Essay on Cultural Variation: Conflict, Symbolic Interactionism

This essay provides an overview of cultural variation, exploring it through the lenses of conflict theory, symbolic interactionism, and functionalism. It begins by defining culture and how it is influenced by an individual's surroundings, including music, food, beliefs, and family. The functional approach is discussed, which posits that cultural traits with positive societal consequences are more likely to be adopted. The conflict approach is then examined, highlighting how dominant groups may impose cultural norms to maintain power. Finally, symbolic interactionism is presented, emphasizing how symbols and interactions shape cultural meaning. The essay references key sociological theorists and concludes by highlighting the dynamic nature of culture and how it is interpreted through interactions.

Running head: CULTURAL VARIATION 1
Cultural Variation
Name
Institution

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Cultural Variation
Culture remains based on the area an individual are located, for example the music we
listen to, what we eat, friends, our beliefs, family, politics, and economic class are all based on
our surroundings. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the conflict, symbolic
interactionism, and functional approaches elucidate cultural variation.
The Functional Approach proposes that a functional culture attribute has a positive
consequence for the overall society and shall possibly not be adopted unless the trait fits well
with the available culture as well as leads to the society’s well-being. To Functionalists, society
is a system in which each and every parts function-or work together to make society as whole
(Goldberg & Stein, 2018). It is true that societies require culture to exist. The norms (cultural
norms) help in supporting the fluid society’s operation. Cultural values provide guidance to
individuals in making selections. The same way that a society work jointly to achieve the needs
of a society, culture subsists to satisfy the basic needs of the people.
Conflict Approach suggests that prevailing description of justice, truth and beauty can
serve the leaders at the expense of other normal people with culture being made as well as
imposed on the people by the rich or ruling class. It is true that conflict approaches view social
structure mainly as inherently unequal, based on power differentials linked to issues such as age,
gender, class, as well as race. For a conflict theorist, culture remains seen as reinforcing
problems of privilege for particular groups based upon class, sex and so on. Inequalities exist in
each cultural system (Hirsch, 2018). Cultural norms benefit individuals with power and status
while harming other people. Some norms, informal and formal, remain practiced at the expense
of others. Females were not permitted to vote in the US until 1920. Lesbian and Gay couples
have been deprived of the right to marry in many States. Bigotry and racism are extremely much

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alive today. Even though cultural diversity remains supposedly valued in US, many individuals
still frown upon mixed-race marriages.
Symbolic Interactionism refers to a sociological perspective that remains concerned
with the face-to face interaction among people in the society. The symbolic interactionism
approach highpoints the significance of symbols in understanding culture as well as the social
behavior it shapes, indicating that symbols are the main agent for transmitting as well as shaping
culture (Blumer, 2018). It is true that Interationists see culture as being made and maintained via
the ways individuals interact as well as in how people interpret the actions of each other.
Proponents of symbolic interactionism conceptualize interactions of human as a continuous
process of deriving meaning from objects in the environment as well the actions of other people.
This explains the origin of symbolic (Denzin, 2016). Every action and object has a symbolic
meaning. People who believe in this theory perceive culture as highly fluid and dynamic, as it
reliant on how meaning remains interpreted as well as how people interact when delivering these
meanings.

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References
Blumer, H. (2018). Symbolic interaction. In Interdisciplinary Approaches to Human
Communication (pp. 135-154). Routledge.
Denzin, N. K. (2016). Symbolic interactionism. The international encyclopedia of
communication theory and philosophy, 1-12.
Goldberg, A., & Stein, S. K. (2018). Beyond social contagion: Associative diffusion and the
emergence of cultural variation. American Sociological Review, 83(5), 897-932.
Hirsch, M. (2018). Core sociological theories and international law. In Research Handbook on
the Sociology of International Law. Edward Elgar Publishing.