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Sociology → Introduction → Culture → Types of Culture

Culture has broadly been classified into two types which are discussed below.

A. Material Culture
Material culture is the name of physical, tangible and explicit type of culture. It is the culture which has material evidence of its existence. Examples in this type may include;

• Infrastructure of a culture
• Clothing and food in a culture
• Literature of a culture

To elucidate this point further we can take example of Cuba. In this island country the ‘cars’ are a bit old fashioned. Despite political reasons for this, this thing is taken as a part of Cuban culture. Any documentary on Cuba doesn’t complete without showing the old models cars as part of Cuban culture. Similarly, we eat burger at multinational fast food chains. Basically this denotes the Western food culture. Another manifestation of material culture is Gothic style buildings usually built in European countries.

B. Non-Material Culture
This type reflects non-tangible, immaterial and implicit culture. It is not apparent in the infrastructure or other material objects of a society. It is to be found in thoughts, ideas, values and rituals of a society. They affect the actions of human beings in society. This type of culture includes:

• Norms
• Customs
• Values
• Folkways
• Language

Next: Functions of Culture