Chapter 1

The Science of
Sociology
Nature and Scope of Sociology

What is Sociology?

• “No man is an island.”

• Socios = companion with others
• Logos = study of reason to describe the new
science of social life
 Sociology as Science

• The scientific study of human

interactions and the products of such
interaction.

• Human Group
Sociology and other Social
Sciences

1. Anthropology
2. Geography
3. Psychology
4. Economics
5. Political science
6. History
7. Humanities
 1. Anthropology
There are 2 main divisions:

1. Physical Anthropology
2. Cultural or Social Anthropology

2 important aspects which are also the focus of

anthropology:

1. Culture
2. Environment
 2. Geography
• Geographia = earth description

A. Physical Geography

Subdivisions:
1. Mathematical Geography
2. Geomorphology or Physiography
3. Climatology

• Other subdivisions are plant geography, soil geography, and

animal geography.
 2. Geography
B. Human Geography

Subdivisions:
1. Economic Geography
2. Urban Geography
3. Political Geography

C. Systematic Geography

D. Regional Geography
 3. Psychology
• Psychology is the study of human
behavior.

• Social Psychology
Economics
Political Science
History
Humanities
 SOCIOLOGY IN
CONTEMPORARY ITEMS
 MAJOR THEORETICAL
PERSPECTIVES USED BY
SOCIOLOGISTS
Sociological Perspective

1. Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929)

2. Jane Addams (1860-1935)
3. Robert Merton (1910)
The Functionalist Perspective

1. Talcott Parsons (1902-1979)

 The Conflict Perspective

1. W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)
The Feminist Theory
The Symbolic Interactionist
Perspective

1. George Herbert Mead (1863-1931)

2. Erving Goffman (1922-1982)
3. Carol Brooks Gardner
SOCIOLOGICAL
IMAGINATION
THE IMPORTANCE OF
SOCIOLOGY
History and Development of
Sociology
Henri Saint-Simon
Forerunners of Sociology
Auguste Comte (1798-1857)
Harriet Martineau
(1802-1876)
Herbert Spencer
(1820-1903)
Emile Durkheim
(1858-1917)
Max Weber (1864-1920)
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
Georg Simmel (1858-1918)
 The Development of
Sociology in the Philippines
> Fr. Valentin Marin(1896)
> A. E. W. Salt w/ Murray Bartlett (1911)
> Conrado Benitez (1911)
> Serafin Macaraig (1911)
> Clyde E. Heflin (1919)0
> Felipe Gamboa (1938)
> Philippine Sociological Society (1952 - 1954)
> Philippine Social Science Council (1968)
> Institute of Philippine Culture headed by Frank
SJ (1960s-1970s)
> Community Development Center (1957)
Gelia Castillo
Ugnayan Pang-Agham Tao
Digging into Culture
 Etymology of the word Culture

• An act of cultivating soil.

• The proper care and development of plants and
animals.

It is according to Webster 1950s

• From the latin word cultura, that means
cultivation or tending. Introduced into
english language in the year 1430
(Oxford)
• “training, development and refinement of
mind, tastes and manners” (Oxford)
but today…
• Artistic and intellectual pursuits and
products;
• Development or improvement of the
mind, moral, etc; and
• The ways of living built up by a
human group and transmitted to
succeeding generations.
What is culture?
Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

“a man should be just cultured

enough to be able to look with
suspicion upon culture”
“culture is everything and,
therefore, everywhere”
Mahatma Gandhi

“no culture, therefore, can live if it attempts

to be exclusive.”
 Edward B. Taylor
“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.”
Matthew Arnold (1869)
Raymond Williams (1958)
 There is the social definition of culture
in which culture is a description of a
particular way of life which expresses
certain meanings and values not only in
art and learning, but also in institutions
and ordinary behavior. The analysis of
cultures from such a definition is the
clarification of the meanings and values
implicit and explicit in a particular way
of life, a particular culture.
 Such analysis will include the historical
criticism always referred to in which
intellectual works are analyzed in relation to
particular traditions and societies, but will also
include analysis of elements in the way of life
that to followers of the other definitions are not
culture at all: the organization of production,
the structure of the family, the structures of the
institutions which express or govern social
relationships, the characteristic forms through
which member of the society communicate.
Clifford Geertz (1973)
 Elements of Culture
• Values • Folkways
• Beliefs • Mores
• Norms • Law
–Perspective • Material culture
–Prospective • Technology
• Language
 Senses of Culture

• Humanistic Senses

• Anthropological Senses
 Senses of Culture
• Humanistic Senses • Anthropological Senses
– singular and evaluative, – Plural and relativistic
– Ought to acquire – Divided into different
cultures.
 Characteristic of Culture
• Shared integrated
• Group product • Adaptive and
• Learned maladaptive
• Transmitted from • Compulsory
generation to • Cumulative
generation • Dynamic
• Patterned and • Diverse
 Development of Culture
• Tracing the development of culture is an
arduous task. Dramatic cultural advances
were made by men in history. The
processes of Innovation and Diffusion
changed and expand the culture of every
generation.
 Innovation
o Is the introduction of a new novel ideal or
object to a culture. There are two forms of
innovation namely:

