Status and Culture

Status and Culture PDF Author: W. David Marx
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593296702
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
"Subtly altered how I see the world." —Michelle Goldberg, New York Times “[Status and Culture] consistently posits theories I'd never previously considered that instantly feel obvious.” —Chuck Klosterman, author of The Nineties “Why are you the way that you are? Status and Culture explains nearly everything about the things you choose to be—and how the society we live in takes shape in the process.” —B.J. Novak, writer and actor Solving the long-standing mysteries of culture—from the origin of our tastes and identities, to the perpetual cycles of fashions and fads—through a careful exploration of the fundamental human desire for status All humans share a need to secure their social standing, and this universal motivation structures our behavior, forms our tastes, determines how we live, and ultimately shapes who we are. We can use status, then, to explain why some things become “cool,” how stylistic innovations arise, and why there are constant changes in clothing, music, food, sports, slang, travel, hairstyles, and even dog breeds. In Status and Culture, W. David Marx weaves together the wisdom from history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, cultural theory, literary theory, art history, media studies, and neuroscience to demonstrate exactly how individual status seeking creates our cultural ecosystem. Marx examines three fundamental questions: Why do individuals cluster around arbitrary behaviors and take deep meaning from them? How do distinct styles, conventions, and sensibilities emerge? Why do we change behaviors over time and why do some behaviors stick around? The answers then provide new perspectives for understanding the seeming “weightlessness” of internet culture. Status and Culture is a book that will appeal to business people, students, creators, and anyone who has ever wondered why things become popular, why their own preferences change over time, and how identity plays out in contemporary society. Readers of this book will walk away with deep and lasting knowledge of the often secret rules of how culture really works.

Status and Culture

Status and Culture PDF Author: W. David Marx
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0593296702
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Subtly altered how I see the world." —Michelle Goldberg, New York Times “[Status and Culture] consistently posits theories I'd never previously considered that instantly feel obvious.” —Chuck Klosterman, author of The Nineties “Why are you the way that you are? Status and Culture explains nearly everything about the things you choose to be—and how the society we live in takes shape in the process.” —B.J. Novak, writer and actor Solving the long-standing mysteries of culture—from the origin of our tastes and identities, to the perpetual cycles of fashions and fads—through a careful exploration of the fundamental human desire for status All humans share a need to secure their social standing, and this universal motivation structures our behavior, forms our tastes, determines how we live, and ultimately shapes who we are. We can use status, then, to explain why some things become “cool,” how stylistic innovations arise, and why there are constant changes in clothing, music, food, sports, slang, travel, hairstyles, and even dog breeds. In Status and Culture, W. David Marx weaves together the wisdom from history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, cultural theory, literary theory, art history, media studies, and neuroscience to demonstrate exactly how individual status seeking creates our cultural ecosystem. Marx examines three fundamental questions: Why do individuals cluster around arbitrary behaviors and take deep meaning from them? How do distinct styles, conventions, and sensibilities emerge? Why do we change behaviors over time and why do some behaviors stick around? The answers then provide new perspectives for understanding the seeming “weightlessness” of internet culture. Status and Culture is a book that will appeal to business people, students, creators, and anyone who has ever wondered why things become popular, why their own preferences change over time, and how identity plays out in contemporary society. Readers of this book will walk away with deep and lasting knowledge of the often secret rules of how culture really works.

Trustees of Culture

Trustees of Culture PDF Author: Francie Ostrower
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226639673
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 159

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Book Description
Cultural trusteeship is a subject that fascinates those who wonder about the relationship between power and culture. What compels the wealthy to serve on the boards of fine arts institutions? How do they exercise their influence as trustees, and how does this affect the way arts institutions operate? To find out, Francie Ostrower conducted candid personal interviews with 76 trustees drawn from two opera companies and two art museums in the United States. Her new study demonstrates that members of elite arts boards walk a fine line between maintaining their status and serving the needs of the large-scale organizations they oversee. As class members whose status depends in part on the prestige of the boards on which they serve, trustees seek to perpetuate arts boards as exclusive elite enclaves. But in response to pressures to increase and diversify the audiences for arts institutions, elite board members act in a surprisingly open manner in terms of organizational accessibility and operations. Written with clarity and grace, Trustees of Culture will contribute significantly to our understanding of organizational governance; the politics of fundraising; elite arts participation and philanthropy; as well as the consequences of wider social policies that continue to emphasize private financial support. Ostrower's study will prove to be indispensable reading for not just sociologists of culture, but anyone interested in how the arts are financially and institutionally supported.

