Culture as Values

This approach can be regarded as a traditional social scientific approach to culture; it regards culture as a coherent system of norms, beliefs, values, and attitudes. This perspective was popular among American functionalists during the mid-20th century, such as Talcott Parsons, who conceived of culture as a superstructure; that is, culture was considered to be a coherent organizing principle of society. What this approach is less likely to take into account, and for which it has been widely criticized in recent decades, is the existence of conflict, cultural multiplicity and incoherence within a society.