SOCSCI
your community. The perspective of the social
Starting points for the understanding of culture,
society and politics
Howstuffworks.com Contributors (2011) identified
social identity that can provide people with a sense
of self-esteem and a framework for socializing, and it
can influence their behavior and how other people
treat you.Moreover, it relates to how we identify
ourselves in relation to others according to what we
have in common. For example, we can identify
ourselves according to religion or where we're from
(Asian American, Southerner, New Yorker), political
affiliation (Democrat, Environmentalist), vocation
(writer, artist, neurosurgeon), or relationship (mother,
father, great-aunt). In addition, some identities are
stigmatized (person with AIDS, homeless person,
alcoholic) and many social identities can be multiple
(an Asian American Democrat who works as a
writer). Together, the different roles a person plays
can help him realize his overall identity.The
experience that we face in this pandemic,
coronavirus, does not remain the same pandemic
that our elders have experienced centuries ago.
Social, political, and cultural changes that have
taken place over time illustrate that society and
culture are not static, but dynamic. This means that
they change as a result of various factors including
inventions, discoveries, technology advancement,
conflict, and influences and adaptation among others.
This is known as social change.
The various things happening in your respective
communities illustrate such social, cultural and
political situations which may be similar or different
across places. Your observations and involvement in
such happenings point to the fact that you are part of
a larger community. Being aware of the situation is
important in order to understand the condition of
all people ideas about behavior, Symbolic, as it is
sciences enables you to see yourself in the context
of your society. As cited by Doda (2005), sociology
is a social science which studies the processes and
patterns of human individual and group interaction,
the forms of organization of social groups, the
relationship among them, and group influences on
individual behavior, and vice versa, and the
interaction between one social group and the other.
Anthropology is the study of humanity, including
prehistoric origins and contemporary human
diversity (Pearsonhighered.com, n.d.). Political
science focuses on politics that encompasses all
those decisions regarding how we make rules that
govern our common life (Grigsby, 2009).
Defining culture and society from the
perspectives of anthropology
In this unit we will be exploring the anthropological
meaning of the concept society and culture. Society
is derived from the Latin word “socius” which means
companionship or friendship. We have come to
know that a society comprises of a group of people
who share a common culture, live in a particular
area and feel themselves to constitute a unified and
distinct entity. Society or human society is a group of
people related to each other through persistent
relations such as kinship, marriage, social status,
roles and social networks. By extension, society
denotes the people of a region or country,
sometimes even the world, taken as a whole.
Culture is one of the basic concepts of anthropology.
Anthropologists have been discussing and debating
definitions of culture since the origin of the discipline
in the 19th century. To review, we may say that
culture is—Learned, as each person must learn how
to “be” a member of that culture, Shared, as it offers
based on the manipulation of symbols, and Systemic
and integrated, as the parts of culture work together
in an integrated whole.
Dayaw Lupa, Kagubatan, Karagatan: A
Documentary Film
We will get to know society and see its many
features and characteristics; and recognize culture
with its elements and understand how and why we
see certain others as different from us and reflect on
how we should properly treat such difference.It
features two indigenous groups, particularly of
Palawan and Ifugao, on how they value the forest
and the environment, and how this respect for the
environment has led to the judicious use of natural
resources. Senator Legarda said that it is important
to get to know these bearers of culture, whose
values and characteristics every Filipino should
emulate as they show love and respect for the
environment, their history and their people (ABS-
CBN Corporate, 2019)
Society
Society is a word used in routine life with a particular
meaning. Everyone often defines society as an
aggregation or collection of individuals. But in
sociology and anthropology, the term is used in a
different sense. The term “society” refers not just to
a group of people but to a complex pattern of norms
of interaction that exist among them. In terms of
common sense, society is understood as a tangible
object, where as in sociology and anthropology it
refers to an intangible entity. It is a mental construct,
which we realize in everyday life but cannot see it.
The important aspect of society is the system of
relationships, the pattern of the norms of interaction
by which the members of the society maintain
themselves. Some anthropologists say that society
exists only when the members know each other and
possess common interests or objects.A society is
generally conceived of as a human group which is
relatively large, relatively independent or self-
perpetuating in demographic terms, and which is
relatively autonomous in its organization of social
relations. But it is the relativity of each society’s
autonomy, independence and self-perpetuating
nature which is the crucial factor, and the distinction
of one society from another is often arbitrary. It is
important in anthropology not to allow these arbitrary
divisions to distort our vision of systems of local,
regional, national and international social relations.
The definitions of society has two types – the
functional definition and the structural definition.
From the functional point of view, society is defined
as a complex of groups in reciprocal relationships,
interacting upon one another, enabling human
organisms to carry on their life-activities and helping
each person to fulfill his wishes and accomplish his
interests in association with his fellows. From the
structural point of view, society is the total social
heritage of folkways, mores and institutions; of
habits, sentiments and ideals. The definition of
society has undergone little variation from the
standpoint of classical and modern scholars. For our
