THE DYNAMICS OF

CULTURE
DEFINING CULTURE AND SOCIETY FROM THE
PERSPECTIVES OF ANTHROPOLOGY AND
SOCIOLOGY
1. Society as a group of people sharing a
common culture
2. Culture as a “that complex whole which
encompasses beliefs, practices, values,
attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, symbols,
knowledge, and everything that a person
learns and shares as a member of society.”
(E.B. Tylor 1920 [1871]
 Cultureis a society’s (or group’s) system of shared,
learned values and norms; as a whole, these values
and norms are the society’s (or group’s) design for
living
 Values:abstract ideas about the good, the right, the
desirable
 Norms: social rules and guidelines; determine
appropriate behavior in specific situations
 Folkways: norms of little moral significance
 dress code; table manners; timeliness

 Mores: norms central to functioning of social life

 bring serious retribution: thievery, adultery, alcohol
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE

Material Culture – reflects

society’s values and a society’s
technology, the knowledge Non Material Culture - reflects
that people apply to the task beliefs, values, concepts, customs
of living in their surroundings.

physical Philo-
books building
objects Beliefs Ethics Religion Customs sophies
 ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
 BELIEF SYSTEMS
 Objective reality can be assumed as represented within a person
as a certain beliefs or expectations which to one degree or
another are accepted as TRUE and to the other is FALSE, that is
also known as SOCIAL SCHEMAS.
 Norms, social rules and guidelines; determine appropriate
behavior in specific situations
 Folkways: norms of little moral significance
 dress code; table manners; timeliness
 Mores: norms central to functioning of social life
 bring serious retribution: thievery, adultery, alcohol
 Violations to such mores are met with stiff penalty and punishment.
 ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
 CULTURAL VALUES
 Values are not directly observable – conceptions of
the desirable, used in moral discourse, with particular
relevance to behavior.
 Value System or Value Orientation, abstract ideas
about the good, the right, the desirable
 Majority
of people through acculturation, share the
same moral universe in a particular society.
 Heavilyinfluenced by religion and tradition in
developing societies.
Example: Filipino value system for the FAMILY.
 ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
 ATTITUDES
 Responses that locate objects of thoughts on dimensions
of judgement.
 Attitudesare basically informed by value orientations of
the individual.
Example: Regionalistic trait of the Filipinos.
CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE
 CULTURE is LEARNED
 Culture is expressed in language and symbols.
 Language is defined as any transfer of meaning, but general usage refers only
to spoken and written messages.
 It is essential to be attuned to unspoken and unwritten language.
 Language structures reality
 Form and variability determine how members of the culture will view reality
and structure their thoughts.

 Enculturation and Socialization

 CULTURE is SHARED
 CULTURE is DYNAMIC and CHANGING
 Franz Boas, plurality of historically conditioned cultures as referred
in cultural pluralism.
HOW DOES CULTURE CHANGE
 Humans evolve and adapt primarily through culture rather than changes in
anatomy or genetics.
 Culture survives if it can accommodate to changing conditions.
 Cultures evolve from the interaction of person with others, and a person’s
belief or behavior becomes part of the culture when it is externalized and
objectified.
 According to Erikson, cultures change through the action of persons whose
ideas and behavior “fit” the culture.
 Change can also occur as a result of cataclysm, either physical as in famine,
war, epidemic, or disaster.
 It can also change as a result of a “paradigm shift” in fundamental
understandings by those in the culture.
UNIQUE ASPECTS OF THE HUMAN
SPECIES
 The capacity to think.
 Sets humans apart from most other forms of life.
 Humans have the capacity to externalize the thought
process.
 Tools

 Human reproduction
 Cloning