Ssci 1/Socio 101

Society and Culture with

Population Education
 Suggested Activities

Film Showing Survey Interview

Resource Person Term Paper
Group Report Insight Paper
Field Visit/Exposure Trip Exhibits
Internet Surfing Research Paper
Data Gathering Case Study
Interview Seminar/Forum
 Classroom Protocol
• Wear your prescribed uniform while inside the campus.
• School ID shall be properly worn at all times
• Only blue or black ink is allowed
• Use white intermediate paper only, unless specified
• When taking the test, always

Write your family name first

Indicate your course, year, and section, date, subject and
regular time schedule
• Be prompt in attending your classes. Tardiness is
discouraged.
• Maintain cleanliness. Do not write anything on
the wall and on the chair. There is always a
proper place for your garbage.
• Do not loiter in the corridor during class hour.
• Bring your own school materials (paper, pen,
book, etc.)
• Actively participate in class activities.
• Put your celfone in silent mode during class hour.
• Observe proper seating arrangement.
• Ask permission before leaving the room.
• Be courteous! Be polite!
• Cheating means FAILING GRADE
• Allowable absences
MWF 12 times
TTh 8 times
 \
EDWIN C. SAMIS

09185961662

ecsamsocsciusa@yahoo.com.ph
 What is sociology?

The scientific study of social interactions and

of social organization is called sociology.

Sociology is the scientific study of human

social relationships and structures.
• Sociology is the scientific study of society and
human behavior.
• Sociologists define society as the people who
interact in such a way as to share a common
culture. The cultural bond may be ethnic or
racial, based on gender, or due to shared
beliefs, values, and activities. The
term society can also have a
geographic meaning and refer to people who
share a common culture in a particular
location.
• Culture consists of the beliefs, behaviors,
objects, and other characteristics common to
the members of a particular group or society.
Through culture, people and groups define
themselves, conform to society's shared
values, and contribute to society.
 Sociological Imagination
The ability to see our private experiences,
personal difficulties, and achievements as, in
part, a reflection of the structural
arrangements of society and the times in
which we live. The sociological imagination
allows us to see the relationship between our
personal experiences and broader social and
historical events.
 The Sociological Imagination:
Thinking Outside the Box

• “Neither the life of an individual nor the

history of a society can be understood
without understanding both.”
C. Wright Mills.
• Are you aware of how your personal situation is
linked to the forces of history and the society
you live in? The sociological imagination is a
concept used by the American sociologist C.
Wright Mills to describe the ability to “think
yourself away from the familiar routines of
everyday life” and look at them from an entirely
new perspective. In order to develop such skills,
you must be able to free yourself from one
context and look at things from an alternative
point of view.
• Imagine that you were born 500 years ago, in the year
1500. You would most likely be living in a completely
different world, under totally different conditions. You
would probably be living in a small community with
strong collective bonds between the members of
society, without the opportunities of modern
technology, travelling, shopping etc. – in other words, a
situation that would be radically different from the one
you experience today.
• You could also imagine that you were a child living in
Indonesia today. There would be a great chance that
you were forced to work as a child labourer at a fish
factory. The tasks involved would include catching,
sorting and boiling fish. During the twelve-hour
workday you would have to haul gigantic nets in the
boat under very poor working conditions.
• Mills thought that sociology can show us that society – not our own
foibles and failings – is responsible for many of our problems. He
argued that one of the main tasks of sociology was to transform
personal problems into public and political issues. Mills defined
sociological imagination as “the vivid awareness of the relationship
between experience and the wider society.”
• Seemingly impersonal and remote historical forces may be linked to
incidents taking place in an individual’s life. This implies that people
may look at their own personal problems as social issues and connect
their own individual experiences with the workings of society. The
sociological imagination enables people to distinguish between
personal troubles and public issues. For example, women who live
under repression, or people who suffer from poverty, might link their
personal conditions to the social forces that are relevant to the
society they live in. Mills recommended that social scientists should
work within the field as a whole, rather than specializing heavily on
one area of social science, such as sociology, political science,
economics or psychology. This idea is often ignored in social science
Development of Sociology
 Auguste Comte (kont)

• The Founder of Sociology

• The French philosopher Auguste

Comte (1798–1857)—often called the “Father
of Sociology”—first used the term “sociology”
in 1838 to refer to the scientific study of
society.
• He advocated POSITIVISM which emphasized
that the study of society must be scientific,
and he urged sociologists to use systematic
observation, experimentation, and
comparative historical analysis as their
methods.
He divided the study of society into:

• Social statics involves those aspects of social

life that have to do with order, stability, and
social organization that allow societies and
groups to hold together and endure.