understanding we can simply define society as a
group of people who share a common culture,
occupy a particular territorial area and feel
themselves to constitute a unified and distinct entity.
It is the mutual interactions and interrelations of
individuals and groups. Society is a group of people
related to each other through persistent relations in
terms of social status, roles and social networks. By
extension, society denotes the people of a region or
country, sometimes even the world, taken as a
whole. Used in the sense of an association, a
society is a body of individuals outlined by the
bounds of functional interdependence, possibly
comprising characteristics such as national or
cultural identity, social solidarity, language or
hierarchical organization.
The following are the common features that
characterize every society:
(1) Size – a society is relatively large in terms of the
number of members, a traits common in most
societies;
(2) Territory – a definite area or space that a society
occupies;
(3) Common culture – a way of living that they relate
and interact with one another;
(4) Sense of belongingness – refers to members of
society must identify with it and feel that they belong;
(5) Common historical experience – refers to
members of the society are engaged to or share a
sense of experience; and
(6) Autonomy – expressed in society’s capacity to
sustain its existence vis-à-vis other societies through
social institutions that organize, manage and
regulate it from within.
Culture
In an anthropological perspective every society has
a culture, it is universal, though in some societies it
may be simple, while complex in others. Likewise
every human being is cultured and culture is an
attribute of the genus Homo. Culture is design for
living. It is the basis of human life. It rests on biology
but is not biological. It is human biology such as a
developed brain, nimble hands, and freely moving
tongue which helped humans to acquire a design for
living. What has been acquired as a design for living
is not biological. It is a totality of mental, rational and
material, technological processes and products. This
totality is what anthropologists call culture.
As cited by Amper, Bersales, and Nolasco (2016),
Edward Burnett Tylor defined culture as that
complex whole which encompasses beliefs,
practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts
symbols, knowledge and everything that a person
learns and shares as a member of society. The
briefest way to define it is that culture is the way we
humans live. It is the way we act and think as well as
the objects that we make as we carry out our
particular way of life every day.
Anthropologists say that culture is
(1) Learned, as each person must learn how to “be”
a member of that culture;
(2) Shared, as it offers all people ideas about
behavior;
(3) Symbolic, as it is based on the manipulation of
symbols;
(4) Systemic and integrated, as the parts of culture
work together in an integrated whole.
(5) Transmitted, a transmission of learning the
basics of life as it expanded and widen beyond
family (enculturation);
(6) Transformed, as it adapts to changing conditions
in society; and
(7) Cumulative, as it grows and builds on other
previous cultural elements and pattern s over
time.Culture is both material and nonmaterial.
Material culture is the tangible or physical objects
that have been created by members of society out of
the raw materials in nature like furniture, technology,
and many more. But not everything in culture can be
seen nor touched, nonmaterial culture is the
intangible or nonphysical aspects of culture. This
comes from the range of ideas that range from arts
to philosophy that humans have created over time
like chants, myths and legends of our indigenous
people, songs and dances of every region, and
beliefs and practices (Amper, Bersales, Nolasco,
2016). There are certain aspects of culture that are
common to all societies, regardless of their level of
complexity and technological advancement. These
are called cultural universals, which refer to traits,
behaviors, practices and values that are shared by
all cultures. Noticing difference in people around you
is one way to understand cultural diversity, which
refers to variations in the cultural patterns and
elements between within societies. We can then
determine their differences according to:
(1) High culture – patterns that differentiate a
society’s elite from the rest;
(2) Popular culture – patterns that have a wide
presence and acceptance in any given culture;
(3) Subculture – has its own set of standards and
expectations that give a sense of belongingness to
the group (we feeling) as opposed to nonmembers
(they).
(4) Counterculture – any group whose values and
beliefs challenge, run counter to, or even reject the
larger culture.
(6) Counterculture – any group whose values and
beliefs challenge, run counter to, or even reject the
larger culture;
(7) Multiculturalism – is the recognition that many
societies are now culturally diverse and that the only
way to deal with this diversity is to promote the
equality of different cultures;
(8) Ethnocentrism – is the attitude of judging another
culture based on the standards of one’s culture; and
(9) Cultural relativism – where one suspends one’s
cultural views and biasesby seeing another culture
according to standards of that culture.
Culture has common elements among all societies.
The following are:
(1) Symbols are anything that humans create and
use to mean something else like Philippine flag,
shaking of hands, bowing of heads and it can be
classified to as tangible and intangible symbols;
(2) Language is a system of symbols shared by
members of society to enable them to communicate
with one another. It is the most important set of
symbols for communication and transmitting culture
ever created by
humans like baybayin, an ancient writing system in
the Philippines, English, Mandarin, and Filipino;
(3) Values are a society’s shared ideas or standards
of what is right or wrong, ethical or unethical,
acceptable or unacceptable, worthy or unworthy and
desirable or undesirable;
(4) Artifacts are the material expressions of culture.
These are all the objects made by human, fashioned
out of raw materials provided by nature or from other
objects already produced by humans;
(5) Rituals are established ways, sets of action,
and/or ceremonies that mark the transition of a
person from one part to another in the life course
and it can be seen as ritualized action, something
carried out routinely but without necessary regard for
