Culture Transmission

Culture has been defined in a number of ways (Laouira, 1999; Schaefer, 2008; Hess,
Markson, & Stein, 1991; Miller, 1978). In everyday use, culture often refers to the beliefs,
values, and meanings that bind a group of people together. In other times and places, culture
has referred to a groups entire way of life, including patterns of behavior and uses of
material artifacts. Meanwhile, culture also works as a force to reshape the environment and
therefore influences economic and political systems.In short, culture refers to the symbolic
meanings by which the members of a society communicate with and understand themselves, each
other, and the world around them.
Culture is the totality of learned, socially transmitted customs, knowledge, material
objects, and behavior (Schaefer, 2008). It includes the ideas, values, and artifacts of group of
people. Patrriotic attachment to the flag or a national passion for dance are example aspects of
culture. The fact that one who share a similar culture witk others helps to define the group or
society to with he belong. A fairly large number of people are said to constitute a society when
they live in the same territory, are relatively independent of people outside their area, and
participate in a common culture.
No doubt, elements of culture such as beliefs, values and norms that govern human
behavior are formed partly as a result of genetic evolution. Other parts, they are transmitted
through generations and acquired by learning and other forms of social interactions. The
transmission of preferences, beliefs, values and norms of behavior which is result of social
interactions across and within generation is called cultural transmission. Cultural
transmission is the process by which information is passed from individual to individual via
social learning mechanisms such as imitiation, teaching or language (Mesoudi & Whiten,
2008). Therefore, culural transmission is distinct from genetic evolution, but both are
interacted.
Cultural transmission can be an object of study of several social sciences, for
example, evolutionary anthropology, sociology, social psychology, economics, as well as of
evolutionary biology. Cultural transmission is a key characteristic to distinguish human
languages with animal comunication. It arguably plays an important role in the determination
of many fundamental preference traits, like discounting, risk aversion and altrusim. It plays a
central role in the formation of cultural traits and norms, like attitudes towards the family,
towards fertility practices, and in the job market. Even in economics have also studied the
determination and dynamics of preferences, beliefs, norms and more generally, cultural and
cognitive attitudes.
Models of cultural transmission have implication regarding the determinants of the
persistence of cultural traits and more generally regarding the population dynamics of cultural
traits. In the economic aspect, in particular, cultural transmission is modelled as the result of
purposeful socialization decisions inside the family (direct vertical socialization) as well as
of indirect socialization processess like social imitation and learning (oblique and horizontal
socialization). Therefore, the persistence of cultural traits or, on the contrary, the cultural
assimilation of minorities, is determined by the costs and benefits of various family decisions
pertaining to the socialization of children in specific socio-economic environments which in
turn determine the childrens opportunities for social imitation and learning. Education is
falled into this socialization and socio-economic interactions model example.
According to Laland (2004), questions regarding cultural transmission can be broadly
summarized in terms of what, who, when and how: what is copied? (i.e. what kind of
information is mostly easily remembered and most often transmitted?); who is copied? (i.e.
the identity of the model from wnom information is acquired); when do individuals copy?
(i.e. based on the situation or the environment at that time); and how do individuals copy?
(e.g. using imitation, emulation, or spoken or written language?).
Schools in Transmitting of Culture
It has become abundantly clear that efforts to improve education cannot ignore culture. The
very process of education is one in which cultural knowledge is constantly transmitted, acquired, and
produced. Cultural beliefs and values shape what occurs within formal education systems. Economic
and political changes are often expressed in cultural terms, and through value conflicts about what
should be taught in schools. That is why schools play important role and responsibility in transmitting
culture of all learners in the society. Schools are expected to develop the social, personal, and
intellectual capabilities of individuals.
According to Baker (1978), the schools and the curriculum of the schools have
focused on one group of people, and all activities and instructions have had a monocultural
thrust. He said that usually, the culture of majority of the society has been transmitted to all
students. A school has presented one set of values, one type of life style, and one mode of
behavior, and has expected all students to accept this. Until the present decade, most students
did accept, but those who could not, would not brought a new force to bear on curriculum
change. Curricular responses to meet the cultural needs of all learners.
If the school is to be assumed as medium of transmitting the cultures of all students in
a society, then the curricula of the schools must reflect the cultural diversity of its students.
So, a model for developing cultural curriculum should be viewed as a process. For example,
multicultural education is a process through which individuals are exposed in the United
States of America and to the relative of this diversity (Gopinathan, 1980). This diversity
includes ethnic, minority populations as well as religious groups, and sex differences. The
exposure to diversity should based on the foundation that every person in that society has the
opportunity and option to support and maintain one or more cultures. However, the individual
in United States has a responsibility of contributing to and maintaining the culture which is
common to all who live in that country.
At the other end of the scale are societies like Korea and Japan which have remained
essentially stable, been able to modernize, to take on and improve on western economic
models and processes from America without losing their fundamental cultural identity. And
yet even in these countries moral education has not been untouched by controversy.
Similarly, in Korea and Taiwan, which share with Japan a common Confucian heritage, the
emphasis on national solidarity is a strong feature of the moral education programme.
So, what kind of education cultural curriculum of a plural and divided nation like
Malaysia? Sightly since 1957, more than forty years old as an independent nation, Malaysia
faces an immense task of integrating its Chinese and Indian minorities and of restructuring
the economy to give the Malays a majority share in the national wealth. Malaysia has chosen
to ground its cultural character in a sole national language, Malay, Islam as the national
religion, and the retention of Malay tradisional political and social institutions to emphasize
the Malayness of the nation.
According to Laouira Omar (1999), the main objectives of education are concerned
with knowledge, most school knowledge should not be bound to specific sub-cultures. He
admits that the knowledge is objective and universal, therefore if people are serious in their
desire to educate everyone in a society, then everyone must have access to the same kinds of
knowledge because everyone needs the same kinds of curriculum. A good curriculum with
some important modifications such as the inclusion of social sciences and moral education,
will provide the appropiate selecion form the culture for all pupils. Hidden curriculum is a
transmission of cultural values and attitudes, such as conformity and obedience to authority,
through implied demands found in rules, routines and regulations in schools.
Schools transmit general values for the students and deliver specific skills that provide
necessary diversity for social co-operation as people need to work together to produce goods.
Functions of school system:
to teach the values of achievement, universalistic standards of judgment, and
emotional neutrality appropriate for specialized occupations
to train in specific skills and knowledge appropriate for occupational roles
to ensure the appropriate selection and allocation of young adults to occupational
roles in accordance with merit, as measured by universal standards of achievements
to legitimate inequalities in material rewards in democratic society through principles
of merit established in the school grading system
to develop stable social relations with age peers outside the family
to inculcate appropriate sex-roles identification
In each culture and also in each individual, it seemly look like that the entire
evolutionary process is recreated, through which human beings are learned to create,
communicate, interpret, and use symbols. In fact, this is a workable defination of education.
At heart, education and schools is the transmission and acquisition of symbolic knowledge
for understanding, controlling and transforming world.