Culture and Society - Assignment Example

The negative ethnocentrism is demonstrated in offensive traits that ridicule other cultures whose customs, religious beliefs and eating habit are clearly different from those of the superior group. However, in the cultural relativism it is believed that behaviors and values of every culture must be observed and analyzed by the culture’s own yardstick. The cultural relativism give reasons why the cattle that are viewed, as taboo in India are not eaten given the severe hunger and malnutrition in the country.

The ethnocentric will view the act of worshipping the cow as the cause poverty in India, but cultural relativism view is extremely essential to their economic method. According to Anthony and Mitchell (124), cultural relativism tries to explain that one should not judge the behavior of other people using the standards of one’s own culture. Conversely, the ethnocentrism belief that customs and behavior of ones own culture is superior to those of other people. On the other hand, in ethnocentrism individual believe their culture are the only correct and that all people everywhere should be judged by how closely they live up to those values.

Thus, cultural relativism means no culture is essentially superior or inferior to any other, and most sociologists adopt this cultural relativism perspective. They view that concept like superiority used by the ethnocentrism needs judgments about the relative worthiness of behaviors, beliefs and other traits of a culture. Moreover, the judgments are rooted in one’s on values, and these values depend on the culture in which one was raised. However, the difficulties associated with adopting the cultural relativism is that most people do not accept on what they are in society.

Thus, the sociologist think there must be universal standards that should be used to judge people depending on their culture. Chapter 4: Socialization The gender is not determined just by biology, but there can be social learning of gender that start extremely early in life. Thus, the gender roles are the attitudes, behavior, rights and the responsibilities that society associates with the sense of being male or female. Kendall (328) indicate that gender role learning is the process of conveying what is regarded as suitable behavior and perspectives for males and female in a particular culture.

Children can learn the gender roles through socialization with parents, teachers and friends in that they will observe what they mother and fathers does in the households tasks. Parents are socialized to believe that it is vital to have a son because they believe only male child would support his parents in the future. Meanwhile, in various cultures, boys are preferred to girls, especially when law, or economic conditions limit the number of children that parent should have in society. Children’s toys reflect their parent’s gender expectations and these choices of the toys will make the children learn their expected gender role in society.

Kendall (329) indicates that the family and the media contribute to the learning process of gender roles in society. Starting extremely early in childhood, children’s books, television programs, movies and music create subtle message about how boys and girls should act. Racial socialization plays a key role in the learning of the gender