[ELE 2] World, Society and Culture - Prelim

Socius

groups/partners

Logus

science/study

Society

refers not to a group of people but to the complex pattern of the norms of interaction that arise from them

• It helps us gain a better understanding of ourselves and the social world that we belong to.

• It connects the personal and the historical by recasting personal problems as historical ones and historical problems as personal ones.

• It requires from us a willingness to suspend our own pre-conceptions, assumptions and beliefs about the way things are.

Micro Perspective

Focused on studying individuals; one can find differences in how individuals view the world

Meso Perspective

Focused on studying connections/networks

Degree program: influence of families, friends, neighbors, etc.

Macro Perspective

Focused on how institutions/organizations affect people

Sociological Imagination

• The vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society.

• It is the capacity to see how sociological situations play out due to how people differ in terms of their places in given social or historical circumstances.

• It relates personal troubles and public issues, connecting biography and history in order to give a complete sense of the specific anxieties and crises in our society

• A quality of mind that will help them see what is going on in the world and what may be happening within themselves

• It helps understand society as an open system where all have connections with each other

C. Wright Mills

• American sociologist

• Highly influenced by Max Weber

• Promoted the idea that social scientists should not merely be disinterested observers engaged in research and theory but assert their social responsibility

• Best known for his work –‘The sociological imagination’

Personal Trouble

refers to private problems of an individual from events in his/her own life

Public Issues

problems that affectlarge groups of people and come from the structure (patterns of behavior and relationships) of society

Culture

• Used by social scientists to encompass all the facets of human experience

• Refers to the way we understand ourselves both as individuals and as members of society

• Beliefs, ritual practices, art forms, ceremonies, as well as informal practices such as language, gossip, stories, and rituals of life

• Represents the beliefs and practices of a group, while society represents the people who share those beliefs and practices

• Different societies have different cultures

Culture Shock

Commonly experienced by travellers, expats and exchange students, “culture shock” describes the impact of moving from a familiar culture to an unfamiliar one

Culture Lag

When non-material culture does not adjust itself readily to the material changes it falls behind and the result is a lag between the two

Cultured Person

the level of an individual

Society

understanding culture as a part of a group of individuals, a community, or a society

Global Society

humanity as a whole

Material Culture

physical tools, object, resources and spaces that people use to to define their culture

Non-material Culture

non-physical ideas that people have about their culture

Aboriginal Culture

holistic, defined by its connection to family, community, and country

Public Culture

Material objects or ideas which are out there in the open may be seen on a national or a more meso-level

• Food, language, roles (boss-subordinate), etc.

• Hug Culture

Cultural Relativism

The notion that we should carefully understand cultures before making judgements, it is the opposite of ethnocentrism

Agentic Explanations

Individuals have power to determine their own fate

Structural Explanations

Individuals are highly constrained

Xenocentrism

refers to a preference for the foreign

Characterized by a strong belief that one’s own products, styles, or ideas are inferior to those which originate elsewhere

Xenophobia

the fear of what is perceived as foreign or strange

May include fear of losing identity, suspicion of the other groups’ activities, aggression, and the desire to eliminate the presence of the group’s activities

Folkways

Simple behavioral habits common to team members

Mores

Represents procedures in a company or in a group

Laws (customary and enacted laws)

A set of rules, whether formally enacted/customary

Conventions & etiquette

Conventions and social behavior standard

Custom, morality, and religion

Religion and morally shaped Western law

Gan’s uses of Poverty

A sociological understanding of society by examining the function of poverty

• Despite Gan's interest in the latent function of poverty, he does not promote poverty. As a sociologist, his only goal is to highlight poverty's latent function.

• Gans enumerated and observed consequences of poverty to other socio-economic interest groups or population aggregates

• By learning the consequences of latent functions, it may offer an understanding of why some phenomena persist in our society

Manifest

Intended functionof socia policies,processes, or actions to affect benefits

The promotion of contraceptives helps couple manage their family size

Latent

Not consciously intended but produces benefits

The promotion of contraceptives helps prevent mortalities in unassisted abortions

Dysfunction

A harmful unintended outcome

The promotion of contraceptives leads to a surge in early engagement in sexual activities among young people, at least from a conservative standpoint

The Creative Living Presence (Felipe De Leon

• Filipino culture is a celebration of the creative living presence in the universe through an intimate union with its distinct forms and energy

• It is a joyful, deeply felt openness, togetherness and harmony of one’s whole being with the divine essence of the world, the inner self, other people, and nature

• The highest aim of the culture is collective participation in the creative act and experience of the sacred

Sharing

most affirmative of the belief the creative living presences of material abundance, spirit, and creative exuberance especially during festive rituals and celebrations; Filipinos have a strong sense of oneness and actively seek a convergence of their lives

Sharing of Activity, Time, and Space

Hardly any Filipinos eat alone. Madaling hatakin ang Filipino sa lakad ng iba. Basta’t walang siyang gagawin, kahit anong yayain, sasama kaagad lalo na’t sa kaibigan

Sharing of Concern, Care and Attention, Recognition and Rewards

Saan ang punta mo? Saan ka galing? Ano ang ginagawa mo roon?

