UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY

AND POLITICS

Prepared by: Ms. Cherrylyn T. MAGANO, LPT.

REVIEW!

1. What are the seven other social sciences?

2. What are the 3 specific scientific disciplines?

 JUMBLED LETTERS

ROMES SHREAD

BOOTAS ACIDMYN
 LESSON 2: Social, Political, and
Cultural behavior and Phenomena
Every society has its own norms to follow. These norms serve as guides
or models of behavior which tell us what is proper or improper,
appropriate or inappropriate, right or wrong. They set limits within
which individuals may seek alternative ways to achieve their goals.
Culture

 A culture is a way of life of a group of people – the behaviors, beliefs,

values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking
about them, and that are passed along by communication and
imitation from one generation to the next.
Culture

 Includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals custom, and other

capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
Society
 The people who interact in such a way as to
share a common culture.

 The term society can also have a geographic

meaning refer to people who share a common
culture in particular location.
 Culture and Society are intricately related. A culture consists of the
“objects” of a society, whereas a society consists of the “people” who
share a common culture.
 When the term culture and society first acquired their current
meanings, most people in the world worked and lived in small group in
the same locale.
Elements of Culture
a. Material
b. Non- Material
Material Culture
Culture is easily divided into material or non material concepts.
Material culture includes:
• Weapons
• Machines
• Jewelry
• Art
• Hair styles
• Clothing
Non- Material Culture
Refers to abstract human creations. Included in this category are:
• Languge
• Gestures
• Values
• Beliefs
• Rules(norms)
• Philosophies
• Customs
• Governments
• Institutions
Types of Non-Material
Cultures
Belief

 Perception of reality
 Are the convictions that people hold to be true. Individuals in a
society have specific beliefs, but they also shared collective values.
Values

- Shared ideas, right or wrong

- Are a culture’s standard for discerning what is good and just in
society. Values are deeply embedded and critical for transmitting and
teaching a culture’s beliefs.
 Norms
Are rules that govern our lives and values are the goal of our
lives . It is the expectations, or rules of behaviour that
develop out of values. They are guidelines for our behaviour.

Norms may be informal or they may formalized into laws.

Are often in the form of rules, standards, or prescription that

are strictly followed by people who adhere on certain
conventions and perform specific roles. Often norms indicate
s society’s standards of property, morality, ethics and legality.

Example: Pagmamano
Types of Norms
Folkways
 Are norms that ordinary people follows in everyday life.

 Conformity is expected, but not absolutely insisted on.

 Folkways are not strictly enforced.

 Are norms that are little strength and may, within broad limits, be easily broken. Some examples
are manners of eating and dressing, food preferences, use of po and opo, among others.

Example:
1. Correct manners
2. Appropriate dress
3. Proper eating behavior
Examples of Folkways
1. Pagmamano when meeting an elder.

2. Harana- serenading of the woman when a man is courting.

3. The use of “po” and “ opo” when a person is talking to an elder or
older person, a person of superior or of higher status.

4. Another is the “pamamanhikan” wherein the man’s family bring

some food to the woman’s family for a conference to affirm their
children’s engagement.
Mores
 Are norms taken more seriously and are strictly enforced.

 Considered as “Essential to our core values.” We insist on conformity.

 Are norms that are strongly held, considered essential , and therefore must be
strictly enforced. Some mores are enacted by the state and are referred to as
laws/ for example, rules against cheating in exams and having extramarital affairs
are mores.

Example: Flag burning, murder

Examples of Social Mores:

 Talking to oneself in public is not considered a normal behaviour.

 Nudity in public is not acceptable in most areas.

 Picking one’s nose in public is not an acceptable behaviour.

 Rising for the national anthem is an expected behaviour.

 When dressing for a job interview in an office, men should wear and a suit
and tie.
 Taboos
 Are norms that are deeply held that even thought of violating them upsets
people. For example, incest taboo is universal.

