____ help(s) sociologists and anthropologists understand practices that seem strange or different from those of their own culture.

Cultural relativism means understanding a group's practices in the context of that group's culture rather than judging them by the standards of your own. This approach helps sociologists and anthropologists make sense of practices that seem unfamiliar or different. Ethnocentrism, by contrast, judges other cultures using one's own culture as the standard.

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