Sharing of Power and Privilege

Dichotomizes the government and the people into a powerful elite and a powerless majority will only arouse great resentment in a culture where communal participation is the norm

Sharing of Identities and Roles

There is no strict separation of performer and audience, artist and spectator, etc. Kasaling lahat, kahit na salimpusa lamang.

Sharing of Goods and Resources

Praise only large items, Pabalot, Pasalubong

Sharing of Joys and Blessings, Triumphs, and Successes

Bonus, balato, only win-win situation is acceptable

Sharing of Tasks and Responsibilities

Washing each other’s laundry items. Tulong tulong sa paghahanda; Bahala ka na riyan

Sharing of Problems

Bantay, Extra bed

Sharing of Moods and Feelings

Filipino capacity for sympathy or empathy is profound and immeasurable

Sharing of Trust and Confidence

Filipinos find it extremely difficult to keep secrets.

Sharing of Love and Affection

May pamilya at anak na nakapisan sa magulang

Sharing of Faith and Devotion

Filipinos like to pray together, especially right before performing a difficult task

Positivism

[Auguste Comte] Emphasizes the techniques of observation, comparison, and experimentation in the development of knowledge concerning the nature of society and human action (the use of the scientific method).

Auguste Comte

• Developed the first complete approach to the scientific study of society (coined the word sociology) “Father of Sociology”

• Published a book Positive Philosophy (1855)’

• Viewed that societies can be studied using methods similar to those in the Physical Sciences

Herbert Spencer

Consider society as a living organism that grows. He viewed society as an organism that evolves into another animal. Society must also take the course of evolution like the Darwinian theory

Social Evolution Theory

[Herbert Spencer] let the society take its course, Unplanned Change is better than planned change. Unplanned change would create a perfect society.

Functionalist Perspective

[Emile Durkheim] A larger system is composed of subsystems and parts that must work harmoniously according to their functions and role to attain equilibrium or balance

Conflict Theory

[Karl Marx] sees competition and social conflict as forming the basis of group or social life. It is also the source of social change.

• Marx’s model of social evolution: History as the history of class struggle resulting to social change.

• Through each period of history and societal evolution, the exploited class comes to recognize their exploitation and revolts against those in power.

Max Weber

• “Symbolic Interactionism “

• The interactionist perspective focuses on social life and human behavior from the standpoint of the individuals involved in the day to day interaction.

• It assumes that people bring into each social situation certain ideas about themselves and about others.

• People learn ideas from others through the ongoing processes of symbolic interaction.

• Through symbols, words, action and gestures – people communicate the meanings of events, situations and behavior.

Social Action

[Max Weber]  occurs when people intend to act in ways others expect. It is the behavior intended to fulfill expectations.

Sociology

is a pure social science. Pure Social Science provides verifiable facts and fundamental principles, foundations upon which the applied social sciences base their program

Social Work

 is an applied social science.

Physical Anthropology

stresses the biological sciences and focuses on the origins and the evolutionary aspects of human beings as well as their behavioral characteristics.

Cultural Anthropology

is concerned with the study of total societies

Psychology

focuses on individual behavior, examining the mind as well as the mental processes of the individual including learning, perception and motivation.

Economics

the study of the economic life of humans and is focused on the various dimensions of wealth, such as its production, distribution and consumption

Political Science

it studies the political behavior of humans and focuses on the various aspects of government, political institutions, political processes and political parties.

Ethical Neutrality

Related to objectivity

One must remain neutral in the interpretation of one’s findings, without being influenced by his value judgment or his conviction about his own group or of himself.

Accuracy

It refers to the correctness of a statement

Precision

It refers to the exactness of a quantity and the degree or measurement.

Systematic

working in accordance with a method of organization

Records

The characteristic of having the ability of storing information and data using accepted technology.

Objectivity

It means that the data must be presented, analyzed and interpreted independently of the researcher’s own beliefs and value judgments.

It is the ability of the researcher to give an account of things as they are.

Trained Observation

• Observation must be undertaken by trained observers in the field in order to make research credible.

Must Identify Controlled Conditions

A characteristic where scientific observation is conducted within situations that are manageable.

Social Science Research

is an all-embracing explanation of the social and natural world, but it is not an exact science

Objectivity

produce evidence to substantiate or refute existing knowledge, or generate new knowledge that challenge our own beliefs and those of society in general

Positivism

explain and predict people’s behavior from a neutral ground than being part of the society

Empiricism

facts speak for themselves and requires no explanation through theoretical propositions

Realism

uncover the structure of social relations in order to understand people’sbehavior and their interactions with the society

Deductive

the researcher begins with a theory and generates hypotheses and assumptions which leads to data collection then generalizations to support, validate, or challenge the theory

Inductive

the researcher collects information, creates a generalization, the generalization is then used to construct a theory that is then tested through assumptions or hypotheses testing

Structural Functionalism

Society is an organic whole composed of stable parts

Conflict Theory

Society is a set of groups competing for power and resources

Symbolic Interactionism

Society is the sum of daily interactions guided by symbols