SOCIETY

SOCIAL CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE

-full of different groups/socially stratified such as in economic
status and different ideologies.
KARL MARX-studies social groups/classes

-Bourgeoisie- Upper class

-Proletariat-Lower class
Society is simply defined as a grouping of
individuals, which is characterized by common
interest and may have distinctive/different culture
and institutions. It is definitely an organized group
of people associated together for religious,
benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic,
or other purposes to obtain a common goal.
 Inthe study of social sciences "society"
has been used to mean a group of people
that form a semi-closed social system,
in which most interactions are with other
individuals belonging to the group.
 Society emerged in the fifteenth century and is
derived from the French société. The French
word, in turn, had its origin in the Latin societas,
a "friendly association with others," from socius
meaning "companion, associate, and
comrade or business partner."
 NATURE OF SOCIETY

 Society consists of people.

 Mutual awareness and mutual interaction.
 Society depends on likeness.
 Society rests on differences too.
 Co- operational and division of labor.
 Society functions interdependently.
 Society is dynamic.
 Social control
 IMPORTANCE OF SOCIETY
 Foundation of the government.
 Building block of nations.
 Stepping stone of every human development.
 Standard of good and evil.
 Settler of roles and responsibilities.
 Preserver of cultural heritage.
 Bridge that connects the past, present and future.
 Mother of generation.
 Measure of one’s individuality.
 Judge human success and failures
TWO PRIMARY COMPONENTS OF A SOCIETY
ARE ITS CULTURE
AND IT’S SOCIAL STRUCTURE
 SOCIAL STRUCTURE
 - is an interdependent components that interactively related as a
whole.
 -is the organized set of social institutions and patterns of

institutionalized relationships that together compose society.

Social structure is both a product of social interaction and directly
determines it. Social structures are not immediately visible to the
untrained observer; however, they are always present and affect
all dimensions of human experience in society.​It is helpful to think
about social structure as operating on three levels within a given
society: the macro, mezzo, and micro levels.
DIFFERENCE OF SOCIETY AND CULTURE

 Society is a complex whole with interdependent

parts.
 Culture is an attribute characteristic of a

community, the complex web of shifting patterns

that link individuals together.
 Clifford Geertz has suggested that "society" is
the actual arrangement of social relations
while "culture" consists of beliefs and
symbolic forms.
 Edward Burnett Tylor wrote in 1871 that

"culture or civilization, taken in its wide

ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which
includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law,
custom, and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by man as a member of society."
 TYPES OF SOCIETY

 Gerhard Lenski, a sociologist, differentiates

societies into four levels based on their level of
technology, communication, and economy:

 Hunters and gatherers

 Simple agricultural
 Advanced agricultural
 Industrial (Durkheim, 1982)
 TYPES OF SOCIETY
 Morton H. Fried, a conflict theorist, and Elman
Service, an integration theorist, who produced a
system of classification for societies in all human
cultures based on the evolution of social inequality
and the role of the state. This system of
classification contains four categories:
 Hunter-gatherer bands, which are generally

egalitarian (unrestricted/free).
 Tribal societies, in which there are some limited

instances of social rank and prestige.

 Chiefdoms, stratified structures led by chieftains.
 Civilizations, with complex social hierarchies and

organized, institutional governments.

 TYPES OF SOCIETY
 The fundamental unit of human society is the family.
Margaret Mead (1965), based on her anthropological
research, affirmed the centrality of the family in human
society. The following are prominent or common types
of society:
 Band

 Clans

 Tribe

 Ethnic group

 Chiefdom (Brazilian Indian Chiefs )

 State
BAND SOCIETY
 BAND SOCIETY
 A band society is the simplest form of human
society. A band generally consists of a small kinship
group, often no larger than an extended family or
small clan. Bands have very informal leadership; the
older members of the band generally are looked to for
guidance and advice.
 Band customs are almost always transmitted orally.
 Formal social institutions are few or non-existent.
Religion is generally based on family tradition,
individual experience, or counsel from a shaman.
 BAND SOCIETY

 Bands are distinguished from tribes.

 Bands are generally larger, consisting of many

families.
 Tribes have more social institutions and clearly

defined leadership such as a "chief," or "elder.“

 Tribes are also more permanent than bands; a

band can cease to exist if only a small group

walks out.
 CLAN
 A clan is a group of people united by kinship and descent, which
is defined by perceived descent from a common ancestor. Even
if actual lineage patterns are unknown, clan members nonetheless
recognize a founding member or "apical ancestor.“

 As kinship based bonds can be merely symbolic in nature, some

clans share a "stipulated" common ancestor, which is a symbol
of the clan's unity. When this ancestor is not human, this is
referred to a totem (such as an animal or plant) serving as the
emblem of a family or clan and often as a reminder of its ancestry;
usually carved or painted representation of such an object.

