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FrançaisUnit 3: Cultural Patterns and Processes
Eight lessons covering all College Board CED topics for AP Human Geography Unit 3. Culture, cultural landscapes, regional patterns, the four types of diffusion, and the historical and contemporary forces that move ideas, language, religion, and identity around the world.
The 8 lessons in order
Introduction to Culture
Defining culture, cultural traits, and the difference between cultural relativism and ethnocentrism.
Cultural Landscapes
How architecture, religion, language, ethnicity, gender, and indigenous lands write themselves into the visible landscape.
Cultural Patterns
Regional patterns of language, religion, ethnicity, and gender; centripetal and centrifugal forces.
Types of Diffusion
Relocation and expansion diffusion (contagious, hierarchical, stimulus) — the four CED-named mechanisms by which culture spreads.
Historical Causes of Diffusion
Colonialism, imperialism, and trade as the engines of historical cultural diffusion; creolization and lingua franca as outcomes.
Contemporary Causes of Diffusion
Urbanization, globalization, time-space convergence, the internet; cultural convergence vs cultural divergence.
Diffusion of Religion and Language
Universalizing (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism) and ethnic (Hinduism, Judaism) religions; Indo-European language family.
Effects of Diffusion
Acculturation, assimilation, syncretism, and multiculturalism — the four CED-named effects of cultural diffusion.