ACLC COLLEGE TACLOBAN

Tacloban City
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY & POLITICS

Lesson 1: Understanding Society

Society
Is defined as a group of people living together in organized communities,
following common laws, values, customs, and traditions.
Societal Features
1. Territory
All societies occupy a definite area or space on the planet.
2. Size
A society is relatively large in terms of the number of members, a trait
common in most societies today.
3. Common culture
Way of living otherwise they would not be able to coherently relate and
interact with one another.
4. Sense of belongingness
Members of society must identify with it and feel that they belong there.
5. Common historical experience
The feeling that everyone in the particular society has a common destiny.
6. Common language
The existence of a major one that everyone understands and uses as part of
its national patrimony and heritage.
7. Autonomy
Expressed in a society’s capacity to sustain its existence vis-à-vis other
societies through social institutions that organize, manage and regulate it
from within.
Social Institutions
Defined as an organized system of social relationships that represent a
society’s common values and procedures.

There are six generally recognized institutions in every society.

1. Family
Considered as the bedrock or foundation of the society.
2. Education
The formal institution designated to preserve and transfer cultural
knowledge and identity to the members of a society.
3. Economy
The social institution generally responsible for the production and the
allocation of scarce resources and services.
4. Government
A social institution which states policy and law is enforced.
5. Media
A social institution responsible for the circulation of vital information among
the members of a society.
6. Religion
 An organized collection of beliefs intended to explain the meaning, origin,
and purpose of life and existence.

The Study of Society

1. Structural Functionalism Theory
Sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the
biological and social needs of the individuals in that society.
2. Conflict Theory
Is a theory that society is in a state of perpetual conflict because
of competition for limited resources.
3. Symbolic Interactionism
Focus on social interaction; everyday events in which people communicate,
interpret, and respond to each other’s words and actions.

Lesson 2: Understanding Culture

Culture
is a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
- Edward Burnett Tylor, 1871
Aspects of Culture
1. Culture is dynamic, flexible, and adaptive.
2. Culture is shared and contested.
3. Culture is learned and transmitted through socialization or
enculturation.
4. Culture is a set of patterned social interactions.
5. Culture is integrated and at times unstable.
6. Culture requires language and other forms of communication.
Types of Culture
1. Material Culture
Human’s material or physical inventions and innovations such as tools,
weapons, instruments, artifacts, dwellings, food, and artistic expressions
and the likes are all part of material culture.
2. Nonmaterial Culture
Refers to the intangible ideas that form within a society, including beliefs,
perceptions, religion, myths, legends, language, and traditions.

Variations of Culture
1. High Culture and Low/Pop Culture
A. High Culture
It is a collection of ideologies, beliefs, thoughts, trends, practices and
works-- intellectual or creative-- that is intended for refined, cultured
and educated elite people.
B. Low/Pop Culture
Popular culture or sometimes called low culture is the patterns of
behavior followed by the common people. In other words, it’s the culture
of the masses. Popular culture is something that is always, most
importantly, related to everyday average people and their experiences of
the world; it is urban, changing and consumeristic in nature.
2. Subculture and Counterculture
 A. Subculture
Includes people who may accept much of the dominant culture but are
set apart from it by one or more culturally significant characteristics.
B. Counterculture
Are groups of people who differ in certain ways from the dominant
culture and whose norms and values may be incompatible with it.
3. Ideal Culture and Real Culture
A. Ideal Culture
The ways in which people describe their way of life. It is the standards
society would like to embrace and live up to.
B. Real Culture
Refers to the actual behavior of people in the society. It is the way
society actually is, based on what occurs and exists.
Components/Elements of Culture
1. Symbol
Something to which people attach meaning and then use to communicate
with one another.
A. Gestures
The ways in which people use their bodies to communicate with one
another.
B. Language
A system of symbols that can be combined in an infinite number of
ways and can represent not only objects but also abstract thoughts.
2. Ideas
A thought or a collection of thoughts that generate in mind.
A. Values
the standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable,
good or bad, beautiful or ugly.
B. Beliefs
represent man’s convictions about the reality of things.
3. Norms
A set of norms is a society’s standards of acceptable behavior.
A. Folkways
Are the accumulated and repetitive patterns of expected behavior which
tend to be self-perpetuating.
B. Mores
Are social norms which are strongly morally sanctioned.
C. Taboo
Refers to a norm so strongly ingrained that even the thought of its
violation is greeted with revulsion.
D. Laws
Are formalized social norms enacted by the people who are vested with
political powers.

Orientations in Viewing Other Cultures/The Cross-cultural Perspective

1. Ethnocentrism
Pertains to the belief that one’s native culture is superior to or the most
natural among other cultures. An ethnocentric person sees and weighs
another culture based upon the values and standards of his/her own.
2. Xenocentrism
 The belief that one’s culture is inferior to another. A xenocentric person
usually has a high regard for other cultures but disdains his/her own or
embarrassed by it.
3. Cultural Relativism
The practice of viewing another culture by its own context rather than
assessing it based on the standards of one’s own culture to avoid personal
biases and assumptions in studying culture