AP® Human Geography review sheet from Aim for Five (aimforfive.com/geo/units/3/3-1)
Unit 3 · Topic 3.1
3.1 Introduction to Culture
Culture is the learned, shared way of life of a group, passed from one generation to the next. This topic gives you the basic vocabulary, culture traits, and two very different attitudes toward other cultures: ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.
Key terms
- culture
- culture trait
- ethnocentrism
- cultural relativism
What culture is
Culture is the whole set of shared practices, beliefs, values, technologies and behaviors that a group passes down. It's learned, not inherited: a baby born anywhere can grow up speaking any language and following any tradition, depending on who raises them.
Culture includes things you can see, like clothing, buildings and food. It also includes things you can't see, like values, religious beliefs, attitudes toward family and ideas about what is polite. Geographers care about culture because it varies from place to place and leaves marks on the landscape.
Culture traits
A culture trait is a single element of a culture. Food preferences, architecture and land use are three examples you should know well.
- Food preferences: rice as the staple across much of East and Southeast Asia, corn tortillas in Mexico, or avoiding pork in Jewish and Muslim communities for religious reasons.
- Architecture: steep roofs that shed snow in the Alps, thick adobe walls that keep homes cool in the U.S. Southwest, or houses on stilts in flood-prone parts of Southeast Asia.
- Land use: terraced rice paddies, long narrow farm lots along rivers in French-settled Quebec and Louisiana, or a town built around a central plaza in Spanish colonial cities.
- Other traits include clothing, music, sports, holidays and greetings. A group of related traits that work together, such as everything connected to a holiday, is sometimes called a culture complex.
Folk and popular culture
Many teachers also use two broad categories. Folk culture belongs to a small, often rural group that shares long-held traditions, like Amish farming and dress, or a village's handmade crafts. It changes slowly and spreads mostly when people move.
Popular culture is shared by large, diverse populations and changes quickly, like global fashion brands, streaming shows and viral music. It spreads fast through media and the internet and can make places look more alike. Most real places mix both.
Two attitudes toward cultural difference
Ethnocentrism is judging other cultures by the standards of your own and seeing your own as normal or superior. Calling another group's food “weird” or its customs “backward” because they differ from yours is ethnocentric. At a larger scale, ethnocentric ideas were used to justify colonial rule and efforts to replace Indigenous cultures.
Cultural relativism is trying to understand a culture on its own terms, by asking why a practice makes sense within that culture before judging it. It doesn't mean you must approve of everything. It means you understand before you evaluate.
Geographers aim for cultural relativism when they study places. That is also the attitude the exam expects: describe cultures accurately and avoid ranking them.
Worked examples
Try each one yourself first, then open the solution.
- Example 1
Identifying an attitude
A visitor to a city in India sees cows walking freely in the street and says the city is disorganized and should remove them. A second visitor learns that cows are sacred to many Hindus and asks how the city manages traffic around them. Identify the attitude each visitor shows and explain.
Show the solutionHide the solution
- Step 1: Visitor 1 judges the scene by their home culture's norms about streets and animals, without understanding the local meaning. That is ethnocentrism.
- Step 2: Visitor 2 tries to understand the practice within the local religious and cultural context before judging. That is cultural relativism.
- Step 3: Tie each label to the behavior in the scenario so the answer explains, not just names.
Answer: Visitor 1 shows ethnocentrism by judging the practice by their own culture's standards. Visitor 2 shows cultural relativism by trying to understand the practice in its religious and cultural context.
Common mistakes
- Saying culture is inherited. It is learned and passed on socially.
- Defining cultural relativism as “anything goes.” It means understanding a practice in context, not giving up all judgment.
- Listing a culture trait without saying how it reflects the culture or place.
On the exam
- Multiple-choice questions often describe a reaction to another culture and ask whether it shows ethnocentrism or cultural relativism.
- When asked for a culture trait, give a specific one tied to a specific place, such as adobe architecture in the U.S. Southwest.
Connected topics
Videos
Check yourself
4 questions on 3.1 Introduction to Culture. Pick an answer to see if you got it, and why.
A tourist visiting a country where people commonly eat with their hands calls the custom 'uncivilized' because people at home use forks. The tourist's attitude is an example of
An anthropologist studying a village explains that people there arrange marriages through family elders because, in their society, marriage joins two families as well as two people. This approach is best described as
Which of the following is the best example of a culture trait?
A child born in Seoul to Korean parents is adopted as a baby and raised in Sweden. As an adult, she speaks Swedish as her first language and celebrates Swedish holidays. This example best supports the idea that
0 of 4 answered