Cultural Representations of Social Class - Essay Example

CULTURAL REPRESENTATIONS OF SOCIAL Cultural Representations of Social Culture is related to the social and the perception of the reality. The concept if culture is a mixed entity that has a number of components. Each of the components plays a vital part in the formation of different needs of the society. The overall development of an individual in the society is dependent on the perceived level of culture in the society. There any forms of cultures that have been seen as a part of the social makeup.

There are certain cultures that are refined in nature, while certain ones are not. The culture is a combination of a number of social constructs, which include the symbols, norms, artifacts and the values (Velkley, 2002). The conjoined value of all of these parameters plays a part in defining the nature of the culture. So, when all the parameters have been decided; the culture plays a role in impacting the social class and the pride within the different social classes.The concept of culture is an amalgam of the different elements, which include the basal ideas of class, constructs, the norms, values and artifacts.

All of these elements have a defined impact on the different sections of the society. The elementary constructs of social class are built on all of these fundamental points (Boas, 1940). An upper class construct is associated with the attachment to refined kinds of ideas. They tend to be more superfluous in nature with the importance being given to a lot of activities. The upper class has a certain set of the norms, values, constructs and ideas that form the crux of fundamental elements. An upper social construct would have all of these values that are consequential to it.

The lower construct has certain attributes that have certain norms, values, artifacts and systems of action. The human beings are beings who have the quality of experiential learning (Lewis, 1964). So, it is potentially easy for an individual to move from a lower society to the higher society by the learning of certain kinds of values that are essentially a part of the system of the social set-up. The some cannot be said about the migration from upper calls to a lower class. These are the reasons for the inability of the movement from the upper to lower class.

The culture is divided in a general way, either in the form of refined culture or the culture that is not refined in nature. So, the formation of the social constructs is inherent to the definition of culture. This can be comprehended by the general meaning of culture which is a combination of the values, ideas, norms and the artifacts (Kroeber, 1948). The culture of the society leads to the crystallization of certain ideas and also the accompanying behavior patterns that envelop them. The culture leads to the stratification of the society, with certain elements of the society having a higher perceived value.

This leads to a lack of movement of the social constructs within the same strata. This is the reason for the reproduction of the class from generation to generation.ReferencesFranz, Boas. (1940). "The Aims of Anthropological Research", in Race, Language and Culture ed. George Stocking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kroeber, Alfred L. (1948). Anthropology: Race, Language, Culture, Psychology, Prehistory revised edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World.Lewis, Oscar. (1964). Pedro Martinez.

New York: Random House.Velkley, Richard .(2002). "The Tension in the Beautiful: On Culture and Civilization in Rousseau and German Philosophy". Being after Rousseau: Philosophy and Culture in Question. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.