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This article will focus on ideal and real culture. Cultures around the world experience a discrepancy between the ideals a culture upholds and the realities of life within the culture. Sociologists recognize this discrepancy to be a location of cultural dissonance, negotiation, and tension. Sociologists study and compare the ideal and real cultural aspects of societies. Understanding conceptual categories of ideal and real culture is vital background for all those interested in the sociology of culture. This article explores ideal and real culture in four parts: an overview of the ideal and real culture model; a description of the history of Max Weber's ideal type concept; an exploration of the ways in which sociologists apply the concepts of ideal and real culture to their study of different cultures as a means of gathering information about cultural values and cultural norms; and a discussion of the issues related to cultural dissonance caused by gaps between ideal and real culture.