ACLC COLLEGE TACLOBAN

Tacloban City
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY & POLITICS

Lesson 1: Understanding Society

Society
Is defined as a group of people living together in organized communities,
following common laws, values, customs, and traditions.
Societal Features
1. Territory
All societies occupy a definite area or space on the planet.
2. Size
A society is relatively large in terms of the number of members, a trait
common in most societies today.
3. Common culture
Way of living otherwise they would not be able to coherently relate and
interact with one another.
4. Sense of belongingness
Members of society must identify with it and feel that they belong there.
5. Common historical experience
The feeling that everyone in the particular society has a common destiny.
6. Common language
The existence of a major one that everyone understands and uses as part of
its national patrimony and heritage.
7. Autonomy
Expressed in a society’s capacity to sustain its existence vis-à-vis other
societies through social institutions that organize, manage and regulate it
from within.
Social Institutions
Defined as an organized system of social relationships that represent a society’s
common values and procedures.

There are six generally recognized institutions in every society.

1. Family
Considered as the bedrock or foundation of the society.
2. Education
The formal institution designated to preserve and transfer cultural knowledge
and identity to the members of a society.
3. Economy
The social institution generally responsible for the production and the
allocation of scarce resources and services.
4. Government
A social institution which states policy and law is enforced.
5. Media
A social institution responsible for the circulation of vital information among
the members of a society.
6. Religion
An organized collection of beliefs intended to explain the meaning, origin, and
purpose of life and existence.

The Study of Society

1. Structural Functionalism Theory
Sees society as a structure with interrelated parts designed to meet the
biological and social needs of the individuals in that society.
2. Conflict Theory
Is a theory that society is in a state of perpetual conflict because
of competition for limited resources.
3. Symbolic Interactionism
Focus on social interaction; everyday events in which people communicate,
interpret, and respond to each other’s words and actions.

Lesson 2: Understanding Culture

Culture
is a complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, custom
and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
- Edward Burnett Tylor, 1871
Aspects of Culture
1. Culture is dynamic, flexible, and adaptive.
2. Culture is shared and contested.
3. Culture is learned and transmitted through socialization or
enculturation.
4. Culture is a set of patterned social interactions.
5. Culture is integrated and at times unstable.
6. Culture requires language and other forms of communication.
Types of Culture
1. Material Culture
 Human’s material or physical inventions and innovations such as tools,
weapons, instruments, artifacts, dwellings, food, and artistic expressions and
the likes are all part of material culture.
2. Nonmaterial Culture
Refers to the intangible ideas that form within a society, including beliefs,
perceptions, religion, myths, legends, language, and traditions.

Variations of Culture
1. High Culture and Low/Pop Culture
A. High Culture
It is a collection of ideologies, beliefs, thoughts, trends, practices and
works-- intellectual or creative-- that is intended for refined, cultured and
educated elite people.
B. Low/Pop Culture
Popular culture or sometimes called low culture is the patterns of behavior
followed by the common people. In other words, it’s the culture of the
masses. Popular culture is something that is always, most importantly,
related to everyday average people and their experiences of the world; it is
urban, changing and consumeristic in nature.
2. Subculture and Counterculture
A. Subculture
Includes people who may accept much of the dominant culture but are set
apart from it by one or more culturally significant characteristics.
B. Counterculture
Are groups of people who differ in certain ways from the dominant culture
and whose norms and values may be incompatible with it.
3. Ideal Culture and Real Culture
A. Ideal Culture
The ways in which people describe their way of life. It is the standards
society would like to embrace and live up to.
B. Real Culture
Refers to the actual behavior of people in the society. It is the way society
actually is, based on what occurs and exists.
Components/Elements of Culture
1. Symbol
Something to which people attach meaning and then use to communicate
with one another.
A. Gestures
The ways in which people use their bodies to communicate with one
another.
B. Language
 A system of symbols that can be combined in an infinite number of ways
and can represent not only objects but also abstract thoughts.
2. Ideas
A thought or a collection of thoughts that generate in mind.
A. Values
the standards by which people define what is desirable or undesirable,
good or bad, beautiful or ugly.
B. Beliefs
represent man’s convictions about the reality of things.
3. Norms
A set of norms is a society’s standards of acceptable behavior.
A. Folkways
Are the accumulated and repetitive patterns of expected behavior which
tend to be self-perpetuating.
B. Mores
Are social norms which are strongly morally sanctioned.
C. Taboo
Refers to a norm so strongly ingrained that even the thought of its
violation is greeted with revulsion.
D. Laws
Are formalized social norms enacted by the people who are vested with
political powers.

