ABSTRACT
The term “culture” can be problematic because it can mean different things to different people in different contexts. For instance, culture is sometimes used as if it pertains only to those with formal education and privileged social status, implying activities such as attending the opera once a month. In the present day, it generally is acknowledged that culture is not just what an elite group of people may do in their spare time, but there are still various and conflicting ideas of what culture actually means in everyday life. Among many Whites in the United States, for instance, culture is thought to be held exclusively by those different from them. As a consquence, it is not unusual to hear people, especially those of European background, lament that they do not “have” culture in the same way that African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, or other groups visibly different from the dominant group “have” it. In other cases, culture is used interchangeably with ethnicity as if both were simply passed down, constant and eternal, from one generation to the next. At still other times, culture can mean the traditions one celebrates within the family, in which case it is reduced to foods, dances, and holidays. Less often is culture thought of as the values one holds dear, or the way one looks at and interacts with the world.
