The concept of culture, together with that of society, are some of the most widely used notions in sociology. An awareness of culture provides individuals insights into social structure and how aspects of culture mask inequalities. It is through consideration of values, norms, language, cultural forms and cultural universals in relation to appropriate terms and theories that a deeper understanding of culture and society is raised. Defining culture is an extremely involved task. Culture has received widespread theorisation with much of the work being volumous and contradictory.
Culture is then the terrain on which hegemony is struggled for and established.
Elements of culture consist of the values the members of a given group hold, the norms they follow, and the material goods they create, symbols and language they use. Values are essential to understanding culture. Values are culturally specific and represent socially shared ideas about what is good, right and desirable. Hence values are abstract concepts that help construct culture. The notion of cultural values is tightly inter-woven into norms.