Download Free What Is Culture Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online What Is Culture and write the review.

Discusses cultural differences in food, music, clothing, sports, and holidays around the world.
A particular culture is associated with a particular community, and thus has a social dimension. But how does culture operate and how is it to be defined? Is it to be taken as the behavioral repertoire of members of that community, as the products of their behavior, or as the shared mental content that produces the behavior? Is it to be viewed as a coherent whole or only a collection of disparate parts? Culture is shared, but how totally? How is culture learned and maintained over time, and how does it change? In Meaning and Significance in Human Engagement, Kronenfeld adopts a cognitive approach to culture to offer answers to these questions. Combining insights from cognitive psychology and linguistic anthropology with research on collective knowledge systems, he offers an understanding of culture as a phenomenon produced and shaped by a combination of conditions, constraints and logic. Engagingly written, it is essential reading for scholars and graduate students of cognitive anthropology, linguistic anthropology, sociology of culture, philosophy, and computational cognitive science.
An international business expert helps you understand and navigate cultural differences in this insightful and practical guide, perfect for both your work and personal life. Americans precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans get straight to the point; Latin Americans and Asians are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians think the best boss is just one of the crowd. It's no surprise that when they try and talk to each other, chaos breaks out. In The Culture Map, INSEAD professor Erin Meyer is your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain in which people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together. She provides a field-tested model for decoding how cultural differences impact international business, and combines a smart analytical framework with practical, actionable advice.
A highly interdisciplinary overview of the wide spectrum of current international research and professional practice in intercultural communication, this is a key reference book for students, lecturers and professionals alike. Key examples of contrastive, interactive, imagological and interlingual approaches are discussed, as well as the impact of cultural, economic and socio-political power hierarchies in cultural encounters, essential for contemporary research in critical intercultural communication and postcolonial studies. The Handbook also explores the spectrum of professional applications of that research, from intercultural teaching and training to the management of culturally mixed groups, facilitating use by professionals in related fields. Theories are introduced systematically using ordinary language explanations and examples, providing an engaging approach to readers new to the field. Students and researchers in a wide variety of disciplines, from cultural studies to linguistics, will appreciate this clear yet in-depth approach to an ever-evolving contemporary field.
Prominent scholars and journalists ponder the question of why, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the world is more divided than ever between the rich and the poor, between those living in freedom and those under oppression.
There are many reasons to be curious about the way people learn, and the past several decades have seen an explosion of research that has important implications for individual learning, schooling, workforce training, and policy. In 2000, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition was published and its influence has been wide and deep. The report summarized insights on the nature of learning in school-aged children; described principles for the design of effective learning environments; and provided examples of how that could be implemented in the classroom. Since then, researchers have continued to investigate the nature of learning and have generated new findings related to the neurological processes involved in learning, individual and cultural variability related to learning, and educational technologies. In addition to expanding scientific understanding of the mechanisms of learning and how the brain adapts throughout the lifespan, there have been important discoveries about influences on learning, particularly sociocultural factors and the structure of learning environments. How People Learn II: Learners, Contexts, and Cultures provides a much-needed update incorporating insights gained from this research over the past decade. The book expands on the foundation laid out in the 2000 report and takes an in-depth look at the constellation of influences that affect individual learning. How People Learn II will become an indispensable resource to understand learning throughout the lifespan for educators of students and adults.
The contribution of culture to organizational performance is substantial and quantifiable. In The Culture Cycle, renowned thought leader James Heskett demonstrates how an effective culture can account for 20-30% of the differential in performance compared with "culturally unremarkable" competitors. Drawing on decades of field research and dozens of case studies, Heskett introduces a powerful conceptual framework for managing culture, and shows it at work in a real-world setting. Heskett's "culture cycle" identifies cause-and-effect relationships that are crucial to shaping effective cultures, and demonstrates how to calculate culture's economic value through "Four Rs": referrals, retention, returns to labor, and relationships. This book: Explains how culture evolves, can be shaped and sustained, and serve as the organization's "internal brand." Shows how culture can promote innovation and survival in tough times. Guides leaders in linking culture to strategy and managing forces that challenge it. Shows how to credibly quantify culture's impact on performance, productivity, and profits. Clarifies culture's unique role in mission-driven organizations. A follow-up to the classic Corporate Culture and Performance (authored by Heskett and John Kotter), this is the next indispensable book on organizational culture. "Heskett (emer., Harvard Business School) provides an exhaustive examination of corporate policies, practices, and behaviors in organizations." Summing Up: Recommended. Reprinted with permission from CHOICE, copyright by the American Library Association.
Today, interest in networks is growing by leaps and bounds, in both scientific discourse and popular culture. Networks are thought to be everywhere – from the architecture of our brains to global transportation systems. And networks are especially ubiquitous in the social world: they provide us with social support, account for the emergence of new trends and markets, and foster social protest, among other functions. Besides, who among us is not familiar with Facebook, Twitter, or, for that matter, World of Warcraft, among the myriad emerging forms of network-based virtual social interaction? It is common to think of networks simply in structural terms – the architecture of connections among objects, or the circuitry of a system. But social networks in particular are thoroughly interwoven with cultural things, in the form of tastes, norms, cultural products, styles of communication, and much more. What exactly flows through the circuitry of social networks? How are people's identities and cultural practices shaped by network structures? And, conversely, how do people's identities, their beliefs about the social world, and the kinds of messages they send affect the network structures they create? This book is designed to help readers think about how and when culture and social networks systematically penetrate one another, helping to shape each other in significant ways.
What is Cultural History? has established itself as an essential guide to what cultural historians do and how they do it. Now fully updated in its second edition, leading historian Peter Burke offers afresh his accessible guide to the past, present and future of cultural history, as it has been practised not only in the English-speaking world, but also in Continental Europe, Asia, South America and elsewhere. Burke begins by providing a discussion of the ‘classic’ phase of cultural history, associated with Jacob Burckhardt and Johan Huizinga, and of the Marxist reaction, from Frederick Antal to Edward Thompson. He then charts the rise of cultural history in more recent times, concentrating on the work of the last generation, often described as the ‘New Cultural History'. He places cultural history in its own cultural context, noting links between new approaches to historical thought and writing and the rise of feminism, postcolonial studies and an everyday discourse in which the idea of culture plays an increasingly important part. The new edition also surveys the very latest developments in the field and considers the directions cultural history may be taking in the twenty-first century. The second edition of What is Cultural History? will continue to be an essential textbook for all students of history as well as those taking courses in cultural, anthropological and literary studies.
Culture, cultural difference, and cultural conflict always surround us. Cultural sociologists aim to understand their role across all aspects of social life by examining processes of meaning-making. In this crisp and accessible book, Lyn Spillman demonstrates many of the conceptual tools cultural sociologists use to explore how people make meaning. Drawing on vivid examples, she offers a compelling analytical framework within which to view the entire field of cultural sociology. In each chapter, she introduces a different angle of vision, with distinct but compatible approaches for explaining culture and its role in social life: analyzing symbolic forms, meaning-making in interaction, and organized production. This book both offers a concise answer to the question of what cultural sociology is and provides an overview of the fundamental approaches in the field.