DEFINING CULTURE, SOCIETY AND POLITICS
Culture, society and politics interplay in our
modern world. These elements are essential in
understanding human behavior and social groups.
Students as individuals and integral members of society are
expected to value their roles in society, apply the
knowledge they learned from school and translate their
gained ideas into actions beneficial to nation-building.
CULTURE
Generally defined as the sum of an individual’s way of
life. It includes:
 The food he/she eats
 The clothes he/she wears
 The language he/she practices
 Material and non-material things
SOCIETY
 An organized group or groups of interdependent
people who share a common territory, language
and culture, who act together for collective
survival and well-being.
 In reality, there can be no culture without a
society and so far there are no known human
societies that do not exhibit culture.
POLITICS
 It refers to the “theory, art, and practice of
government”.
 The government is a concrete example of a
political institution. It exercises power especially
in relation to governance and decision-making.
 Power is defined in democratic principles, as a
status granted to individuals and institutions to
properly run the government and implement the
rule of law in society.
Culture, society and politics are essential in
understanding human behavior and social groups. They are
interrelated and to some extent reflective of each other.
SOCIAL LABELS
The interrelatedness of the concepts culture, society
and politics can best be understood by understanding the
social labels given by society to every individual. It
includes:
 Gender
 Socioeconomic status
 Ethnicity
 Religion
 Exceptionality
 Nationality
GENDER
 It is the most limiting social label. It is the
socially-constructed characteristics of being male
or female. In short, it is society’s division of
humanity into two distinctive categories based on
sex.
 Although gender operates as a dimension of
inequality, it is how society confers power on
each sexes that leads to the development of sense
of empowerment and sensitivity.
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
 It refers to the category of persons who have
more or less the same socioeconomic privileges
in society.
 In the Philippines, three types of social classes
are identified: upper, middle and the lower
classes (the other categorization is classes
A,B,C,D,E)
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
 Upper class consists of elite families
o The new rich (nouveau riche) –
families with humble beginnings
and often experienced rags-to-
riches fortunes
o Traditional rich – made up of
descendants of powerful elite
families who acquired wealth
through inheritance
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
 The middle class is composed of small business
and industry operators mostly owners and
managers, professionals with income sufficient
enough to provide a comfortable and decent
living.
 Overseas Filipino workers, who contribute
greatly to the remittance economy are also
included in this category.
SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
 Farm employees, skilled and unskilled artisans,
service workers, and people who may be
unemployed or underemployed who belong to
indigent families fall on the lower class.
 Subsistence lifestyle of the lower class includes:
o Could hardly eat three times a day
o Daily income of the breadwinner could
hardly feed the entire family
o Breadwinner does not have a permanent job
ETHNICITY
 It is the expression of the set of cultural ideas
held by a distinct ethnic or indigenous group.
 An ethnic group refers to people who collectively
and publicly identify themselves as distinct and
unique based on distinguishable cultural features.
 Indigenous group are people having a set of
specific rights based om their historical ties to a
particular territory and their cultural or historical
distinctiveness from other populations.
RELIGION
 It is an organized system of ideas about the
spiritual sphere or supernatural, along with
associated ceremonial and ritualistic practices by
which people try to interpret and influence
aspects of the universe otherwise beyond human
control.
EXCEPTIONALITY
 It refers to the state of being intellectually gifted
and/or having physically or mentally challenged
conditions concerning personality/behavior,
communication (learning disability, speech
impairment, hearing problems), intellect
(developmental problems), physical appearance
(blind-low vision.
NATIONALITY
 It is the legal relationship that binds a person and
a country.