for Teachers for Schools for Enterprise
for Teachers for Schools for Enterprise
Course Navigator
Understanding the Difference Between Society & CultureNext Lesson 

Levels of Culture: National, International & Subcultural

Chapter 15 /  Lesson 2   Transcript
Start Your Free Trial Today

An error occurred trying to load this video.

Try refreshing the page, or contact customer support.

Coming up next: Understanding the Difference Between Society & Culture

You're on a roll. Keep up the good work!

Take Quiz Watch Next Lesson
 Replay
Your next lesson will play in 10 seconds
  • 0:01 Definition of Culture
  • 0:55 International Culture
  • 1:52 National Culture
  • 3:11 Subculture
  • 6:40 Lesson Summary
Add to Add to Add to

Want to watch this again later?

Log in or sign up to add this lesson to a Custom Course.

Login or Sign up

Timeline
Autoplay
Autoplay

Recommended Lessons and Courses for You

Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Jessica Whittemore

Jessica has taught junior high history and college seminar courses. She has a master's degree in education.

This lesson will focus on the different levels, or layers, of culture. In doing so, it will define culture. It will also explain the layers of international culture, national culture, and subculture.

Definition of Culture

Today's lesson will be a rather simple one as we take a look at what anthropologists like to call the different layers or levels of culture. In studying this topic, we'll become amateur anthropologists, people watchers if you will, taking a look at how the concept of culture plays out across our society and our world.

For starters, culture is defined as the set of learned behaviors and beliefs that characterize a society or people group. Simply put, it's what makes a people group a people group. It's their beliefs, attitudes, and ideals. It's their art, their religion, their clothing, their diet, their entertainment... It's all that makes them them!

When studying culture, most anthropologists choose to break down this broad concept into layers. The three most common layers usually delineated are international, national, and subculture.

International Culture

Since it's the broadest of the three, we'll start with international culture. International culture is culture that extends beyond national borders. It's not confined to a country, a people group, or even a continent! With this definition in mind, it's not surprising to know that international culture is sometimes also referred to as universal.

Marriage is an excellent example of international culture because it's practiced by people groups all over the world. Whether they say 'I do' in English, French, or Swahili, people all over the globe enter into the union of marriage. Yes, the outfit the bride wears may differ depending on her country, and the ceremony may look very different depending on the couple's religion, but the basic premise remains the same. At the end of the day, whether the bride wore white or brightly colored silks, a marriage has begun, and on any given day, it's happening all over our globe.

National Culture

Our next layer of culture is national culture. As you can probably guess from the name, this represents the beliefs and practices shared by the citizens of the same nation. It's what makes an American an American and an Italian an Italian.

To highlight the idea that culture is made up of layers, we'll again use marriage. As we've already covered, marriage is part of international culture. However, how it plays out in different countries is a great example of national culture. For example, if you are going to a Christian wedding in the United States, you'll most likely be attending the festivities on a Saturday or maybe even a Friday night.

However, not many American weddings take place on a Sunday, but very traditional Italians believe Sunday is the luckiest day to marry. According to old time Italian traditions, Saturday weddings were to be reserved for widows who were remarrying, not first time brides and grooms.

Although many modern Italians no longer hold to these ideals, they still have a part in the traditional, national culture of Italy. On a similar note, and another example of national culture, traditional Chinese wedding dates were often chosen by an astrologer who used the bride and groom's birthdays to figure out the luckiest day they should wed.

Subculture

With this, we come to our last layer of culture, subculture. Subculture is often defined as the beliefs and attitudes that separate groups within the same broad culture. As a layer of culture, subculture is often made up of differences in religion, socioeconomic status, and even race. As Americans, we are very familiar with subcultures. One needs to only spend a day in New York City to experience the subcultures of places like Little Italy, Greenwich Village, and Chinatown. Yes, many of the people you see there will share the national culture of being Americans, but they will differ greatly in how they dress, what they eat, and how they worship.

Again hitting on the idea that there are layers to culture, we'll again use our example of marriage. As we've already highlighted, marriage is part of international culture. However, it also plays out differently depending on one's national culture. Taking this a step further, marriage also differs at a sub-cultural level. To explain this one, I'll use my own family.

Growing up as a child in the Northeast of the United States, most of the weddings I attended as a child were what you'd call, or maybe I should say, what I'd call, very traditional. The brides wore very fancy white dresses, and the grooms wore tuxedos; even the guests were dressed to the nines. Organs, pianos, or orchestras played, and afterward, there were usually very fancy meals. I must admit, as a child, I found them very boring, but that's how the subculture in which I was raised did weddings, so I suffered through them.

To unlock this lesson you must be a Study.com Member.
Create your account

Register for a free trial

Are you a student or a teacher?

Unlock Your Education

See for yourself why 30 million people use Study.com

Become a Study.com member and start learning now.
Become a Member  Back
What teachers are saying about Study.com
Free 5-day trial
Description

Earning College Credit

Did you know… We have over 160 college courses that prepare you to earn credit by exam that is accepted by over 1,500 colleges and universities. You can test out of the first two years of college and save thousands off your degree. Anyone can earn credit-by-exam regardless of age or education level.

To learn more, visit our Earning Credit Page

Transferring credit to the school of your choice

Not sure what college you want to attend yet? Study.com has thousands of articles about every imaginable degree, area of study and career path that can help you find the school that's right for you.

Research Schools, Degrees & Careers

Get the unbiased info you need to find the right school.

Browse Articles By Category

Browse an area of study or degree level.

Recommended Articles
You are viewing lesson Lesson 2 in chapter 15 of the course:

 Back To Course

Anthropology 101: General Anthropology

25 chapters | 274 lessons

Ch 15. The Nature of Culture
Ch 16. Art and Anthropology

Levels of Culture: National, International & Subcultural Related Study Materials

Create an account to start this course today
Try it free for 5 days!
Create An Account

Explore our library of over 70,000 lessons

Browse by subject
Support