Above the Clouds

Above the Clouds PDF Author: Takie Sugiyama Lebra
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520076028
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 463

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Book Description
This is an ethnographic study of the modern Japanese aristocracy. The author gained entry into the tightly-knit "kazoku" and conducted more than 100 interviews with its members. Winner of the Association of American University Presses Hiromi Arisawa Award

Minority Status, Oppositional Culture, & Schooling

Minority Status, Oppositional Culture, & Schooling PDF Author: John U. Ogbu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135609306
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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Book Description
This book is the definitive and final presentation of John Ogbu’s cultural ecological model and the many debates that his work has sparked during the past decade. Organized as a dialogue between John Ogbu and the scholarly community, Minority Status, Oppositional Culture, and Schooling is essential reading for anyone interested in the study of the academic achievement gap

Superfluous Things

Superfluous Things PDF Author: Craig Clunas
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
ISBN: 9780824828202
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
Now in paperback This outstanding and original book, presented here with a new preface, examines the history of material culture in early modern China. Craig Clunas analyzes “superfluous things”—the paintings, calligraphy, bronzes, ceramics, carved jade, and other objects owned by the elites of Ming China—and describes contemporary attitudes to them. He informs his discussions with reference to both socio-cultural theory and current debates on eighteenth-century England concerning luxury, conspicuous consumption, and the growth of the consumer society.

The Way the World Is

The Way the World Is PDF Author: Marc J. Swartz
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520373480
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
Marc Swartz takes us for the first time into the homes and neighborhoods of the Swahili in the East African port of Mombasa. At the same time he develops a new model for the operation and transmission of culture. In asking how cultural elements influence the social behavior of those who do not share them as well as of those who do, Swartz points to the mediation of status. The many types of status available to individuals provide guidelines that help explain, for example, why the broadly shared elements of Swahili culture (Islamic religion or the nuclear family) do not alone translate into behavior. The Way the World Is demonstrates in a highly original way how culture "works." This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1991.

Education for Extinction

Education for Extinction PDF Author: David Wallace Adams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 422

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Book Description
The last "Indian War" was fought against Native American children in the dormitories and classrooms of government boarding schools. Only by removing Indian children from their homes for extended periods of time, policymakers reasoned, could white "civilization" take root while childhood memories of "savagism" gradually faded to the point of extinction. In the words of one official: "Kill the Indian and save the man." Education for Extinction offers the first comprehensive account of this dispiriting effort. Much more than a study of federal Indian policy, this book vividly details the day-to-day experiences of Indian youth living in a "total institution" designed to reconstruct them both psychologically and culturally. The assault on identity came in many forms: the shearing off of braids, the assignment of new names, uniformed drill routines, humiliating punishments, relentless attacks on native religious beliefs, patriotic indoctrinations, suppression of tribal languages, Victorian gender rituals, football contests, and industrial training. Especially poignant is Adams's description of the ways in which students resisted or accommodated themselves to forced assimilation. Many converted to varying degrees, but others plotted escapes, committed arson, and devised ingenious strategies of passive resistance. Adams also argues that many of those who seemingly cooperated with the system were more than passive players in this drama, that the response of accommodation was not synonymous with cultural surrender. This is especially apparent in his analysis of students who returned to the reservation. He reveals the various ways in which graduates struggled to make sense of their lives and selectively drew upon their school experience in negotiating personal and tribal survival in a world increasingly dominated by white men. The discussion comes full circle when Adams reviews the government's gradual retreat from the assimilationist vision. Partly because of persistent student resistance, but also partly because of a complex and sometimes contradictory set of progressive, humanitarian, and racist motivations, policymakers did eventually come to view boarding schools less enthusiastically. Based upon extensive use of government archives, Indian and teacher autobiographies, and school newspapers, Adams's moving account is essential reading for scholars and general readers alike interested in Western history, Native American studies, American race relations, education history, and multiculturalism.

