Culture

Culture has both material and nonmaterial aspects, with "[m]aterial culture emerg[ing] from and… shaped by the non-material aspects of culture. In other words, what we value, believe, and know (and what we do together in everyday life) influences the things that we make" (Cole, 2019a, para.5). The types of material manifestations of culture (such as fashion, art, and architecture) stem from a culture's beliefs, values, norms, and other nonmaterial cultural aspects. Individual and group participation in a society's culture can strengthen that society and unite these individuals and groups—think of religious celebrations or national holidays such as the Fourth of July. Culture often is geographically based; think of the differences in culture in various countries. Read more about culture at the link below.

https://www.thoughtco.com/culture-definition-4135409

Class

Social class is generally based on economic factors such as wealth and income, but other factors in class identification include education (including the cultural education one receives from one's family), occupation, and membership in particular social networks. Class definitions can be hierarchical, as in upper, middle, and lower class; as with race, perceived class can be an occasion for bias and "reflect…unequal access to rights, resources, and power in society" (Cole, 2019b, para. 8). Read more about this social construct at the link below.

https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-social-class-and-why-does-it-matter-3026375

Race

"Sociologists define race as a concept that is used to signify different types of human bodies…. The absence of any biological foundation makes race challenging to define and classify, and as such, sociologists view racial categories and the significance of race in society as unstable, always shifting, and intimately connected to other social forces and structures" (Cole, 2019, para.1).

Race can be socially institutionalized as in slavery and the Jim Crow eras of USA; institutionalized perceptions of race have had economic and class effects that continue over time. Social ideologies have been built around the concept of race as a permanent category. Race is also a category found in government policies mandating equal opportunity and activites such as taking the census. Learn more about the concept of race below.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/cochise-sociology-os/chapter/social-definition-of-race/

Gender

The terms gender and sex are often conflated, but sex refers to whether one is biologically male or female, while gender refers to "one's identity, presentation of self, behavior, and interaction with others. Sociologists view gender as learned behavior and a culturally produced identity…. [A]s such, it is a social category" (Crossman, 2018, paras. 2-3). Read more about this complex topic at the link below.

https://www.thoughtco.com/sociology-of-gender-3026282