After completing Chapter 4, you should be able to:
- Understand the nature of culture and discuss its defining characteristics and key concepts.
- Understand how culture is acquired by individuals through the process of socialization.
- Discuss how culture becomes a part of the individual's behavior and psychological identity.
- Explain the role ethnocentrism and cultural relativity play in the cultural boundaries that exist within and between societies.
- Understand the concept of shared knowledge and discuss the six forms in takes in society.
- Describe how we as sociologists can determine what a society's values are and the problems associated with such a project.
- Understand the concept of "social construction of reality" and how the phenomenon relates to a society's culture.
- Identify and discuss the values that are dominant in American society today and how they relate to both social integration and current social problems.
- Discuss the discrepancy between American values and behavior.
- Describe the cultural makeup in American society and how cultural diversity has affected society's organization.