• Social dynamics refers to those processes of

social life that pattern institutional
development and have to do with social
change.
 Herbert Spencer: Social Darwinism
• He argued that people and social patterns
that were “fit” would survive and those that
were “unfit” would die out. If this principle
were allowed to operate freely, human beings
and their institutions would progressively
adapt themselves to their environment and
reach higher and higher levels of historical
development.
 Karl Marx: The Role of Class Conflict

• He believed that society is divided into those

who own the means of producing wealth and
those who do not, which gives rise to class
conflict. All history, he said, is composed of
struggles between classes.
 Emile Durkheim (dur-kem): Social
Integration and Social Facts

• Central to Durkheim’s sociology is the concept of social

integration. Social integration refers to the density of
social relationships, literally the number of
relationships that exist among a collection of people.
The more people are connected to one another, the
stronger and more meaningful are the sentiments that
emerge out of these relationships. Durkheim argued
that social integration is necessary for the maintenance
of the social order and for the happiness of individuals.
• He contended that the distinctive subject
matter of sociology should be the study of
social facts. Social facts are aspects of social
life that cannot be explained in terms of the
biological or mental characteristics of the
individual. Social facts are patterns of
behavior characteristic of a particular group
Max Weber (vayber): Subjectivity and
Social Organization
• The German sociologist Max Weber (1864–
1920) disagreed with the “objective evidence
only” position of Durkheim. He argued that
sociologists must also consider people's
interpretations of events—not just the events
themselves. Weber believed that individuals'
behaviors cannot exist apart from their
interpretations of the meaning of their own
behaviors, and that people tend to act
according to these interpretations.
• Because of the ties between objective behavior
and subjective interpretation, Weber believed
that sociologists must inquire into people's
thoughts, feelings, and perceptions regarding
their own behaviors. Weber recommended that
sociologists adopt his method of Verstehen (vûrst
e hen), of meaning “understanding” or “insight”
or empathetic understanding. Verstehen allows
sociologists to mentally put themselves into “the
other person's shoes” and thus obtain an
“interpretive understanding” of the meanings of
individuals' behaviors.
Sociological Perspectives
 The symbolic interactionist
perspective

• According to the symbolic interactionist

perspective, people attach meanings to
symbols, and then they act according to their
subjective interpretation of these symbols.
 The functionalist perspective
• Functionalist perspectives are based on the
assumption that society is stable, orderly
system. This stable system is characterized by
social consensus, whereby the majority of
members share a common set of values, beliefs,
and behavioral expectations. According to this
perspective, a society is composed of
interrelated parts, each of which serves a
function and (ideally) contributes to the overall
stability of the society. Societies develop social
structures, or institutions, that persist because
they play a part in helping society survive.
 The conflict perspective

• According to conflict perspectives, groups in

society are engaged in a continuous power
struggle for control of scarce resources. Conflict
may take the form of politics, litigation,
negotiations, or family discussions about financial
matters. Today, advocates of conflict perspective
view social life as a continuous power struggle
among the competing social groups.
CULTURE
• CULTURE is that complex whole which includes
knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, morals, customs,
and any other capabilities and habits acquired
by man as member of society (Edward Burnett
Tyler, 1871).

• CULTURE refers to the social heritage of a

people – those learned for thinking, feeling, and
acting that are transmitted from one generation
to the next in a human group or society,
including the embodiment of these patterns in
material items.
 Society and Culture

• Society refers to a group of people who live

within the same territory and share a common
culture. Very simply, culture has to do with the
customs of a people, and society has to do with
the people who are practicing the customs.
Culture provides the meanings that enable
human beings to interpret their experiences and
guide their actions, whereas society represents
the networks of social relations that arise among
a people.
 Importance of Culture
• Culture provides individuals with a set of common
understandings used to fashion behaviour. Culture allows
us to “know” in rather broad terms what we can expect of
others and what they can expect of us.

