example British university students would never speak to each other using the words ‘senpai’ or ‘kohai’. Some individuals or groups might not agree with the values and create their own small cultural groups, such as the ‘Yankees’ in Japan or ‘the Hippies’ in Britain in the 1960-1970's. Each new group has its own special rules and ways of thinking (like Yankee parking?)
Japan is a mainly similar (homogenous) society and it is easier to think about what is typically Japanese than in other countries. Britain, America, Australia etc. are multi cultural countries and it is MUCH more complicated, and difficult to say what is typically British. For example, Scottish people ARE NOT English. Irish people ARE NOT English. Scottish people are Scottish (and British), and Irish people are Irish (and British).  If you were born in Britain and your parents came from India maybe you speak Indian as your first language and eat Indian food more than ‘British’ food, so you would be Indian British or maybe British Indian, or maybe just British (or Indian?).

Changing Values and Norms

Is it ok to live with your boyfriend (dosei) before you get married? It is perfectly okay in Britain, and perhaps in Japan. But not fifty years ago. It would have been socially impossible in Britain fifty years ago. It is okay to live together now in Britain because people’s values (what they think about this) have changed. Living together is an example of a changing norm. Norms and values can be altered by governments as well. Governments try to change behavior by changing the law or the education system. Think about YUTORI KYOIKU.

Q. How do we learn Culture?
A. Socialization

The process by which children or other new members of society learn the way of life of their society is known as socialization. Socialisation is the transmission of culture over time and generations to the people in society. Young animals can soon look after themselves, young babies cannot. Babies have to be taught how to survive in society. Socialization is the process by which a helpless infant becomes a self-aware, knowledgeable person. Socialization is not however passive learning, but requires active thinking and learning.
PRIMARY SOCIALIZATION
The type of learning which takes place in infancy and childhood is known as primary socialization. The family and the teacher are most important during this phase.
SECONDARY SOCIALIZATION
As younger children grow older, secondary socialization takes place. The school/university and peer groups (same age and interest groups/friends) are most important during this phase.
As children grow into adults and continue to learn new cultural values and norms, peer groups, the company and the media are the important influences.

Social Roles

‘Role’ means our image, or the way we act, and what we have to do to make people think we are a teacher, or a student or a doctor.
Through a process of socialization people learn their social roles. When you came to this university you did not know how to be a university student. You learnt how to be a student from your friends (your peer group) and your teachers. Doctors learn to be doctors, and teachers learn to be teachers. It is possible to talk about ‘the role of doctors’, and ‘the role of teachers’ and ‘the role of students because they all share common values and norms of behaviour. Individuals learn their roles and take on as many of the values and norms as they want to. They negotiate their roles with the cultural institution, for example, the school or the company.

Self-Identity

Self-identity however shows how we are different from other people. Self-identity is the process by which we create a "sense of ourselves and our relationship to the world around us" (Giddens, 2001). The world around us is Japan or Britain or Germany, and so we define ourselves by thinking about our society. Do I want to get married? Do I want to go to university? We as individuals are constantly interacting with the world around us, with society, and creating or negotiating our sense of self. If we question and try to understand the values of another culture then we can also understand ourselves.
CULTURAL DIVERSITY
What is important about understanding culture is that there are many different cultures and many different ways of living. Is it a good idea to ask questions in class? Does the culture of this university encourage you to speak out? To ask questions?