Look at an unfamiliar custom and a verdict arrives before you ask for it. Ethnocentrism judges another culture by the standards of your own; cultural relativism asks what the practice means to the people who live it. Pick a practice, then flip the lens and watch the verdict change.
One practice, two lenses
Choose a cultural practice to begin.
Ethnocentrism vs. cultural relativismjudge a practice two ways
Pick a cultural practice
Which stance is this?
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Where sociologists take it next.Functionalism (after Durkheim) asks what the practice does for the society that keeps it. Conflict theory (after Marx) asks whose interests it serves — and who has the power to label another culture inferior. Symbolic interactionism (Mead, Cooley, Goffman) asks how the act gets its meaning in everyday interaction, which is why the same gesture is respect here and insult there.