• Culture affords a kind of map or a set of guideposts for

finding our way through life. It provides a configuration of
dos and don’ts, a complex of patterned mental stop-and-go
signs that tell us about the social landscape: “Notice
this,””Ignore that’” “Avoid this action,” and “Do that”. If we
know a people’s culture – their design for living – we can
understand and predict a good deal of their behaviour.
 Types of Culture

• Material Culture
• Nonmaterial Culture
 Material Culture
• This includes physical objects or artifacts –
things that human beings create by altering
the natural environment. They are easy to
observe and are often impressive.

• Material culture, therefore, refers to the

concrete and tangible things that man creates
and uses.
 Nonmaterial Culture
• This consists of words people used, the habits
they follow, the ideas, customs, behavior, of
any society profess and to which they strive to
conform.

• The non-material aspect of culture is the

meaning and substance inherent in culture.
 Components of
Culture/Elements of Culture
 Norms

• Norms are social rules that specify

appropriate and inappropriate behaviour in
given situations. They tell us what we
“should,” “ought,” and “must” do, as well as
what we “should not,” “ought not,” and “must
not” do.
 Folkways
• Folkways are commonly known as the
customs, traditions, and conventions of
society. They are the general rules, customary
and habitual ways, and patterns of expected
behavior within the society where they are
followed, without much thought given to the
matter.
 Mores
• Mores (mor-ays) are strongly held norms with
moral and ethical connotations that may not
be violated without serious consequences in a
particular culture.
• While folkways specify socially correct and
proper behavior, mores define what is
morally right and morally wrong.
 Laws

• Laws are formalized norms, enacted by people

who are vested with government power and
enforced by political and legal authorities
designated by the government.
 Beliefs

• Beliefs - are shared ideas of people about how

the world operates; they embody people’s
perception of reality.
 Values

• Values – are collective ideas about what is

right or wrong, good or bad, and desirable or
undesirable in a particular culture (Williams,
1970).
 Language

• Language - perhaps the most crucial element

of culture as traditions and practices cannot
be passed on without language. This refers to
a shared set of spoken or written symbols and
rules combining those symbols in meaningful
ways; a set of symbols that expresses ideas
and enables people to think and communicate
with one another.
 Symbols
• Symbols - objects that can express or evoke
meaning, which are often arbitrary in nature;
is anything that meaningfully represents
something else. Many physical objects have
acquired meaning are used for symbolic rather
than instrumental purposes. The kind of
meaning though will depend on the context
within which it operates.
 Taboo

• Taboo - from the Malayo- Polynesian word

taboo, which means forbidden, taboo is a
powerful social belief that some specific act is
utterly loathsome; they are mores so strong
that their violation is considered to be
extremely offensive and even unmentionable.
Assumptions of Culture
 Culture is learned.

• It is learned by each individual as a result of his/

her experiences after birth. Definitely it is not
innate or instinctive, or acquired through the
biological phenomenon known as heredity. The
unique capacity for culture in human beings
depends on learning. The process whereby we
learn and acquire culture through social
interaction is called enculturation.
 Culture is shared.

• To some degree, culture is based on shared

practices and understanding that are to some
extent “ public” and thus beyond the mind of
any individual. These publicly shared
meanings provide designs or recipes for
surviving and contributing harmony to the
society.
 Culture is a social product.

• Culture is a group product developed by many

persons interacting in a group. It is a result of the
group’s accumulation of knowledge and
expectations.

• It is the gregariousness of man that makes him

associate with his fellow humans, and as a result,
culture is formed, the by-product of his
association.
 Culture is transmitted from
generation to generation

• Certain traditions have withstood the test of

time because they are kept alive continuous
observance of a group of people.
 Culture is varied.

