Why does Ann Swidlers formulation of a culture as a tool kit help form a more nuanced approach to understanding human culture?

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Terms in this set (78) Ann Swidler characterizes culture as what? A “tool kit” whereby people can select different understandings and behaviors, enabling them to choose from different courses of action rather than constraining them to a single one. That genes influence not only physical traits but behavior as well.Click to see full answer. Also, what is culture according to the article by Ann Swidler?Ann Swidler says that culture influences actions by shaping habits, skills, and styles by which people construct “strategies of action.” There are two models: settled and unsettled.Also, what is cultural repertoire? a set of knowledge, skills, and symbols, which provide the materials from which individuals and groups construct strategies of action? (:280-284). Likewise, people ask, why does Ann Swidler’s formulation of a culture as a tool kit help form a more nuanced approach to understanding human culture? It allows for the incorporation of human agency into ideas about how culture operates and is created. Sofia lives in a small town in rural Kansas where few other Mexican families live.Which items are among the forces that contribute to a globalization of culture quizlet? Place the societies in chronological order, according to when they appeared. hunting and gathering societies. pastoral societies. traditional societies. industrialized societies.

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This contemporary notion of culture as something to be used and drawn upon comes from sociologist Ann Swidler (1986). From this perspective, people do not just live within a culture but use elements of that culture to inform their behavior and decision-making. They use “cultural equipment” to make sense of their world (see Milkie and Denny 2014). This approach is very much related to the Culture as Meaning approach whereby people selectively use culture to inform or justify behavior rather than merely being passively affected by it. Cultural sociologists today are generally in agreement that culture is simultaneously constraining and enabling (Alexander 2003; Hays 2000). That is, culture affects social existence (people’s behavior, choices, proclivities, etc.) and can be oppressive, but is also subject to change and transformation based on lived realities.

References

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2003. The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Hays, Sharon. 2000. “Constructing the Centrality of Culture and Deconstructing Sociology.” Contemporary Sociology 29:594-602.

Milkie, Melissa A. and Kathleen E. Denny. 2014. "Changes in the Cultural Model of Father Involvement: Descriptions of Benefits to Fathers, Children, and Mothers in Parents’ Magazine, 1926-2006" Journal of Family Issues.

Swidler, Ann. 1986. “Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies.” American Sociological Review 51:273-86.