any symbolic meaning, and ritual action, an action
that is carefully carried out based on established
rules or standards where the act or set of acts
carries symbolic meaning or religious significance to
the performer; and
(6) Norms are rules that guide human behavior and
interaction in society.
There are four types of norms:
a. Folkways – informal norms, rules of casual
behavior that do not take much effort to think about
b. Mores – the most specific, clearly stated and
strictly enforced norms that carry corresponding
punishments for those that break them or fail to
follow them
c. Laws – set of norms of promulgated, enacted or
codified by members of society
d. Taboos – the highest form of mores that must be
strictly adhered to or observed with no exemptions
like the incest taboo.
*Please read the “PHILIPPINE SOCIETY AND
CULTURE: MECHANISMS FOR STRENGTHENING
NATIONAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND UNITY” by
Juan R. Francisco*
Becoming a member of society
Hammell (2006) stated that within the social
sciences and humanities the terms self and identity
are used in very specific, yet inconsistent and
contested ways. In general, identity is used to refer
to one's social face – how one perceives and how
one is perceived by others. As defined by Tsang, Hui,
and Law (2012), identity is a core construct in
psychology because it refers to how a person
addresses issues dealing with who that person is.
Self is generally used to refer to one's sense of ‘who
I am and what I am’. However, as cited by Hammell
(2006), these are not dualistic constructs. Both the
concepts of self and identity evolve out of social
interaction but because we are not merely ‘stamped
out’ by society, we are active participants in our own
self/identity construction. Each person learns the
norms, values, and behaviors considered acceptable
by society and this process is called socialization.
The study of socialization is an important part of
sociological investigation on society and culture.
Without socialization, there can be no society.
Without society, there can be no culture.
Socialization is a lifelong process of social
interaction that transforms a child into a teenager, a
friend, a student, an office worker, a spouse, a
parent, and many more. Anthropologists tend to
substitute the term enculturation for socialization
because they view socialization primarily as cultural
transmission; that is, elements of culture handed
down from generation to the next. The term
enculturation refers to the process of learning a
culture. Margaret Mead, an anthropologist, defined it
as a process of cultural learning with a specific
culture (Amper, Bersales, and Nolasco, 2016). In
this topic, we will use these two concepts to refer to
cultural transmission and self- concept development.
Melville Herskovits, a cultural anthropologist, coined
the term enculturation in 1948.
Self-Concept
(1) The Looking-Glass Self
It is a process wherein self is a social product; that
people’s interactions with others shape their
personality or self-concept from the time of birth until
they become elder members of society. The process
of interaction operates like a mirror that we see
ourselves based on how others judge our behavior;
that the mirror reflects an image of the other. Self
develops most fully in primary groups particularly the
family because it is usually the group that matters
most to the individual.
Three principal elements:
(a)We imagine how we appear to others or how we
want to appear others;
(b)We imagine how others make judgments and
react our appearance to others; and
(c)We experience positive or negative feelings, pride
or shame, depending on the imagined judgments
and interpretations of others toward us.
Charles Horton Cooley was one of the earliest
sociologist to develop a theory of self and he
theorized the LookingGlass Self.
(2) The Generalized Other
It is the process of self-discovery/ self-development
that is enacted by the usage of gestures threefold
through
(a) play stage, children learn to take the role of the
other,
(b) game stage, children take part in reciprocal
relationships and begin to understand the
expectations of the larger society and
( c) generalized other. This refer to the part of an
individual’s personality that is composed of self-
awareness and self- image.
Two parts of self:
I – refers to the spontaneous and self-centered
traits of the person
Me – the internalized demands of society.
This theory looks into how a person sees things from
the point of view of society that there is a continuing
interaction between the I and the Me. It stresses the
harmony between the individual and society and the
importance of social interaction in the development
of a self.
You have classified your traits/ characteristics
according to the influence of a certain group of
people from your activity, The Twenty Statement
Survey: a Classification. Let us now consider the
primary agents of socialization to better understand
your relation to others. The following are:
(1) Family
Family is the first and the most important and
influential agent of socialization. Parents socialize
their children to the worlds they know or to the
situation they experience. The family gives meaning
and support to the individual from childhood into
adulthood. You acquire most of your information
about the world you live from your family.
(2) Peer Groups
Peers offer opportunities for children to test what
they have learned at home. They became important
among adolescents because they help people of
similar age find a place in society. They enable a
person to produce a set of behaviors, attitudes,
values and beliefs that conform to their own.
(3) School
School is another agent of socialization. It is the
children’s first experience of an institution that
evaluates their behaviors. It is governed by formal
rules and regulations, and children are evaluated on
the basis of how they perform or how they conform
to these rules.
(4) Mass media
Mass media includes television, newspaper,
magazines, radio, and the social media play an
important role in socialization. It provide information
about several aspects of human social life.
Learnings obtained here can reinforce what children
have learned at home, at school, or in the
community.
Norms are rules of Behavior which define what is
acceptable or not, and can be understood only within
the context of one’s culture. These are enforced by
sanctions or rewards. Values, however, serve as
standards for evaluatingnorms (Amper, Bersales,
and Nolasco, 2016)

