Commission on Diocesan Schools

SAINT CHRISTOPHER ACADEMY

Central East #1, Bangar, La Union
Tel. No. (072) 619-6949
Email: st.christopher.academy.elyu@gmail.com
Deped School ID: 400082 || ESC School ID: 0100068

Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics

Name:_______________________________________ Date:_____________
Grade and Section:______________________________ Score:___________

Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics as Conceptual Tools

Module 1

What’s In

Culture, society, and Politics are concepts. They exist in the realm of ideas and thoughts. As such, they cannot be seen or
touched and yet they influence the waywe see and experience our individual and collective lives as social being. Concepts
are created and have been used to have a firm grip of phenomenon.

 Sociology = the “logos” or study and science of the social, i.e., "society"
 Anthropology = the “logos” or study and science of "Man" or human forms, i.e., humanity in all of its diversity and
variation over time and space.

Society: Collectivity of human groups organized into a larger sum based on the roles, relations, interactions, and statuses
of persons. The institutions, networks, structures, and dynamics that bring humans into a larger collectivity.
[See second page for working definitions of these two concepts]

Anthropology in the USA has 4 subdisciplines, each defined by it specific object of study, mode of research, and
theoretical traditions:
1.Archeology
2.Linguistic anthropology
3.Physical-biological anthropology
4.Cultural or socio-cultural anthropology

There are other “subfields” that are based on cross-cutting & overlapping between these four fields of anthropology and
also between these and other fields and disciplines. Thus ethnohistory, medical anthropology, for example are
often considered subfields of anthropology or they can be considered research areas.
Applied Anthropology in some sense can be considered a fifth subdiscipline, but it is often a non-academic activity, thus it
is less a subdiscipline than simply another form or mode of anthropology.

The method of cultural anthropology is "ethnography," which has 2 dimensions or aspects:

 Ethnography is a fieldwork activity and practice based in extensive participant observation; that is, extensive living
with a subject community for an intensive and sustained time as the means by which to create knowledge not otherwise
gained;
 Ethnography is the reporting of and from the field about the process, practice, and results of the fieldwork practice;
usually this has taken the form of a "description" with more or less "analysis" of the culture and/or society, i.e., the
cultural community that was the subject and object of fieldwork study.

 Fieldwork is a process of research that involves going outside of any laboratory or structured space of the university
or other institution where the researcher normally works.
 Fieldwork in different fields (e.g., biology, geology, archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, sociology, economics,
political science, history, etc.) are DIFFERENT methodologies and practices. They work according to different logics,
rationales and needs

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 COMPONENTS OF SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Four general modes of defining culture — these are not four different definitions but three different sets of criteria by
which to define, conceptualize, and theorize culture:

Culture is defined as a conceptual tool by which to comprehend the nature of human being as a social animal. Thus,
in this way of defining the term, there are three generalized elements that are theorized as having different degrees
of importance in different theories. These are: (1) a material component, (2) an ideational component, and (3) a
performative, processual or practice component.

Culture is defined as the descriptive category by which to identify the shared unity and diversity of human life-worlds;
it is the term by which to conceptualize alterity, that is relations of identity and sameness in alternation with
relations of difference and otherness. Thus, culture is the “totality” of all of human collective life-forms with all
their shared differences and different identities as well as it also the “sub-totalities” or life-worlds (i.e., specific
cultures or cultural communities) that comprise the “totality.” In other words, culture with a capital C is the
Culture of humanity is always singular and culture with lower case c is always plural and multiple.

Culture is defined in terms of a binary, such as present/absent, high/low, or civilized/savage. Culture in this way of
defining the concept is premised on extreme ethnocentric identities and shared sentiments of belonging; it is used
to distinguish “us” from “them.”

Culture is defined as the conceptual tool by which to distinguish between “Culture” and “Nature” — or, to use
psychological terminology, between “nuture” and “nature.” There are many, many ways to argue, specify, and
theorize the differences between Culture and Nature, but these two things are generally said and thought to be
different. Thus, “culture” is the proper name for all that which is held (according to any particular theory or
popular viewpoint) to not be “nature”; that is, it is used to identify that which is the result of sociological, shared,
collective, human, and historical interaction versus somehow the result of non-sociological and non-historical
processes (“nature”).

Society is a concept derived from a tradition of philosophical thought— from St. Simon, through Comte to Durkheim and
Weber that sought to understand the collective nature of human being via the forms and modes of collectivity. In
some theories it is opposed to “culture” in the sense that culture is ideational/immaterial whereas society is materially
real and tangible. [But, many would also disagree with this kind of theory.] Society as a concept is based in the idea
that there are roles and relations between persons that get organized and structured into larger, more encompassing
(and intersecting) forms so as to create or constitute a more enduring collectivity.

STUDENTS AS SOCIAL BEING

The way we live our lives-or should we say, the way we are being steered to live our lives-presupposes omnipotent forces
shaping that very fabric of our existence. In other words, our sociality is defined by the very categories that we possess,
the categories assigned to us by society at large. For example, mirror the way our culture ‘reads’ us a member of society.

SOCIAL REALITIES: Behavior and Phenomenon

There are times that we find ourselves in a situation unlike other situations. We personally encounter different ways of
doing things, behaving, and making sense of events. Observing them, we cannot help but ask: Why do people such a
thing? What makes it normal and acceptable to some people in some places and unacceptable to others in others places?

Situation Behavior and Phenomena

1. Gary graduated a year ago. Despite being blessed Istambay
with several job offers. He chose to remain jobless
and hang around with his barkada. Together they
love to istambay in the town plaza especially at
night.
2. As a businessman, Mang Leo is used to giving lagay
“padulas” (or lagay) to his main suppliers in order
to expedite his business transactions with them.
3. Members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church are Food taboos
strongly prohibited from eating pork and food with
blooaf, as well as from smoking and drinking
alcoholic beverages.

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 WORKSHEET 1

Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics

Name:__________________________________________ Date: _____________
Year & Section: _____________________________________ Score:

I. True or False:
Direction: Write T if the statement is true and F it is false.
______________1. Concepts are linguistic tools used by social scientists to explore the social world.
______________2. Social change ma be a product of technology change.
______________3. Values shape are behavior more than our attitude.
______________4. Our social categories such as being male or female, single or married, or rich or poor
shape the way see and interpret the social world.
______________5. Values may change over time but they can be durable and withstand forces that can cause
them to change.
______________6. Values may often manifest in beliefs.
______________7. A concepts may begets smaller concepts.
______________8. Beliefs are firmly held opinions or convictions.
______________9. Social categories are natural categories.

II. Critical Thinking

Balot
Food, or what people around the world ear as food, mirrors cultural diversity.
Balot for example is a delicacy in the Philippines. Write a short essay arguing ballot is a unique
cultural icon of the Filipinos. Compose your essay on the space provided below.

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Prepared by: Checked and Noted by:

Jonalyn D. Obina Ms. Jennifer B. Galuz
Subject Teacher OIC Principal