SOSYOLOJİYE GİRİŞ - Deneme Sınavı - 16

Culture produced by cultural industries does not develop spontaneously, and it is a standardized and commodified culture aiming at reaching the widest masses. Mass culture is a culture that belongs mainly to industrial capitalism and is largely produced by mass media. It targets both more consumption and profit, as well as reproduction of capitalist values. The correct answer is C.

British Cultural Studies is mainly focused on the relationship of culture with power and resistance. In this sense, British Cultural Studies, which uses post-structuralist, structuralist Marxist and recently postmodernist theories together in a critical framework, is based on a very rich theoretical accumulation. This school especially emphasizes the role of the media in the formation and maintenance of cultural hegemony. British Cultural Studies conceptualized culture as a dynamic and constantly renewing process, not as a fixed, static, frozen and closed system. Adopting an expanded concept of culture, the School has rejected the distinction between high culture and low culture, and has made a significant break from an approach that would create any cultural stratification. The correct answer is E.

The concept of cultural reproduction and habitus is produced by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), one of the most important theoreticians of the 20th century. Bourdieu (1984), in his famous study, Distinction, uses a statistical data set to identify social groupings which differ from each other in terms of their distinctive life style- that is, their habitus: they have same taste in food and clothes, they like the same kind of music, they share the same leisure activities and hobbies. Bourdieu also looks at the statistical relations between the individual’s life-style and preferences as an indication of the existence of a habitus that is characteristic of each social class or stratum, of a mode of activity and way of thinking that organizes the individual’s everyday life. The correct answer is A.

The concept ‘cultural reproduction’ expresses the process of transferring the culture of the dominant class from generation to generation through the education system. Thus, education is a very important institution in the reproduction of social inequalities. In a more general sense, it is a concept that sheds light on how communities continue to exist and remain stable over long periods of time. Cultural reproduction, therefore, is closely related to the process by which individuals internalize their social cultures. The correct answer is B.

Cultural determinism is a thought that culture is unchangeable and very strong, and the members of it are kind of prisoners. The correct anwer is D.

Accepting the existence of other cultures and the diversity of cultures, unfortunately, does not always lead to respect for other cultures. This danger emerges when people value their culture so much and start to see it as “the best, the most beautiful.” Judging (which is generally disdaining) other cultures by looking from the value system of one’s own culture, and by taking his/her cultural values as a foreground is called ethnocentrism. The correct answer is E.

Tradition refers to a practice that comes from the past and is repeated from generation to generation. In other words, it is a set of social practices related to rituals or other forms of symbolic behavior, which are persistent with a real or imaginary past and are widely adopted. The correct answer is A.

Although there are 164 definitions of culture, these definitions can be categorized into three general groups. In other words, hundreds of
different cultural definitions can be classified into three categories (Edles, 2002):
1. Aesthetic Definitions of Culture or Culture as High Culture
2. Anthropological Definitions of Culture or Culture as a Whole Way of Life
3. Culture as Shared Meaning Systems. The correct answer is D.

Value is defined as the thoughts or principles that are thought to be true and necessary by the majority of its members in order to sustain the existence of a society or a social group. Values are the criteria that tell us what is right, what is wrong, what is wanted and what is not wanted in determining our
behaviour within society. The correct answer is D.

Norms are formal / written or informal / non-written rules that are deemed necessary for the integrity and continuity of a society, and regulate the behavior of individuals. Norms point to the ideal behavior patterns expected from us as well as covering the usual behaviors in a society. The correct answer is B.

Emile Durkheim one of the founders of the functional approach , addressed some basic questions about how culture came into being in his work, Primitive Classification, written with Marcel Mauss his nephew and the most important student. Thus, the two can be counted as the representatives of the functional approach. On the other hand, Marx is the representative of Marxist approach.  The correct answer is D.

Collective Subjectivity is defined as a way of life or outlook adopted by a community or a social class. Cultural lag refers to the incompatibility that arises in the process of change in the reciprocal relationship between the material and spiritual cultures in a social system. Cultural determinism refers to the thought
that culture is unchangeable and very strong, and the members of it are kind of
prisoners. Cultural capital refers to the practical competencies and tastes which support our status and position and also help us to differentiate ourselves from those who are less ‘culturally endowed’. Finally, cultural reproduction expresses the process of transferring the culture of the dominant class from generation to generation through the education system. Thus the correct answer is C.

Cultural lag refers to the gap when the changes in material culture are followed with a certain delay by spiritual culture (law, custom, tradition, social mentality, etc.) Especially the changes in the technology dimension of material culture enable the cultural lag to be seen strikingly. Thus it is an example of cultural lag when people who did not own mobile phones until recently talk on the phone in a way that annoys people in their surroundings after receiving a mobile phone. The correct answer is A.

Cosmopolitan is a combination of the Greek words cosmos (universe) and the police (city). It refers to a place that holds people from various nations, and/or someone who has multiple roots, and accepts not just one, but all of them. On the other hand, the rest of the choices refers to concepts that have negative connotations. The correct answer is B.

Ethnocentrism, which seems normal and natural for every cultural identity at first sight, comes out as homophobia, heterophobia, xenophobia, islamophobia and racism at different doses. On the other hand, the choice of C, acrophobia refers to a different concept which means the fear of heights. The correct answer is C.

A, B, C, refer to the characteristics of the modern culture while D  refers to a characteristic of the postmodernisation. On the hand grobalization refers to  the imperialistic goals, desires, and needs of big businesses or companies. Thus the correct answer is E.

Glocalization is sometimes reported to be a reaction to globalization, or a reinforcement of cultural identity at the local community level’. Robertson sees ‘glocalization’ as an interpenetration of the global and the local. But the way the concept is generally applied relates to marketing a product produced by a multinational corporation by appealing to local cultural cues. The correct answer is C.

Aesthetic, is a subdiscipline in philosophy that deals with art and beauty, and is closely related to philosophy of art. In general, the term aesthetic is concerned with the identification of general and universal principles that determine ‘art’ and ‘beauty.’) Therefore, the correct option is C.

Although there are 164 definitions of culture, these definitions can be categorized into three general groups. In other words, hundreds of different cultural definitions can be classified into three categories (Edles, 2002): 1. Aesthetic Definitions of Culture or Culture as High Culture 2. Anthropological Definitions of Culture or Culture as a Whole Way of Life 3. Culture as Shared Meaning Systems
Aesthetic. Therefore, the correct option is B.

According to this definition framing culture as a “whole way of lifestyle” of a social group, culture consists of the values that the members of a group believe, the norms they follow, and the material things they create. Therefore, the correct option is B.