1.06 Variations and Attitudes of Culture

• Introduction
• Learn
• Try It
• Task

Introduction

Have you ever been served cornbread with a meal? How about having a glass of sweetened ice tea? If you answered yes to one or both of these questions, then you probably either live in one of the southern states or you have visited a southern state. Once you travel outside of the south, these food items are much less common.

As you learned in the previous module, food is an example of material culture. Serving food a certain way is an example of non-material culture. However, as you also learned, every society has different examples of material and non-material (symbolic) culture. Sometimes, you can find variations of material and symbolic culture within one society. For example, even within the southern states, you will find great variation on the way "southern foods" are prepared. Remember, just because there are variations do not mean one cultural element is better than another, it just means they are different.

Variations within a single larger culture are called a subcultures. These variations are usually acceptable to the majority of the people around them. If there is a subculture in direct opposition to the larger, dominant culture, it is called a counterculture. In this module, you're going to learn about subcultures and countercultures, as well as cultural attitudes toward culture in general.