SOCIAL

DYNAMICS
SIR. RUSTY DELA CRUZ GUTIERREZ
INSTRUCTOR
 SOCIAL DYNAMICS

•UNDERSTANDING CULTURE
•SOCIETY
•POLITICS
OBSERVE YOUR SURROUNDINGS:
WHAT DO YOU SEE?
• MOST LIKELY, YOU WOULD SEE PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT FACES,
FASHION STATEMENTS, MANNERISMS, AND MORE. THESE CULTURAL
VARATIONS ARE BUILDING BLOCKS OF A PERSON’S IDENTITY. THESE
ARE WHAT MAKE A PERSON UNIQUE, AND A GROUP OF PEOPLE
DIVERSE, COLORFUL, AND INTERESTING.
• THE COMPLEXITY OF HUMAN AND SOCIETIES AND THE WAY THEY
EXIST HAVE BROUHT SCHOLARS INTO NONQUANTIFIABLE STUDIES.
IT IS FOR THIS REASON THAT ANTROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, AND
POLITICAL SCIENCE HAVE BEEN BORN.
ANTHROPOLOGY
• Anthropology is the study of human beings, their origin, their societies,
and their cultures.

• It roots observations to the origin of humans to understand fully the

societies and cultures of the human organisms through time.

• It branches into two subdivisions: social anthropology, which students

humans in relation to societies; and cultural anthropology, or the study of
human cultures.
 SOCIOLOGY
• Sociology is the scientific study of a society-its origin,
development,networks,and functions.
• Its primary purpose is to explain how different elements in the
environment affect and influence the growth and life of a
person.
• The term was first coined by French essayist Emmanuel-Josep
Sieyes in 1780 and was later defined by French philosopher
and “father of sociology “ Auguste Comte in 1838.
POLITICAL SCIENCE

• Political science, it covers matters relating

to the allocation of power, the roles and
systems of governance,political behavior,
and public policies.
 SOCIETY
• Society, in general is defined as a group of people living
together in organized communities , following common
laws, vales, customs, and traditions.
• The term was first used in mid-16th century, originating from
the latin words socius and societas, which mean
“companion” and from the French term societe, meaning
“companionship.”
SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
• Institution as an organized system of social relationships
that represent a society’s common values and
procedures.
• This is a stable, valued, recurring pattern that guides the
behavior of people in a society.
• Once the elements of culture become so integrated that
activities are already formalized on a unit basis,
institutions surface in society.
 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- The 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.
 CULTURE
• Culture is the complex whole which encompasses beliefs,
practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, symbols,
and knowledge that a person learns and shares as a member
of society,
• Leslie A. White (1995), culture refers to an organization of
phenomena that is dependent upon symbols and includes acts
(patterns of behavior), objects (material things), ideas (beliefs
and knowledge), and sentiments (atittudes and values),
• It transcends among different groups, regardless of
age, gender, economic status, and affilations.
• American anthropologist Richley Crapo (2001),
who describes culture as a system of ideas,
feelings, and survival strategies shared in a
particular group.
• He claims that culture is the structure that unifies a
human group and gives it an identity as a society.
 ASPECT OF CULTURE
• Culture has essential characteristics that need to
be acknowledged for anyoneto understand
clearly its nature and dynamism.
• One must understand that culture -given that a
society is composed of different people with
different characters-is shared and contested.
• No culture will be accepted by everyone in the
society. Some will always propagate the beauty
of a certain culture, while some will contest and
question its substance.
• Most people adopt the complexities of culture
from the environment they are in because
cultural behavior and actions can only be learn
through observation, experience, and education.
• For example, wearing maong and eating balut
and other street food are assimilated through
experience .
• Others, like kissing the hands of elders, are
taugh through generations. This aspect of
culture may be well represented by the saying.
”Birds of the same feather flock together.”
• Culture also requires language and other forms
of communication. As American anthropologist
George Murdock (1949) has pointed out, what
differentiates humans from animals is their
abilityto communicate, using complex systems
of symbols, storing knowledge, and transmitting
them to the next generations.
• Just imagine the difficultyof everyday survival if basic
and essential knowledge are to be discovered and
rediscovered by each generation separately.
• Language is a key factor in the success of the human
race in creating and preserving culture.Without
language, the ability to convey ideas and traditions is
impossible.
• Culture is also dynamic, flexible, and adoptive. It is
constanty changing. No culture is permanent or static.
• The rate of cultural change among societies in the
world varies. Depending on their geographical,
economic, social, and political conditions.
• At times, culture may be unstable. This is due to the
constantly changing practices of the people in the
society.
• With this, new ideas and teachniques are being
integrated, while the old ones-especially those that are
no longer widely practiced-are being modified or
even discarded.
 MATERIAL AND NON-MATERIAL
CULTURE
• These elements can be classified into two,
• MATERIAL CULTURE OR (TANGIBLE)
(Miller,1998).
• NON-MATERIAL CULTURE OR (INTANGIBLE)
(Miller,1998).
 MATERIAL CULTURE

