SOSYOLOJİYE GİRİŞ

Culture critic Matthew Arnold (1822- 1888) identified culture with “aesthetic excellence” when he defined culture as the best of what is said and thought in the world in all matters that most concern us, or the best that has been thought and known. This approach, which regards culture as equivalent to intellectual and artistic activities and ideas, considers culture to be a synonym for high culture in the duality of high culture and popular culture. Thus, cultural forms that may not be directly, but are indirectly more popular, are not considered “culture”. The correct answer is A. 

Value can be 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. The correct answer is C. 

The collective nature of culture can mostly be observed in language. Language is an important part of culture. Within each language, the ideas, mentality and worldview specific to the community that uses this language are reflected. Thus, each culture forms its own unique. The correct answer is D.

Culture-functional approach suggests culture only became possible when human communities began to separate and classify things in their environment. The correct answer is B.

Culture industry refers to rationally organized-bureaucratic structures that considerably control and supervise modern culture, such as television networks. The correct answer is A.

"Habitus" is produced by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002), one of the most important theoreticians of the 20th century. The correct answer is B. 

Ethnocentrism often manifests itself in the level of appreciation for one’s own culture, the belief that it is superior to others, and disdain for, alienation or humiliation of other cultures. For this reason, ethnocentrism, which can be seen as innocent and necessary for every cultural identity at first sight, is not innocent at all. The correct answer id D. 

Cultural heritage is the remnants of the thousands of years of life experience, wisdom and creativity of mankind, which has managed to reach today. Cultural heritage is divided into two as tangible and intangible cultural heritage. The tangible cultural heritage is also divided into two subcategories: movable and immovable. While the intangible cultural heritage appears as “folklore”, “art” or “collective memory”, the tangible cultural heritage sometimes emerges as an archaeological site, sometimes a city from the Middle Ages, and sometimes a rug. The correct answer is D. 

Grobalization is a combination of the words ‘growth’ and ‘globalization.’ Grobalization implies the imperialistic goals, desires, and needs of big businesses or companies (e.g. McDonald’s, Coca- Cola, Wal-Mart, Disney and Hollywood) or even entire nations to settle in diverse areas of the world so that their supremacy and impact can grow. The correct answer is C. 

Culture has a wide range of uses in daily life and has different meanings in different contexts. It  is a complex concept and there are one hundred and sixty four different definitions of culture. Culture gives consistency to our lives. Culture is a system of meanings and significance created historically, or, in other words, culture is a system of beliefs and customs that a group of people use in order to understand, organize, and structure their individual and collective lives. The correct answer is E

When we consider that in everyday life, the term culture is used in a very large area and has varying meanings in various situations, we have to admit that it is very difficult to describe culture briefly and simply. The correct answer is D.

In aesthetic approach, culture can be used as a name for the best, the most beautiful, or the most magnificent products of a society or civilization. Classical music, art, and literature can be articulated as the examples of this group. This approach, which regards culture as equivalent to intellectual and artistic activities and ideas, considers culture to be a synonym for high culture in the duality of high culture and popular culture. The correct answer is A.

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.