Culture

Culture is not neatly defined in the minds of social scientists. Instead of a term with a consistent definition across different disciplines, it is a construct that has variations in meaning depending on the branch of social science from which the definition is offered. Two definitions are provided here.

Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; cultural systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning influences upon further action. (Kluckhohn, 1962: 73)Culture consists of shared elements…that ...
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