•Most culture manifest materially,

Human’s material inventions and
innovations such as tools, weapons,
instruments, and the likes are all part of
material culture.
 EXAMPLES
• tools,
• weapons,
• utensils,
• machines,
• ornaments,
• art, buildings,
• monuments, written records,
• religious images,
• clothing, and any other ponderable objects produced or used by
humans.
NON-MATERIAL CULTURE
• On the other hand, refers to the intangible
ideas that form within a society, including
beliefs , perceptions, and traditions. As what
hunt and his fellow scholars say in their study,
the differences in the perceptions of things
define a person’s brand of reality.
 EXAMPLES

• traffic laws,
•words, and dress codes.
•nonmaterial culture is intangible.
SUBCULTURE AND COUNTERCULTURE
• Sociologist and anthropologists recognize the fact
that culture is constantly envolving. Variations of
culture are present in each society. Thus, the
concepts of subculture and counterculture are
conceived.
 SUBCULTURE

• Subculture may be defined as a modified

culture within a large culture practiced by a
society
• Let us take the rock culture in music as an example. In
general, rock music is a culture observed in many
societies all over the globe. Since its conception,
several subculture of rock music has emerged-
alternative rock, punk rock, metal rock, and many
more.
• A subculture that ends to be in conflict with the
dominant culture and opposes the letter’s
standards is know as COUNTERCULTURE,
This emphasizes conflict between two cultures.
• Perhaps the most popular counterculture was
the hippie movement of the 1906s.
• The hippies defined the social norms which they
thought hindered the public’s rights and wants.
• They rejected the mainstream culture by producing
new genres of music, art form (pop art), and
spiritual beliefs. Rebels, juvenile delinquents, drugs
lords, pushers, addicts, secessionist, terrorist,and
other groups involve in illegal activities are also
examples of people exhibiting counterculture.
 IDEAL AND REAL CULTURE
• It is important to understand that although culture is
a system of ideals for behavior, there are instances
when members of a society do not conform to it.
Thus, a society has subculture, counterculture, and
nonconformists. As such, culture can be classified
into two-ideal and real.
•Crapo(2001) defines ideal culture as the
ways in which people describe their way
of life, while real culture refers to the
actual behavior of people in the society.
• Take the case of many young filipinos today for
example.It is their ideal culture to respect the
elders by doing pagmamano and saying po and
opo . However, many youth nowadays tend to
forgot this filipino culture of showing respect.
This actually in the modern filipino societyis their
real culture.
•The gap between the ideal and the real
cultures tells something about the
dynamic processes within a society.
• If members of the society tend to violate
frequently the mainstream cultural standards,
the mechanisms of social control are possibly
weak. On the other hand, if people in a society
follow the cultural ideals, then change would
be highly improbable.
 ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
• Since the third grade, you have known about the different elements
that make up your community. Universally , culture is composed of,
but not limited to norms, beliefs, social institutions, and languages.
Other elements may be rituals, histories, heroes, values, and
attitudes.
• Tylor, as started previously , has defined culture as a complex whole
comprise of different elements, such as beliefs, practices, values,
attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, symbols, knowledge, and everything
that a person learns ang shares as a member of a society.
NORMS
• One specially distinct element of culture is the norm. A set of
norms is a society’s standards of acceptable behavior.The culture
inside a jeepney stated in Taking Off is an example of a norm.
• Norms are essential in a society because majority of the people
pattern their way of living after them.Through these
norms.people can distinguish good from bad, depending on the
norm of their society. However, norms are complex standards-
each has different kinds and severities.
• NORMS CAN BE CLASSIFIED INTO THREE: FOLKWAYS,
MORES, AND LAWS.
FLOKWAYS
• Are norms which members of society have come to
accept as the power way of dealing with their everyday
living and social interaction. These norms reflect the
organized and repetitive pattern of societal behaviors.
• Sociologists use the word “folkways” instead of
“custom”to underscore the idea that these are the
accepted behavior of the folks or the members of the
society.
• A society has a variety of folkways which
depend on their sociohistorical
experiences. It involves the way people
eat,dress,communicate with others, and a
myriad of other behavioral patterns.
•Folkways may be impermanent or transient.
New folkways arise, and old ones may
change or die naturally as members of
society respond to problems, challenges,
and other stimuli as time goes by. One
common factor of a folkway change is
technological innovation.
• Given the continuous modernization, a
significant number of folkways that people
currently observe will surely change in the
next ten or fifteen years.
MORES
• The term mos, from which mores was coined, is a
Latin word which means “custom.” However, in a
sociological perspective, mores are the customs or
folkways a society needs to adhere to stricltly. The
violation of mres usually has corresponding
consequences/ sanctions (negative at most times).
• Theoretically, mores are the values folkways
that involve moral or ethical values, respecting
authority, marriage and sex behavior patterns,
religious rituals, and the like . It is associated
with the society’s assumption of right and
wrong.
 LAWS
• are social norms that have become formally
inscribed at the state or federal level and can laws
can result in formal punishment for violations, such
as fines, incarceration, or even death. Laws are a
form of social control that outlines rules, habits, and
customs a society uses to enforce conformity to its
norms.