ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the concepts of culture, communication, and social control and provides the analytical framework for a consideration of Robert E. Park's perspective on race and ethnicity. Park thought that culture is the property that differentiates human 'society' from non-human forms of association. The essence of culture is the understanding made possible through the process of communication. Human ecology charts the spatial distribution of groups, institutions, and activities as well as examining the distribution of a population in an occupational order. Human ecology used maps and graphic representations, and promoted both the collection of numerical data and the development of statistical analysis. Socialization consists of the transmission of a relevant world of social objects to a new member of the group. Publics, public opinion, and political conflict represent rational processes of change in which communication and social control depend upon individuals and groups self-consciously adjusting their behaviour to one another.
