One important theme in AP World History is culture. Questions on the exam will ask you to identify new cultural practices. They may also ask you to identify how cultural practices spread from one place to another.
I'm a licensed teacher and professional tutor with over ten years of experience in education. I've helped dozens of students improve their grades in their AP World History class. This article will cover what counts as cultural diffusion and cultural interaction. I'll also show you relevant examples from AP World History. Read on for tips you can use to improve your grades today!
Note: This post is part of a series on historical themes covered in AP World History. A common way to remember these themes is using the acronym SPICE-T. You can learn more about the basics of historical themes and SPICE-T at this link.
Cultural Developments and Interaction
Definition
This may be the most expansive of all the categories. Culture includes all of the collective practices of a group.
Culture includes physical things that can be touched. These things include food, clothing, art, architecture, written works, and technology. This type of culture is also called tangible or material culture.
Culture also includes immaterial and intangible things. These are things that cannot easily be touched, including human beliefs, values, and institutions. An institution is a practice or organization that has persisted in a culture for a long time. For example, marriage is an institution in many cultures. Other aspects of immaterial culture include religion, gender roles, philosophy, and science.
Cultural Interaction (Cultural Diffusion)
Cultural interaction occurs when diverse groups of people meet. Cultures often exchange ideas, beliefs, technology, and physical items. These exchanges add up over time. As a result, each culture changes due to the influence of the other groups.
Some teachers refer to type of interaction as cultural diffusion. Diffusion is word borrowed from physics. Wait! Don't leave! I promise it's not scary.
In chemistry, diffusion occurs when something moves from an area where the is a relatively large amount of something to where it is less concentrated. Here's an animation simulating this process with dots. Initially, a barrier separates the two colors of dots. When the barrier is removed, some of the dots on the right side move into the left side. The same thing happens in the other direction.
Diffusion!
The same thing happens when people overcome a barrier that previously separated them. That barrier could be an ocean, desert, technological limitations, pirates, or a hostile country. When people overcome the barrier, they can travel to the other side.* When they travel, they bring their culture with them. And, unlike those bouncing dots, people can share their culture with others. In fact, people often do that on purpose.
Let's get more concrete. One example of cultural diffusion is the spread of Islam through the Indian Ocean. Muslim missionaries traveled the same routes used by traders. When they got to East Africa, they started telling people about Islam. Many of them settled there permanently. Leaders started practicing Islam so they could attract more merchants. Suddenly, Islam was common in places where it hadn't been before.
Diffusion!
*One last thing! In the modern world, our communication technology allows us to overcome barriers without travel. Cellphones, the internet, Zoom, and social media allow people to share things without leaving their homes. The next thing you know, "Gangnam Style." This can happen even though most Americans have never been to Korea and most Koreans have never been to the United States.
Geographers call this time-space convergence. In other words, technology allows us to shorten the amount of time it takes to cross geographic barriers. And "shorten" here often means "to nothing." That means culture can diffuse rapidly across the globe. And yes, you should take AP Human Geography.
Cultural Developments
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