Discovery – is a discloser of an aspect of

reality. And;
Invention – occurs when items originate
after studies and experimentations are
made.
 Diffusion
• Refers to the process by which a cultural item
is spread from group to group or society to
society. Diffusion may also be long-distance as
well as it occurs within the society itself.
 Culture lag
• Introduced by a sociologist, William Ogburn.
This refers to the period of maladjustment
during which the nonmaterial is still adapting
to new material conditions. He particularly
distinguished Material Culture and
Nonmaterial Culture.
Culture Traits: Process of Acquisition
(Behavior, Values, Beliefs, Ideas,
Symbols) Development of
1. Transmitted 4.Symbolic Culture
2. Learned 5. Adaptive
3. Shared 6. Integrated

Process of Reproduction
1. Some of what is taught is lost
2. New discoveries ae constantly Culture: Dynamic
made.

Process of Evaluating Systems of

Meaning
1. Process of Negotiation Culture: Relative
2. Negotiated Agreement
 Components of Culture
oFor John H. Bodley, culture involves at
least three components:

1. What people think

2. What people do
3. Material things people produce
 John H. Bodley: An Anthropological
Perspective (1994)
Topical Culture consists of everything on
a list of topics or categories, such
as social organization, religion or
economy.

Historical Culture is social heritage or

tradition that is passed on to
future generations.
Behavioral Culture is shared, learned human
behavior, a way of life.

Normative Culture is ideals, values, or rules

for living.
Functional Culture is the way human beings solve
problems of adapting to the environment or
living together.

Mental Culture is a complex use of ideas or learned

habits that inhibits impulses and distinguishes
from animals.

Structural Culture consists of patterned and interrelated

ideas, symbols or beheviors.

Symbolic Culture is based on arbitrarily assigned

meanings that are shared by a society.
 Territories of Culture

• 1. Local Culture
– is a manifestation of the way life
in particular community, sharing a
distinct identity different from
other societies or communities.
 2. National Culture – concern about the
development of a strong national identity so that
no matter how unique or different even local
cultures have, we are certain that we are
Filipinos regardless of what region we belong to.
3. Global Culture – transcends national
boundaries and nation-state collective
consciousness.
 Contemporary Culture
• 1. Postmodern Culture: Culture as
Representation
- Attacks that conception of culture as
stressing stability and viability because
in truth, culture is oppressive, divisive
and marginalizes a particular group,
favoring a point of view which is
detrimental to the other group’s
perspective.
2. Modern Culture: Culture as a
Universal Project
- Modern culture tries to promote a
more civilized political process by
enshrining the individual with
autonomy, freedom and rationality.
This brought the industrialization in
the advent of science and technology
as a result of human beings’
domination of culture.
 Culture of Peace
• Refers to the most elusive goal in social and
political life. It has a very meaningful sense
wherein one should be in harmony with nature,
God, self and others in the community. It is
also a state where there is predominance of
truth, honesty and justice.
 GLOBO-LOCALIZED
EXPERIENCE

 If we now live in a “borderless” world

characterized by multiculturism, one
interesting question is how does an
individual with national identity survive
in the face of an emerging global culture?
• HOW CULTURE WORKS?

• HOME AS CULTURAL HABITAT

 RELEVANT CULTURAL
TERMS
• A. Subculture – consist of smaller
groups within a society that differ in
actions and behaviors
 Youth comprise the most prominent
subculture. (based on age)
 Tagalog, Cebuano, Ifugao and Mangyan
(based on ethnicity)
 Iglesia ni Cristo, El Shaddai, Church of the
Latter Day Saints (based on religion)
• B. Countercultures or contra-culture
• - results from the opposition and conflict
between a larger society and a group (e.g.
Lesbians and gays)
• C. Idiocultures – culture created by every
group in a society; It is a system of
customs, behaviors, beliefs, and
knowledge cretaed through group
interactions.
• D. Culture Shock – unpleasant or disoriented
feeling one experiences when he goes to a new
environment; anxioety, stress,frustration and
dismay
• E. Ethnocentrism – when group or society
consider its culture as superior, normal, and
right above other cultures
• F. Xenocentrism – opposite of ethnocentrisim;
beliefs that ones own lifestyle, ideas or
products are inferior and what are foreign
are superior
• G. Temporocentrism – beliefs that ones own
time is more important than the past or
future; prevalent among people who
lacks historical perspective
• H. Culture Universal – practices found in
every culture
• I. Cultural Relativism - views cultural
practice as neither good or bad in itself and
that its desirability depends upon their
meaning, value or function