Linton's Structure of Culture - Universals
Linton’s Structure of Culture: Universals
Linton’s three categories
- Universals: shared by nearly all adults in a society.
- Specialties: known and done by only some.
- Alternatives: chosen ways that depart from the accepted.
Universals
- The elements distributed among the adult population generally.
- Same food, clothing style, language, greetings, religious and political ideas, rules of conduct.
- Specific to one society: a universal in one may not appear in another.
To use culture in curriculum work, a developer needs a way to break it into parts. Ralph Linton, an anthropologist, offered one that has lasted. He analysed a culture into three categories of elements, where elements means the things people know, believe, and do. The three categories are universals, specialties, and alternatives. This article takes the first; the next takes the other two.
| Category | Who shares it |
|---|---|
| Universals | Nearly all adults in the society |
| Specialties | Only some, by occupation or position |
| Alternatives | Only a few, by choice |
What universals are
Universals are the cultural elements distributed among the adult population generally. They are the things nearly everyone in a society holds in common. Within one society, individuals may:
- Eat the same food.
- Wear the same style of clothes.
- Use the same language.
- Greet one another in the same way.
- Expect the same obedience and respect from their children.
They may also possess the same religious notions, cherish the same political and economic ideas, and accept the same rules of polite conduct. All such things, generally accepted by the members of a society, are its universals. They are the shared common ground that lets people in a society understand one another without explanation.
The cultural elements nearly every adult in a society shares
Things like a common language, food, dress, greetings, manners, and shared religious and political ideas. They are the common ground that lets people understand one another.
Universals are specific to one society
A crucial point: universals are specific to a particular society. Because the character of a culture varies from society to society, an element that is universal in one society may not appear at all in another. A greeting everyone uses in one place may be unknown elsewhere; a food on every table here may never be eaten there.
So a universal is not a human universal, something all people everywhere share. It is a society-wide element within one culture. This matters for a developer doing social diagnosis: the universals worth building into a curriculum are the universals of the society the school actually serves, not assumptions carried over from somewhere else.
No, they are specific to one society
A universal is an element nearly everyone within a single culture shares. Because cultures differ, a universal in one society may not appear at all in another, so a developer reads the society actually served.
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