 Generally speaking, kinship differs from biological relation, as it

also involves adoption, marriage, and fictive genealogical ties.
Clans can be most easily described as sub-groups of tribes
and usually constitute groups of seven to ten thousand
people.
TRIBE SOCIETY
 TRIBE

 A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally,

consists of a social group existing before the
development of, or outside of, states, though
some modern theorists hold that "contemporary"
tribes can only be understood in terms of their
relationship to states. The term is often loosely
used to refer to any non-Western or indigenous
society.
 TRIBE
 A social division within a traditional society
consisting of a group of interlinked families or
communities sharing a common culture and
dialect. In the contemporary western mind the
modern tribe is typically associated with a seat
of traditional authority (tribal leader) with whom
the representatives of external powers (the
governing state or occupying government)
interact.
 TRIBE
 The term "tribe" fell into disfavor in the latter part of
the twentieth century. For many anthropologists,
when the term was clearly defined it became an
"ideal" concept, with no basis in reality. Thus, it
was replaced with the designation "ethnic group,"
which defines a group of people of common
ancestry and language, shared cultural history,
and an identifiable territory.
 Nevertheless, the term tribe is still in common use
and the term used for recognized Native American
governments in the United States.
 ETHNIC GROUP
 A human population whose members identify with
each other, usually on the basis of a presumed
common genealogy or lineage.
 Ethnic groups are also usually united by common

cultural, behavioral, linguistic, or religious

practices.
 In this sense, an ethnic group is also a cultural

community. This term is preferred over tribe, as it

overcame the negative connotations that the
term tribe had acquired under colonialism.
 CHIEFDOM
 Any community led by an individual known as a chief.
 In anthropological theory, one model of human social development
describes chiefdom as a form of social organization more
complex than a tribe, and less complex than a state or a
civilization.
 The most succinct (but still working) definition of chiefdom in
anthropology belongs to Robert Carneiro: "An autonomous
political unit comprising a number of villages or communities under
the permanent control of a paramount chief” (Mead & Heyman,
1965).
 Chiefdoms have been shown by anthropologists and
archaeologists to be a relatively unstable form of social
organization. They are prone to cycles of collapse and renewal, in
which tribal units band together, expand in power, fragment
through some form of social stress, and band together again.
 CHIEFDOM
 An example of this kind of social organization
would be the Germanic Peoples who conquered
the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century
C.E. Although commonly referred to as tribes, the
Germanic Peoples were by anthropological
definition not tribes, but chiefdoms.
 They had a complex social hierarchy

consisting of kings, a warrior aristocracy,

common freemen, serfs, and slaves.
 CHIEFDOM
 Are characterized by pervasive inequality of
peoples and centralization of authority.
 At least two inherited social classes (elite and
commoner) are present, although social class can
often be changed by extraordinary behavior during
an individual's life.
 A single lineage/family of the elite class will be the
ruling elite of the chiefdom, with the greatest
influence, power, and prestige. Kinship is typically
an organizing principle, while marriage, age, and
gender can affect one's social status and role.
 STATE
 A political association with effective dominion over a
geographic area. It usually includes the set of
institutions that claim the authority to make the rules that
govern the people of the society in that territory, though
its status as a state often depends in part on being
recognized by a number of other states as having
internal and external sovereignty over it.
 In sociology, the state is normally identified with these

institutions: in Max Weber's influential definition, it is that

organization that has a "monopoly on the legitimate use
of physical force within a given territory," which may
include the armed forces, civil service, or state
bureaucracy, courts, and police.
 CITY STATE
 Is a region controlled exclusively by a city, usually having
sovereignty.
 Have often been part of larger cultural areas, as in the city-
states of ancient Greece (such as Athens, Sparta and Corinth),
the central Asian cities along the Silk Road (which included
Samarkand and Bukhara), or the city-states of Northern Italy
(especially Florence and Venice). Among the most creative
periods in human history are those in which humanity organized
itself in small independent centers. However, these small creative
groupings usually survived for only short periods of time because
they lacked the size and strength to defend themselves against
the onslaught of larger social entities. Thus, they inevitably gave
way to larger organizations of society, the empire and eventually
the nation-state. Today, only Singapore, Monaco, and Vatican City
arguably remain autonomous city-states.
 SOCIETY IN VARIOUS
PERSPECTIVES
EVOLUTIONARY

The family groups live together in a nomadic life,

occupying one place after the other to nurture their
needs and wants. But later on, nomadic life became a
burden because the enlargement of the families
slowed down their mobility, and so a new way of life
was introduced.
This new initiated way of life has later led families to
settle down and learned the value of having their own
territory. Hence, bringing to the birth we called now a
SOCIETY.
 SOCIETY IN VARIOUS
PERSPECTIVES
POLITICAL

A system was established as necessary measure for their

protection. Leaders were selected and social norms were
imposed, upon which division of roles, and responsibilities
were assigned.
With that, certain rules and norms of conduct were respected
and upheld while social hierarchies were modeled as well.
Politics is an inevitable activity of people which is also
intertwined with other social systems. Thus, it is from which the
government is established to provide control mechanisms
necessary for a peaceful and progressive living.
After all, human is really a political being in nature.
 SOCIETY IN VARIOUS
PERSPECTIVES
ECONOMICAL

People on the other hand are undeniably, must

produce to address and sustain essential needs
of the now and next generation. This is to provide
means and ways to sustain man’s basic and
material needs to live. Hence, the acceleration for
production is imperative to answer the
increasing demand of man in society.
 Societies consist minimally of a large extended family,
and generally as groups of families connected either by
kinship or by geopolitical factors (location,
resources, common enemies, and so forth). Over
time, some cultures progressed toward more complex
forms of organization and control. This cultural evolution
has a profound effect on patterns of community. Hunter-
gatherer tribes settled around seasonal food supplies
eventually become agrarian villages. Villages grew to
become towns and cities. Cities turned into city-states
and nation-states (Effland, 1998). Ultimately, there is
the level of all humanity, humankind.
 BE READY FOR OUR INTERACTIVE
DISCUSSION.

THANK YOU
PREPARED BY:
MA. CATHERINE A. BACOR,RSW