Week 2

Learning Outcomes
• Articulate observations on human cultural variation, social differences,
social change, and political identities
• Demonstrate curiosity and an openness to explore the origins and
dynamics of culture and society, and political identities.
Everything made, learned, or shared by the members
of a society, including values, beliefs, behaviors, and
material objects.
PARTS OF CULTURE
• Material Culture
• Non-Material Culture
Material World
• Material Culture
• Visible parts of culture, such as food, clothing, cars, weapons, buildings, that
members of society make, use, and share
• Raw Materials → Technology → Stuff
Material World
• Non-Material Culture
• Abstract/intangible aspects of culture that influence people’s behavior such as
language, beliefs, values, rules of behavior, family patterns, political systems.
5 Components of Culture
• People of a culture share a broad set of material and nonmaterial elements

• 5 components of Culture:
• Technology
• Symbols
• Language
• Values
• Norms
 5 Components of Culture

1. Technology
• Manmade products (material culture) that make life easier
• Rules of acceptable behavior when using material culture
 Components of Culture

2. Symbols
• Cultural representations of reality
• Give meanings to things and events
• Examples: gestures, images, sounds, physical objects, events, etc.
Components of Culture

3. Language
• Most powerful of all human
symbols
• Expresses meaning of symbols
• Allows members of society to
communicate with one another
• Conveys the beliefs and values of
culture
 Components of Culture

4. Values
• Ideas
• Determines character of people
• Standards by which people assess desirability, goodness and beauty
Components of Culture

5. Norms
• Rules that guide human behavior
• Give concrete terms on how we should
behave – what we should do or what we
should not do.

Kinds of Norms

Mores – distinguish between right

and wrong
Folkways – distinguish between right
and rude
Laws
• Established punishments for violating norms to protect the social well
being
• Written rules of conduct enacted and enforced by the government
• Mores laws: child abuse, rape, carnapping, etc.
• Folkway laws: jaywalking, counterflowing etc.
What’s the Difference?
• Society - the people who interact to share a common culture
• Culture - consists of beliefs, behaviors, objects and other characteristics
common to a particular group or society
 Roots of culture: Biological or Societal? (Nature
vs. nurture)
Nature Nurture
What’s in it? Nature refers to an individual’s Nurture refers to personal
innate qualities (nativism) experiences ( ex. Empiricism or
behaviorism)

Example Nature is your genes. The Nurture refers to your

physical and personality traits
determined by your genes stay
the same irrespective of
where you were born or
raised.
childhood, or how you were
brought up. Someone could be
born with genes to give them a
normal height, but be
malnourished in stunted growth
and a failure to develop as
expected.

Factors Biological and family factors Social and environmental

factors
 Basic Features of Culture
• Culture is learned. We learn culture from families, peers,
institutions, and media.
• No one is born equipped with a particular language, or knowledge
of religious beliefs
 Features of Culture
• Culture is shared. We share culture with other members of our group
Features of Culture
• Culture is based on symbols. These symbols only have meaning when
people in a culture agree on their use.
Features of Culture
• Culture is integrated. All aspects of a culture are related to one
another and to truly understand a culture, one must learn about all
of its parts, not only a few.
Features of Culture
• Culture is dynamic. Cultures interact and change
• These changes may be in the form of discoveries, inventions, or
cultural borrowings.
Cultural diversity
• the presence of multiple cultures and
cultural differences within a society
Subcultures
• Smaller cultural groups that exist
within but differ in some way
• Examples of some subcultures
include “heavy metal” music
devotees, body‐piercing and
tattoo enthusiasts, motorcycle
gang members, and Nazi
skinheads
 Countercultures
• In opposition to the norms and values
of the dominant culture.
• Members of countercultures—such as
hippies and protest groups—are
generally teenagers and young adults,
because youth is often a time of
identity crisis and experimentation.
Assimilation and multiculturalism