Communicating in Global Business Negotiations

Communicating in Global Business Negotiations PDF Author: Jill E. Rudd
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1544349963
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
"Communication in Global Business Negotiations: A Geocentric Approach presents college-level business and communications majors with a new approach for studying communication and negotiation in international business, using a geocentric cross-disciplinary framework. Chapters cover intercultural communication, provide students with a view of the world and how to negotiate with others from different cultures, and uses practitioners′ perspectives to inject real-world case studies and scenarios into the picture. College-level business collections will find this an essential acquisition." —THE MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW "Authors Jill E. Rudd and Diana R. Lawson uniquely integrate communication and international business perspectives to help readers develop a strong understanding of the elements for negotiating an international setting, as well as the skills needed to adapt to the changing environment." —BUSINESS INDIA Presenting a new method for the study of communication and negotiation in international business, this text provides students with the knowledge to conduct negotiations from a geocentric framework. Authors Jill E. Rudd and Diana R. Lawson integrate communication and international business perspectives to help readers develop a strong understanding of the elements necessary for negotiating in a global setting, as well as the skills needed to adapt to the changing environment. This geocentric orientation is an evolution of global learning resulting in effective worldwide negotiation. Key Features: Offers a cross-disciplinary approach: The fields of communication and business are integrated to provide a macro-orientation to global business negotiation. Devotes a chapter to intercultural communication competency: Scales are included to help students assess their potential to become a successful global business negotiators. Provides students with a view of the world in negotiating with others from different cultures: Up-to-date information about current international business contexts gives insight into the challenges experienced by global business negotiators. Discusses alternative dispute resolution: Because of differences in culture and in political structure from one country to another, a chapter is devoted to this growing area of global business negotiation. Presents practitioners′ perspectives: These perspectives illustrate the "real world" of global business negotiation and reinforce the importance of understanding cultural differences. Intended Audience: This is an ideal core text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses such as Negotiation & Conflict Resolution and International Business & Management in the departments of Communication and Business & Management.

Public Health 101

Public Health 101 PDF Author: Richard Riegelman
Publisher: Jones & Bartlett Learning
ISBN: 1284066053
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
From clean drinking water, to seat belts, to immunizations, the impact of public health on every individual is undeniable. For undergraduates, an understanding of the foundations of public health is an essential step toward becoming an educated citizen. Public Health 101: Healthy People––Healthy Populations provides a big-picture, population perspective on the determinants of health and disease and the tools available to protect and promote health. It examines the full range of options for intervention including use of the healthcare system, the public health system, and society-wide systems such as laws and taxation. Through case studies, vignettes, and extensive examples, readers will come away with a clear understanding of how public health affects them in their everyday lives. They will learn and apply frameworks for thinking about the issues of public health and gain a deeper understanding about the health news they are exposed to each day. Key Features: Public Health 101 fully implements the curriculum framework, learning objectives, and “enduring understandings” of undergraduate public health education as recommended by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)* and the Association for Prevention Teaching and Research (APTR). Frameworks for thinking, checklists, and step-by-step examples provide students with hands-on practice. Case studies, vignettes, and extensive illustrations reinforce the materials and provide interactive exercises for classroom discussions, homework, and examinations. A full package of instructor resources is available online at http://publichealth.jbpub.com/essential/riegelman. * To learn more about the AAC&U initiative, The Educated Citizen and Public Health, or to download the curriculum guide, log on to: www.aacu.org/public_health. Looking for more real-life evidence? Check out Essential Case Studies in Public Health, Putting Public Health into Practice.

The Structure of Schooling

The Structure of Schooling PDF Author: Richard Arum
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1452205426
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 801

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Book Description
This comprehensive reader in the sociology of education examines important topics and exposes students to examples of sociological research on schools. Drawing from classic and contemporary scholarship, the editors have chosen readings that examine current issues and reflect diverse theoretical approaches to studying the effects of schooling on individuals and society.