But her kindness and interest made up for the fact that the neighborhood children were too rough to play with. Small towns have fewer cultural experiences than cities. However, small towns offer greater community involvement and safer environments for children and adults. I feel that in the area of cultural experiences, I would have been willing to give up that part of my life if I could have given my own child a greater sense of safety while she was growing up. A relative of mine lives in a small college community.
Culture shapes family interaction and community settings beyond the home.
In large industrialized countries such as the United States, subcultures exist in which groups of people share beliefs and customs different from the larger culture. For instance, in cities that support a large Orthodox Jewish population, the sexes are kept separate in both schooling and worship. Some cultural traditions promote extended family households, in which a parent and child live with one or more adult relatives. In collectivist societies, people define themselves as part of a group and stress group over individual goals. In individualistic societies, people think of themselves as separate entities and are largely concerned with their own goals.