 It is the prohibition of an action based on the belief that such behaviour is

either too sacred and consecrated or too dangerous and accursed for
ordinary individuals to undertake.
 Approximate super mores. Taboos are so “strongly ingrained that even the
thought of its violation is greeted with disapproval, disgust or hate”.
Example of Taboos:
 Abortion- terminating a pregnancy
 Addiction- addiction to legal or illegal drugs, including
alcoholism
 Adultery- sexual intercourse with someone other than your
spouse.
 Bestiality or Zoophobia – sexual relations between a human
and an animal.
 Cannibalism – a human being eating the flesh of another
human being.
Law

 Legal cultures are described as being temporary outcomes of

interactions and occur pursuant to a challenge and response
paradigm. Analyses of core legal paradigms shape the characteristics
of individual and distinctive legal cultures.
Ideal vs. Real Culture
Characteristics
Ideal Culture refers to the norms and values that a society professes to
hold. Ideal culture describes models to emulate and which as worth
aspiring to.

Real culture refers to norms and values that are followed in practice.
Characteristics of
Culture
 CULTURE IS LEARNED
 Is learned through families, friends and institutions and media.

 Culture is learned, most of the behavior is learned in society. This learning

might be conscious or unconscious but no body can deny the process of
learning. Culture is something learned and acquired.

Enculturation- Process of learning about culture.

Example: wearing of clothes or dancing.

 It is not something natural to the person.
CULTURE IS SHARED
 Groups of people usually share similar behaviour patterns which develop
overtime.
 but shared cultured does not mean that it is homogenous.
 People living together in a society share culture.
For example, almost all people living in the Philippines share the Filipino language,
dress in similar styles, eat many of the same foods, and celebrate many of the same
holidays.
 CULTURE IS INTEGRATED
 Culture integration is a form of cultural exchange in which one group
assumes the beliefs, practices and result of another group without
sacrificing the characteristic of its own culture.
 Integrating cultures usually refer to several cultures coming together to
form a new, multicultural society and each culture keeps its character,
features and values

Example
Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao
 CULTURE IS ADAPTIVE AND
DYNAMIC
 Adopts to various environmental and geographical conditions.

 Culture are dynamic systems that responds to motions and actions

within around them.
 A culture must be flexible enough to allow such adjustments in the face
of unstable or changing circumstances.
 From hunter- gatherer to globalized world.
CULTURE IS ABSTRACT
 No single tangible manifestation that can take the form of culture
itself.

 Exist in the minds of the individual interacting with one another with
a particular society or even across societies.

 Manifest through behaviour, habits, mannerisms and activities.

CULTURE IS SYMBOLIC
 Societies developed a way to manifest concepts and ideas, and a
symbolic stands for different meaning for different societies.

Example: White for western countries is a symbol of purity and peace.

White for Eastern and Asian culture is death, mourning and misfortune.
Different Perspective of
Culture
Ethnocentrism
 Comes from the Greeks and it refers to a people, nation, or cultural
grouping.
 Centric is a Latin word meaning “center”.
 It is to judge other cultures as inferior.
 It has the tendency to use one’s own culture as a standard against
which to judge other people’s cultures. Although it brings together
people and builds solidarity within a particular society, it can justify
prejudice and discrimination.
Cultural relativism
 The belief that people and their ways of doing things can be understood
only in terms of the cultural context of those people. It is not saying
that all cultures are good, or that any way of doing is acceptable.
 It means being objective enough to understand people’s behaviors in
terms of their cultures in social situation.
 Idea that all norms, belief, and values are dependent on their cultural
context and should be treated as such.
 Promotes greater appreciation of the cultures one encountered along
the way.
Cultural relativism
 Social Scientist strives to treat cultural differences as neither inferior
or superior.

 Cultural Diversity/ No universal standard for judging it.

Xenocentrism
 Refers to a reference for the foreign.
 A culturally-based tendency to value other cultures more highly than
one’s own, which Is the opposite of ethnocentrism.
 Xenocentric people are more appreciative of other societies culture.
Hence, social solidarity among the people is difficult to establish.

“Filipino seems happy to buy imported goods rather than local products
because of the assumption that anything abroad is better”
Xenophobia

 The fear of what is perceived as foreign or strange. Relations and

perceptions of an in- group toward an out-group.
Temporocentrism
 One’s time culture is important than other time culture.

Ex. Old People