SELF, SOCIETY,

AND CULTURE
WHAT IS THE SELF?
Separate
Self-contained
SELF
(Stevens, 1996)
Independent
Consistent
Unitary
private
Separate – distinct from others, always unique, and has its own
identity.
Self-contained and Independent – it can exist in itself and does not
require any other self for it to exist.
Consistent – has an enduring personality.
Unitary – It is the center of all experiences and thoughts that run
through a person.
Private – the self is isolated from the external world. It lives within
its own world.
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONIST PERSPECTIVE
•Argue that the self should not be seen as a static
entity that stays constant through and through.
Rather, the self has to be seen as something that is
in constant struggle with external reality, and is
malleable in its dealings with society.
•Self is always in participation with social life and its
dealings with society.
THE SELF AND CULTURE
According to Marcel Mauss, every self has two
faces:
• Moi- refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body, and
his basic identity; biological givenness, this person’s
basic identity.
• Personne- is composed of the social concepts of what It
means to be who he is. It means to live in a particular
institution, a particular family, a particular religion, a
particular nationality, and how to behave given the
expectation and influences from others.
THE SELF AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE
SOCIAL WORLD
• How do children grow up and become
social beings?
• How can a boy turn out to be just like an
ape?
• How do twins coming out from the same
mother turn out to be terribly different
when given up for adoption?
•Recent studies, however , indicate that men and
women in their growth and development
engage actively in shaping of the self.
George Herbert Mead and Lev Vygotsky
• Human persons develop with the use of language acquisition and
interaction with others. The way that we process information is
normally a form of an internal dialogues.
• Cognitive and Emotional Development of a child is always a
mimicry of how it is done in the social world, in the external reality
where he is in.
• Human mind as something that is made, constituted through
language as experienced in the external world and as encountered
in dialogues with others.
Self in Families
• The kind of family that we are born in and the resources available
to us (Human, Spiritual, Economic) will certainly affect us and the
kind of development that we will have as we go through life.
• Learning therefore is critical in our capacity to actualize our
potential of becoming humans. In trying to achieve the goal of
becoming a fully realized human , a child enters a system of
relationships, most important of which is the family.
• Without a family, biologically and sociologically, a person may not
even survive or become a person.
Gender and Self
•Gender is one of those loci of self that is subject to
alteration, change, and development.
•People fought hard for the right to express validate,
and assert their gender expressions.
•Society forces a particular identity unto us
depending on our sex and/or gender.
•The sense of self that is being taught makes sure
that an individual fits in a particular environment.
This is dangerous and detrimental in the goal of truly
finding one’s self, self-determination, and growth of
the self.
•Gender has to personally discovered and asserted
and not dictated by culture and society