• Assimilation is when dominant culture absorbs subcultural or

countercultural groups.
• Multiculturalism respects cultural variations rather than requiring that
the dominant culture assimilate the various cultures
 Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism
• Ethnocentrism involves judging other cultures against the standards
of one's own culture
• Cultural Relativism is the perspective that a culture should be
sociologically evaluated according to its own standards, and not
those of any other culture.
 Toward a Global Culture
• Cultural diffusion
- the spreading of standards across cultures through travel, trade,
conquests, etc.
Social Groups
and
Organization
CLASSIFICATION OF PEOPLE
• Group
• Aggregates
• Categories
GROUP
• A group consists of two or more people who are distinct in the following ways:
• Interact over time.
• Have a sense of identity or belonging.
• Have norms that non-members don’t have.
AGGREGATE
• a collection of people who happen to be at the same place at the same
time but who have no other connection to one another
CATEGORY
• Collection of people who share a particular characteristic.
• They do not necessarily interact with one another and have nothing else
in common
 CHARACTERISTIC OF A GROUP
Group members interact on a fairly regular basis through communication
SOCIAL GROUP
• families, companies, circles of friends, clubs, local chapters of fraternities and
sororities, and local religious congregations
SOCIAL GROUP
NATURE OF SOCIAL GROUP
 The group provides specific form as to the nature of interaction in the society.
 Members should develop a structure where each member assumes a specific
status and adopts a particular role.
 Certain orderly procedures and values are agreed upon.
 The members of the group feel a sense of identity.
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO SOCIAL
TIES
PRIMARY GROUP
• It is the most fundamental unit of human society.
• A long-lasting group
• Characterized by strong ties of love and affection.
• Do’s and Don’ts of behavior are learned here.

Examples:
Families, Gangs, Cliques, Play Groups, Friendship Groups
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO SOCIAL
TIES
SECONDARY GROUP
•Group with which the individual comes in contact later in
life.
•Characterized by impersonal, business-like, contractual,
formal and casual relationship.
•Usually Large in size, not very enduring and limited
relationships.
•People needed other people for the satisfaction of their
complex needs.

Examples:
Industrial Workers; business associates, Faculty Staff, Company Employees
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO FORM
OF ORGANIZATION
INFORMAL GROUP
• Arises spontaneously out of the interactions of
two or more persons
• It is unplanned
• Has no explicit rules for membership and does not
have specific objectives to be attained
• members are bound by emotion and sentiments
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO FORM
OF ORGANIZATION
FORMAL GROUP
• Social organization
• Deliberately formed and their purpose and
objectives are explicitly defined.
• Their goals are clearly stated and the division of
labor is based on member’s ability or merit
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO
SELF IDENTIFICATION
IN-GROUP
• A social unit in which individuals feel at home and with
which they identify themselves
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO
SELF IDENTIFICATION
OUT-GROUP
• A social unit to which individuals do not belong due to
differences in social categories and with which they do
not identify
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO
PURPOSE
SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP
•Groups which are organized to meet the special interest
of the members
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO
PURPOSE
TASK GROUP
•Groups assigned to accomplish jobs which cannot be
done by one person
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO
GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION AND DEGREE OF RELATIONSHIP
Gemeinschaft
• A social system in which most relationships are personal or
traditional.
• It is a community of intimate, private and exclusive living and
familism.
• Culture is homogeneous and tradition-bound
SOCIAL GROUP ACCORDING TO
GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION AND DEGREE OF RELATIONSHIP
Gesselschaft
• A social system in which most relationships are
impersonal, formal, contractual or bargain-like.
• Relationship is individualistic, business-like, secondary
and rationalized
• Culture is heterogeneous and more advanced.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
•Type of collectivity established for the pursuit of specific aims or goals
•Characterized by a formal structure of rules, authority relations, a
division of labor and limited membership or admission
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
► Organization is an orderly relationship or arrangement of parts.

► Thus family, church, college, factory, a play group, a political party, a community;
all are examples of a social organization.

► Social organization is used to refer the interdependence and inter-relation of

parts in groups.

► Social organization is the organization of society, it is a system of relationship in

groups.

► Social organization refers to ‘the way people relate themselves to one another’.
TYPES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
• Political organization: State (Government)
• Economic organization: Factory
• Religious organization: Church
• Financial organization: Bank
• Educational organization: school and colleges
All these organizations are called social organization, that is, organization of society.
Social organization is used in wider sense to include any organization of society.
TYPES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
A Goal:
• The member of an organization are inter-related to each other for the
pursuit of a common goal.
Preparedness to accept one’s role and status:
• Organization is an arrangement of persons and parts.
• Arrangement meant that every member of the organization has an assigned
role, a position and status.
TYPES OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION
Norms and Mores:
• Every organization has its norms and mores which control its members.
• An organization can function smoothly if its members follow the organization
norms.
Sanctions:
• If a member does not follow the norms he is compelled to follow them
through sanctions (conditions) which may range from warning to physical
punishment. e.g. expelled, dismissed.
 IMPORTANCE OF GROUP
A group is a major source of solidarity and cohesion.
Thank you!