When discussing values, beliefs and norms, Anthropologists often distinguish between ideal culture and real culture. Ideal Culture consists of what people say they do or should do, whereas real culture refers to their actual behaviors. Cultural anthropologists have discovered that the ideal culture frequently contrasts with people actual behavior.
For instance a foreign anthropologist may learn that Americans cherish the value of equal opportunity, yet in observing Americans cherish, the anthropologists might encounter many cases in which people from different economic class, racial, ethnic and religious backgrounds are treated in a highly unequal manners. Some societies are structured around kinship ties and principles of lineage such as patrilineal and matrilineal descent. Anthropologists often discover, however, that these kinship and descent principles are violated by the actual practices of people. Thus in all societies anthropologists find that there are differences between the ideal and real cultural practices of individuals.