Status –the position of person of a person in society;
it is either ascribed or achieved.
Ascribed status– status that are assigned to the
individual, like age, sex, nationality.
Achieved status – status that are attained through
personal efforts or behavior, like education,
occupation, income, marriage, being a parent, child,
etc.
Role – the set of expected behaviors attached to a
status, like parenting, nurturing, studying, etc.
From a sociological perspective, deviance refers to
behavior that violates norms and values considered
by society as important. A deviant act depends
largely on culture, it is shaped by society. Social
controls (formal/informal) are efforts to prevent or
correct a deviant behavior, or to support
conformity. These are sanctions applied to people
who deviate from violating a norm. Gossip, ridicule,
and stigma are social controls in an informal setting.
While formal controls include law enforcers,
teachers, religious groups, office managers,
healthcare specialist whose role is to make sure
that people follow the guidelines for behavior.
Deviants are those who violate socially accepted
behaviors; and conformists are those who follow
behaviors considered by society as right (Amper,
Bersales, and Nolasco, 2016).
Amper, Bersales, and Nolasco (2016) stated that
there are three sociological explanations for
deviance that focus on the social environment.
These are structural functionalism, symbolic
interactionism, and social conflict.
(1) The Structural-Functional Approach Strain
Theory. Robert Merton used Durkheim’s concept of
anomie,a state of normlessness or a condition
where values are conflicting and weak; and he
developed this theory to highlight the tendency of
those with limited opportunities to commit deviant
acts like commercial sex work, theft, selling drugs
and other criminal behaviors in order to achieve
culturally-approved goals like survival, financial and
security.
According to Merton, deviance is likely to be the
result of cultural Pressures. He presented five ways
by which individuals respond to these pressures:
(a)conformity, when the person uses culturally-
approved means of achieving desired goals like
studying hard, finishing education, getting a good
job;
(b)innovation, when the person accepts the goals
but rejecting society’s means of achieving them like
passing the course by cheating;
(c)ritualism, when the person accepts both the
goals like finishing education for the sake of having
a diploma;
(d)retreatism, when the person rejects both the
goals and the means like not having education, ,
not going to school, not getting a good job;
(e)rebellion, when the person rejects the goals and
the means, and substituting new ways like not
having an education, not going to school, and
engaging in substance abuse or other illegal or
sociallyunacceptable behaviors.
(2) The Symbolic Interaction Approach
Labeling Theory. It is developed by Hower Becker to
show that an individual becomes deviant when
labeled as deviant, and when he or she has
accepted the label as a personal identity. It explains
that deviance and conformity are not the result of
what we do but how others judge what we do.
Primary deviance – the initial act or passing
episodes of veering away from what is taught as an
ideal behavior.
Secondary deviance – when a person continues to
or repeatedly violates acceptable behavior. It is
therefore a result from being labeled as a deviant
by society. The label is negative and it changes a
person’s self-concept and social identity. The
negative and powerful social label is called stigma.
(3) The Conflict Approach
Conflict Theory. It links deviance to social inequality;
that it reflects the interest of those who are in
power. It argues that actions are considered
deviant because people in power have the
resources to make those actions deviant.
*SS of module 4*
Social Group
- Two or more humans who interact with one
another, share similar characteristics, and have a
collective sense of unity.
- A social unit of consisting of a number of
individuals interacting with each other with respect
to common motives and goals, an accepted division
of labor, established status relationships, accepted
norms and values with reference to matters
relevant to the group, and the development of
accepted sanctions, such as raise and punishment,
when norm were respected or violated.

Primary Group is usually small, is characterized by

extensive interaction and strong emotional ties,
and endures over time.

Secondary Group is a larger and more impersonal

and exist, often for a relatively short time, to
achieve a specific purpose.

Reference Group is a group that you look to for

guidance in order to evaluate our behaviors and
attitudes.

In-Group groups have a very close relations with

each other and their loyalty to the group and to
each other.

Out-Group groups have a very close relations with

each other and their loyalty to the group and to
each other.