Activity . What is Culture? In spite of the fact that culture is always with us, much confusion exists in defining culture. It is more like the notion of “energy” in physics or “group” in sociology.
Some believe that culture really exists out there, and it matters to individuals, while others believe that culture does not really exist, instead it is an idea created and shared by a group of people. The innumerable definitions of culture commonly point to some of its essential features. One is that culture includes behavioural products of others who preceded us. It indicates both substantial and abstract particulars that have prior existence in one form or another.
Thus, culture is already there as we begin life. It contains values that will be expressed and a language in which to express them. It contains a way of life that will be followed by most of us who grow up in that context. Such a conceptualisation of culture tends to place it outside the individual, but there are also treatments of culture that places it in the minds of individuals.
In the latter case, culture is identified with a historically transmitted pattern of meanings embodied in symbols. Culture provides meaning by creating significant categories like social practices (e.g., marriage) and roles (e.g., bridegroom) as well as values, beliefs and premises. As Richard Shweder put it, to learn that “a mother’s sister’s husband is an uncle”, one must somehow receive the ‘frame’ of understanding from others. Whether culture is taken as an existing reality, or as an abstraction, or both, it exerts many real influences on human behaviour.
It allows us to categorise and explain many important differences in human behaviour that were previously attributed to biological differences. Social and cultural contexts within which human development takes place vary widely over time and place. For example, some twenty years ago children in India would not have known several products that are now part of a child’s world. Similarly an Adivasi living in a remote forest or hilly area would not have a “pizza” or “sandwich” as breakfast.