The Definition of Culture Lesson: Reading, Video, and Exercise Package

Description

People Are Culture’s curriculum brings to life the subjects of Geography, History, Social Studies, and World Cultures with engaging, thought-provoking, and inspiring stories of real people around the world. Our interviews and feature profiles reveal the meaning and relevance of traditions and customs, and demonstrate the real-life impact of historical events and social change. Students can see life through the eyes of real people around the world with lessons that are authoritative, first-person accounts of people describing their own cultures.

People Are Culture’s content aligns with all ten of the National Social Studies standards.

NO AI is used in creating our material. Each interview and article was made in collaboration with the individuals featured, who reviewed and approved the piece prior to publication.

Included in this People Are Culture Reading & Reflection Assignment Module are four elements:

• General Overview of Culture
• An MP4 video Celebrating Our Humanity
• 21-page PDF set of interviews with 16 world experts
• Reflection Assignment | Takeaways from What is Culture? The Definition of Culture from World Experts

Each lesson is likely to take a student three hours to do the readings and complete the comprehension/reflection exercises.

In these interviews with world experts, you will hear their personal views on how they identify culture, including:

• Definitions of culture, ranging from “the creative output of humans” and “webs of significance that give meaning to life” to “everything that makes us exist beyond our biological body” and “the fourth essential thing humans live by” after water, food, and
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• Perspectives on why culture matters, including its role in paving a path for empathy and understanding across differences and providing continuity between generations
• Examples of how culture manifests in specific communities, such as the Maasai people’s spiritual and economic relationship with cattle and the collective memory preserved in rock art across millennia
• Reflections on culture’s power to connect the most personal aspects of our lives with collective experiences, and how culture serves as both a tool for unity and a marker of what makes each community distinct

Expected Learning Outcome:

This lesson includes clear expected learning outcomes that support students in understanding cultural identity through first-person perspectives, while building intercultural awareness and connections between individual experience and global traditions.

• Students will identify and describe key cultural practices and beliefs from the lesson’s different communities.
• Students will articulate insights into their own cultural identities and how those identities relate to what they learned.
• Students will analyze how culture reflects values, history, and social traditions.
• Students will compare perspectives across cultures while finding similarities and differences through human themes.
• Students will make connections between different definitions of culture and broader global contexts, showing critical thinking about identity and intercultural understanding.

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