SOCIETAS ET CULTURA:

A CLOSE
EXAMINATION OF THE
CONCEPT OF SOCIETY
AND CULTURE
Carlos Raymund O. Dimapilis
Instructor, Humanities and Social Sciences Strand
Senior High School Department
Far Eastern University Alabang
 COVERAGE
SOCIETY CULTURE
CONCEPTUALIZATION CONCEPTUALIZATION

PERSPECTIVES COMPONENTS

CHARACTERISTICS

FUNCTIONS

ISSUES
SOCIETY
What is society?
Ano nga ba ang lipunan?
 SOCIETY
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016; SANTARITA AND MADRID, 2016;
ALEJANDRIA-GONZALES, 2016)

 Group of peoplesharing
common a identity,
territory, and language who
culture,
act together for collective
survival and well-being
 Organization that caters to a
human’s need for
belongingness in a group
THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIETY
What makes society possible?
Paano nga ba nagkakaroon ng lipunan?
 THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON SOCIETY
(CONTRERAS ET AL 2016)
STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL SYMBOLIC-INTERACTIONIST
PERSPECTIVE CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE PERSPECTIVE
(DURKHEIM/WEBER) (MARX) (COOLEY/MEAD)

Society is made possible by

cooperation and
interdependence as it views
itself as a system with parts
that have respective functions
to perform
Society was formed due to Society was formed by the set
series of conflicts that produces of symbols and meanings
new set of relations and created and interpreted by
interactions people
CULTUR
E
What is culture?
Ano nga ba ang kultura?
 CULTURE
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016; SANTARITA AND MADRID, 2016)

 Complex whole which encompasses beliefs,

practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artefacts,
symbols, attitudes, norms, knowledge and
everything that a person learns and shares as a
member of society (citing Taylor, 1920)
 An organized body of conventional understandings
manifest in art which persisting through tradition,
characterizes a human group (citing Redfield, nd)
 Everything that a person learns as a member of the
society (Gonzales, 2016)
 CULTURE AS A SYSTEM
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)
COMPONENTS OF CULTURE
What are the components of culture?
Anu-ano ang mga bumunuo sa isang kultura?
 COMPONENTS OF CULTURE
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016; SANTARITA AND MADRID, 2016)

 Tangible/Material
 All material objects
 Provides physical space
for
culture
 Non-Tangible/Immaterial
 Abstractions
 Beliefs, values, norms, traditional
skills and technologies
CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE
What are the characteristics of culture?
Anu-ano ang mga katangian ng kultura?
 CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016; SANTARITA AND MADRID, 2016)
VARIES IN EACH SOCIETY

SOCIAL CULTURE SHARED

LEARNED AND CONTINUOUS AND

CUMULATIVE
TRANSMITTED
 CULTURE IS SOCIAL
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

Product of behavior and of the

society
 Develops through social
interaction
 The experiences of other
people are impressed on a
person as he or she grows up
CULTURE VARIES FROM SOCIETY TO SOCIETY
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

 Culture of each society is

unique to itself due to
the fact that it is a
human product
 CULTURE IS SHARED
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016; SANTARITA AND MADRID, 2016)
 Various members of society
commonly activities
shareartefacts, making
and a it socially
and conventionally ideas,
standardized
 Shared culture provides order and
meaning in interpreting
behavioural patters of individuals
in a society
 Transmission is not automatic but
largely depends on the willingness
of people to give and receive it
 CULTURE IS LEARNED AND TRANSMITTED
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016; SANTARITA AND MADRID, 2016)

 Learned socially rather

than biologically
 Handed to
through generations the
socialization
process of
and/or
enculturation
 Culture is bestowed in a
cumulative fashion
CULTURE IS CONTINUOUS AND CUMULATIVE
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

 Culture exists as a continuous

process, responsive to the
changing of
physical world
conditions the
FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE
What are the functions of culture?
Bakit natin kailangan ng kultura?
 FUNCTIONS OF CULTURE
(CONTRERAS ET AL,
2016)
DEFINES MYTHS, LEGENDS,
AND SUPERNATURAL
DEFINES
DEFINES
SITUATIONS CULTURE BEHAVIORAL
PATTERNS

DEFINES ATTITUDES, VALUES

AND GOALS
CULTURE DEFINES SITUATIONS
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

 Each culture has many subtle

cues which define each
situation
 Cues which define situations
appear in infinite variety
 A person who moves from
one society to another will
spend many years misreading
the cues
CULTURE DEFINES ATTITUDES, VALUES, AND GOALS
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)
 Attitudes, values, and goals
defined by the are
individual
culture normally learns them
and as
unconsciously as he or shethelearns
the language
 By approving certain goals and
ridiculing others, the
culture channels individual
ambitions
CULTURE DEFINES MYTHS, LEGENDS, AND THE SUPERNATURAL
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

 Culture provides the individual with

a ready-made view of the universe
 The nature of the divine power and
the important moral issues are
defined by culture
CULTURE PROVIDES BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

 Culture imposes limits on

humans and their activities
 Need for order calls forth the
need for culture to establish
behavioural patterns so that
disorderly behavior
SOME ISSUES IN CULTURE
What are the major issues in culture?
Anu-ano ang mga ilang isyu ukol sa kultura?
 ETHNOCENTRISM
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2017)
 Practice of comparing other
cultural practices with those of
one’s own and automatically
finding those other cultural
practices to be inferior
 Conceived by William Graham
Sumner; universal reaction found
in all known societies
WHEN DO WE BECOME ETHNOCENTRIC?
(CONTRERAS ET AL 2016)
 When you judge the behavior and
beliefs of people who are different
from you
 When you believe that there are
primitive cultures, especially if
their way of life is different from
yours
 When you believe that some
cultures are backward if they lack
the consumerism and technology
of your cutlure
FUNCTIONS OF ETHNOCENTRISM
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

 Encourages group
solidarity
 Hinders the understanding
or cooperation between
groups
 XENOCENTRISM
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

 Preferencefor the
foreign
 Strong belief that
one’s own
styles, products,
or ideas are
inferior to those which
originated elsewhere
 XENOPHOBIA
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

 Fearof what is perceived as

foreign or strange
 Can be seen in the relations
and perceptions of an in-
group towards an out-
group
 CULTURAL RELATIVISM
(CONTRERAS ET AL, 2016)

 Idea that all norms,

beliefs and values
dependent areof
their cultural context