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Understanding Culture, Society, and

Politics.
At the end of the lesson, the learners demonstrate understanding of:

• Recognize human cultural variation, social differences, social changes, and political
identities.
• Describe different social, political, and cultural phenomena through observation and
reflection.
• Appraise anthropology, sociology and political science as social science.
Introduction to
Anthropology
U N D E R S T A N D I N G C U LT U R E ,
SOCIETY AND POLITICS
Anthropology
• “ Anthropos” – human, “logos” – to reason or knowledge (Eriksen 200 1:2)

• Studies human diversity and similarity and their social and cultural role.
• Anthropologists study culture and social life using participant observation.
• Anthropology has five sub-disciplines:
• Archaeology
• Cultural anthropology
• Linguistic anthropology
• Physical anthropology
• Applied anthropology
Archaeology
• Examines the remains of ancient and
historical population to promote an
understanding of how humans have
adapted to their environment and
developed.
Cultural
Anthropology
• It promotes the study of
society’s culture through
their belief system,
practices and possession.
Linguistic
Anthropology
• It examines the language (changes)
of a group of people and its relation
to their culture.
Physical
Anthropology
It investigate biological development
of humans and their contemporary
variations.
Physical anthropologists work broadly
on three major sets of problems:
human and nonhuman primate
evolution, human variation and its
significance and the biological basis of
human behavior. 
Applied • It attempts to solve contemporary problem
through application of theories and
Anthropology approaches of the discipline.
Question
• Why do we need to study culture?

• How this affect us from our day-to-

day experiences?
Sociological
Perspective
U N D E R S T A N D I N G C U LT U R E ,
SOCIETY AND POLITICS
Sociology
• Scientific study of society including
social relationship, interaction and and
culture.
• According to Auguste Comte (1830) ,
this covers human social activities.
• Society can be defined as a product of
human interaction – social interaction.
• Social interaction is a compilation of
ways and means by which humans
interact with each other within the
society (not limited to physical).
Question
• Why Social Interaction is relevant?

• Can you provide other examples of

social interaction?
Talcot Parsons
(1902-1979)
• One of the most influential American
sociologist. He is associated with the
theory of structural functionalism.
• The existence and success of society
across time and space depends on four
things, and these are:
• Adaptation
• Goal attainment
• Integration
• Latency
Adaptation
• The capacity of society to take
resources from its system and
distribute them accordingly. This
function is carried out by the
economy, which includes gathering
resources and producing
commodities for social
redistribution.
Goal
Attainment
• The capability to set goals and
mobilize the resources and energies
necessary to achieve the goals set
forth by society.
Integration

• The harmonization of the entire

society to achieve consensus. By
integration, Parsons meant the
coordination, adjustment, and
regulation of the rest of the
subsystem so that society will
continue to function smoothly.
Latency
• Or latent pattern maintenance,
requires that society is able to
constantly produce and socialize
actors who will follow the norms
and roles given to them by the
society.
Political Science
U N D E R S T A N D I N G C U LT U R E ,
SOCIETY AND POLITICS
Political
Science
• Study of politics and power from domestic,
international, and comparative perspectives. It
entails understanding political ideas, ideologies,
institutions, policies, processes, and behavior, as
well as groups, classes, government, diplomacy,
law, strategy, and war.

• Being an interdisciplinary discipline, it can

explore various field that is related to interstate
relations, local governance, political
culture/behavior and even political policy.
Important Concepts in Political Science

• Political Theory – examine the contemporary application of political concepts such

as human rights, equality, peace and justice.
• Comparative Politics – provide context to the differences in the government and
political systems. Its examines the parallelism and divergence of political systems to
provide analyses on the factors that make the government efficient and the factors
that makes them fail.
• International Relation – the study of state-to-state relations and the wider margins of
the impact of globalization and climate change such as terrorism, piracy and
democratization of non-Western territories fall into the category of international
relations.
Important Concepts in Political Science

• Political Behavior – It covers the attitude, knowledge, and actions of an individual in

response to political variables such as policies created by the government, behavior
of politicians, and general political environment.
• Public Policy – this field inquires the type of governmental policies and the
underlying motivations for their enactment and implementation.
• Public Administration – this branch examines the various administrative schemes
implemented by the government officials. It analyzes the strategies applied by
administrative units implementing the existing policies and the feedback mechanism
that they use to gain the opinion of the public.
Let’s try!
Read each statement about the opinion of
former Vice-President Maria Leonor Santo
Tomas Gerona (VP-Leni Robredo) and
President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr.
(BBM) to the issue between Russia and
Ukraine and explain the critical effect of
these in the Philippines.