Chip, If I recall, resource mobilization people did not ignore culture and ideology, they put it in the proper place (cf. the paper on frame alignment by Snow et al. I don't remeber the cite of the top of head). The most important part of it was not the the nature of culture itself, but behavioral models - the "mentalist" model in which actions result from the processing of ideas in an individual's mind (i.e. rat choice, discontent, sublimations, etc.) and the "instituionalist" model in which an individual's actions are triggered by his/her social surroundings (norms, expectations, legitimacy concerns, social connections to other people, interactionw with otehr people, imitation, etc.) and those actions may be ex post facto rationalized by linking it to desirable motives and reasons (i.e. I joined a social movement because the woman I was dating was a part of it so I hoped to get an extra bj or two, but then I rationalized it to myself and others that I supported the movement's goals anyway).
I am a staunch supporter of the institionalist model, but that is not my main reason of wanting to puke each time I hear the word "culture." The main reason is that "studying culture" is often an excuse for not doing a serious emprical science, but high brow journalism instead. It is one thing to, say, watch a movie and then to review and critique it in a Sunday edition of the local paper - which is a legitimate pursuit - and it is a quite different thing to do the same, then habermasize it by throwing a few obscure words and a lots of citations, and call it "research," "sociology,"
or "critical theory." I often have an impression that overly ambitious people unwilling or unable to do a serious analytical and empirical research work substitute that inability or unwillingness with cultural commentaries which they call science but which are NOT science. That is why I often sympathize with hanns Johst (an otherwise despicable nazi playwright) who wrote "Wenn Ich Kultur hoere, entsichere ich meinen Browning." Ok, I do not have a Browning (or any equivalent), I just want to puke.
Wojtek