Makanaokalani Lynch
Essay 1
Culture is difficult to define but has a set of defining characteristics. From an anthropological perspective, culture is a set of traits that are learned during childhood and actively transmitted by adults. Every culture exhibits variation in the form of subculture and microcultures. Culture is also an adaptive phenomenon, in that it must solve problems imposed by the environment. Anthropologists study these phenomena to gain a better understanding of the causes and consequences of human culture.
Culture is learned; this learning is most often done by children. Enculturation is the process of learning culture, where most of this learning takes place during childhood (Lenkeit 2011: 31). Humans are biologically equipped to be good learners because of their big brains, especially the children whose brains are still elastic and developing . Human brains grow and become bigger as culture becomes more complex, and as a result, these big brains have the ability to make culture more complex, thus, they coevolve. Children must learn for the perpetuation and preservation of their culture. Some mechanisms of learning include observation, mimicry, and play (Miller 1/24/2018). The Nenet children learn, through the use of playing games, the dexterity, and build the strength and speed necessary to survive in their environment, thus allowing them to be able to participate in their culture and perpetuate it. They compete to see who can throw an ax the farthest