Nonmaterial Often Sociologists will investigate nonmaterial aspects. Nonmaterial culture refers to abstract human creations like language, beliefs, rules, philosophies, customs, governments, and institutions . As people grow, they develop a sense of what to expect in their familiar surroundings. We don't generally question these assumptions. When one travels into a completely different culture, for example, a rural village in Africa, one encounters different assumptions that might violate what we come to expect as normal.
Norms are the shared rules or guidelines that govern our actions in society.
Norms can be laws, but they also can be procedures, morals, customs or expectations. Many times, One's position within the social structure determines the definitions of norms. Often norms are outward expressions of a society's deeply held and shared values . Norms are important for defining boundaries. The text uses gangs as an example again.