Culture is a set of patterns of human behavior within a community or social group, and the symbolic structures that give meaning to these behaviors. It also includes values, norms, philosophies, worldviews and knowledge. Culture can be learned and shared by individuals and groups. It can be influenced by one’s environment, family and friends. Cultural activities help to build strong relationships and develop interpersonal skills. Students participating in cultural activities are better able to understand people from different cultures.
It has long been common for anthropologists to refer to “culture in general” or the cultures of individual societies (Seneca culture, Eskimo culture, North American Plains culture) and the cultures of geographic regions (arid culture, coastal culture, tropical culture). However, these broad categories obscure the fact that each of these cultural systems possesses a variety of specific customs, laws, traditions, beliefs, attitudes, and tools of life.
Traditionally, the concept of culture has been associated with civilization and the emergence of man from a primitive animal state. The question, then, has been how to distinguish between a society that possessed true culture and those that did not. This led to the development of the distinctions between savagery and civility.
A number of 19th-century classical evolutionists, including Edward Burnett Tylor and Lewis H. Morgan, argued that human beings are endowed with the capacity to develop all manner of culture traits. Others, known as the “diffusionists,” believed that, once developed, these traits are naturally liable to spread from one people or region to another.
In the last century, a school of scholars, called new cultural history, sought to incorporate aspects of traditional history with methods from other disciplines, particularly sociology and anthropology. The result was a broad range of studies embracing topics as varied as crime, madness, childhood, gesture, smells and space, as well as the conventional subjects of anthropology, archaeology, history, art, economics and religion.
While the debate over what constitutes culture continues, there are some common themes that all approaches share. These include the belief that culture is learned, shared, symbolic, holistic and adaptive. The different approaches, however, differ in their emphasis and favored topics. For example, some tend to focus on issues that are considered controversial in the larger culture while others emphasize the importance of studying local cultural events. In addition, each approach has its own historiographical tradition and heritage. For these reasons, it is often difficult to distinguish the various schools of thought. Nevertheless, the new cultural historians have contributed to historical inquiry in important ways. Their work has introduced innovative concepts and methodologies and encouraged the study of many topics that have previously been neglected. This work will undoubtedly continue to be vital in the future. It will provide the context for studies in such diverse fields as history of ideas, history of science, and social history. It has also helped to shape a new era in the study of human culture. In this era, new cultural histories are increasingly based on the research and theories of scholars in other fields such as psychology and sociology.