• No two cultures are exactly alike

Americans eat oysters but not snails. The

French eat snails but not locusts. The Zulus eat
locusts but not fish. The Jews eat fish but not
pork. The Hindus eat pork but not beef. The
Russians eat beef but not snakes. The Chinese
eat snakes but not people. The Jale of New
Guinea find people delicious
 Culture is generally adaptive.
• Culture is adaptive only with respect to a
specific physical and social environment. What
may be adaptive in one environment may not
be adaptive to another. When we ask why a
society may have a particular custom, we are
really asking if that custom makes sense as
adaptation to that society’s particular
environmental conditions.
 Culture is integrated.
• In saying that a culture is mostly integrated,
we mean that the elements or traits that
make up that culture are not just a random
assortment of customs but are mostly
adjusted to or consistent with one another.

– That a change in one part of a system affects other

parts of the system.
 Culture is cumulative

• Through the ages, the people of any given

place are able to retain certain features of
their culture that are significant in their
relationship and interaction with their fellow
humans.
 Culture is taken for granted

• Culture is so embedded in our psyche that we

frequently take it for granted. We live out our
lives without thinking too much about how
our culture influences our thinking and
behavior. How we act and what we think are
often so automatic and habitual that we rarely
give them any thought at all.
Culture is both stable and dynamic

• It is preserved and accumulated, thus it is

highly stable and continuous. But culture is
also changing, brought about by invention,
discovery or new knowledge obtain or arrived
at.
Other Important Concepts Related
to Culture
 Cultural Universals

• Cultural Universals are patterns of behavior

that can be found in most societies. Some
practices are universal in nature, that is, they
can be found in almost every kind of society in
the world.
 Ethnocentrism

• Ethnocentrism is the practice of judging

another society by the values and standards of
one’s own society.
 Cultural Relativism

• Cultural Relativism is an approach that views

the behaviour of a people from the
perspective of their own culture.
 Xenocentrism

• Xenocentrism is a view that other cultures are

more superior to one’s own.
• CULTURAL DIVERSITY refers to the wide range of cultural
differences found between and within nations.
Cultural diversity between countries may be the result
of natural circumstances (such as climate and geography) or
social circumstances (such as level of technology and
composition of population).

• SUBCULTURE is a category of people who share

distinguishing attributes, beliefs, values, and/or norms that
set them apart in some significant manner from the
dominant culture.

• COUNTER CULTURE is a group that strongly rejects

dominant societal values and norms and seeks alternative
lifestyles (Yinger, 1960).
Cultural Change and Diversity
 Environment

• Why are the French different from Filipinos,

the Hindus different from the Chinese? One
obvious reason is the very different
environmental conditions to which they must
adapt. These different environmental conditions
determine which kinds of economies can flourish,
which kinds of clothes and foods are practical,
and, to a significant extent, the degree of scarcity
or abundance.
 Isolation

• When a culture is cut off from interaction

with other cultures, it is likely to develop
unique norms and values. Where isolation
precludes contact with others, a culture can
continue on its own course, unaltered and
uncontaminated by others.
 Cultural Diffusion

• If isolation is a major reason why cultures

remain both stable and different from each
other, then cultural diffusion is a major reason
why cultures change and become more similar
over time. Cultural diffusion is the process by
which aspects of one culture or subculture are
incorporated into another culture.
• At its broadest level, cultural diffusion becomes
the globalization of culture, in which cultural
elements (including fashion trends, musical
styles, and cultural values) are shared by
persons around the world. The globalization of
culture is likely to proceed even more rapidly in
the future due to the Internet.

• GLOBALIZATION is the process through which

ideas, resources, practices, and people
increasingly operate in a worldwide rather than
local framework.
 Technology

• The tools available to a culture will affect

its norms and values and its economic and
social relationships. The rise of automobile,
for example, allowed young dating couples to
escape the watchful eyes of concerned
parents, contributing to changes in both
courtship patterns and the roles of women
(Scharff, 1991).
 Mass Media

• The mass media are an example of popular

culture: aspects of culture that are widely
accessible and broadly shared, especially
among “ordinary” folks. (In contrast, high
culture refers to aspects of culture primarily
limited to the middle and upper classes, such
as opera, modern art, or modernist
architecture.)
Consequences of Cultural Diversity
and Change
• CULTURE LAG occurs when one part of culture
changes more rapidly than another. Most
often, culture lags occur when social practices
and values do not keep up with technological
changes.

• CULTURE SHOCK refers to the disconcerting

and unpleasant experiences that can
accompany exposure to a different culture.