Orientations in Viewing Other Cultures/The Cross-cultural Perspective

1. Ethnocentrism
Pertains to the belief that one’s native culture is superior to or the most
natural among other cultures. An ethnocentric person sees and weighs
another culture based upon the values and standards of his/her own.
2. Xenocentrism
The belief that one’s culture is inferior to another. A xenocentric person
usually has a high regard for other cultures but disdains his/her own or
embarrassed by it.
3. Cultural Relativism
The practice of viewing another culture by its own context rather than
assessing it based on the standards of one’s own culture to avoid personal
biases and assumptions in studying culture.
Lesson 3 : Humanization
Cultural Evolution/Humanization
it refers to the changes or development in cultures from a simple form to a more
complex form of human culture. A result of human adaptation to the different
factors like changes in climates or in their environment and population increase.
Man’s Cultural Evolution
1. Paleolithic Age
In the Paleolithic period (roughly 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 B.C.),
early humans lived in caves or simple huts or tepees and were hunters
and gatherers. They used basic stone and bone tools, as well as crude
stone axes, for hunting birds and wild animals. They cooked their prey,
including woolly mammoths, deer and bison, using controlled fire. They
also fished and collected berries, fruit and nuts.
Ancient humans in the Paleolithic period were also the f irst to leave
behind art. They used combinations of minerals, ochres, burnt bone meal
and charcoal mixed into water, blood, animal fats and tree saps to etch
humans, animals and signs. They also carved small figurines from stones,
clay, bones and antlers.
The end of this period marked the end of the last Ice Age, which
resulted in the extinction of many large mammals and rising sea levels
and climate change that eventually caused man to migrate.

2. Neolithic Age
The Neolithic period (roughly 8,000 B.C. to 3,000 B.C.), ancient
humans switched from hunter/gatherer mode to agriculture and food
production. They domesticated animals and cultivated cereal grains. They
used polished hand axes, adzes for ploughing and tilling the land and
started to settle in the plains. Advancements were made not only in tools
but also in farming, home construction and art, including pottery, sewing
and weaving.

3. Copper Age
The 1,000-year-long Copper Age is also known as the Chalcolithic Period. It
lasted from about 4500 B.C. to 3500 B.C., overlapping with the early Bronze Age.
Some cultures and individuals used Copper Age technology after the Copper Age
was over. The word Chalcolithic is derived from the Greek words “chalco” (copper)
and “lithos”(stone). The oldest copper ornament dates back to around 8700 B.C.
and it was found in present-day northern Iraq. There is evidence for copper
smelting and recovery through processing of malachite and azurite in different
parts of the world dating back to 5000 B.C.. Copper pipes used to carry water,
dating back to around 2700 B.C., were found in one of the Egyptian pyramids.
The Latin name for copper is Cuprum (Cu). It is believed that it has originated
from the island of Cyprus where the Romans used to mine copper from its rich
copper mines.
Copper was being fashioned into implements and gold was being fashioned
into ornaments about 6,000 years ago, 3,000 years before the Greeks and Roman
empires. Copper was the first metal to be worked by man on a relatively large
scale in part because it is found in "large pure ingots in a natural state" in many
different locations around the world. Axes, points and armor could be fashioned
by simply hammering the metal; melting it wasn't necessary.

4. Bronze Age
During the Bronze Age (about 3,000 B.C. to 1,300 B.C.), metalworking
advances were made, as bronze, a copper and tin alloy, was discovered.
Now used for weapons and tools, the harder metal replaced its stone
predecessors, and helped spark innovations including th e ox-drawn plow
and the wheel.
This time period also brought advances in architecture and art,
including the invention of the potter’s wheel, and textiles —clothing
consisted of mostly wool items such as skirts, kilts, tunics and cloaks.
Home dwellings morphed to so-called roundhouses, consisting of a
circular stone wall with a thatched or turf roof, complete with a fireplace
or hearth, and more villages and cities began to form.
Organized government, law and warfare, as well as beginnings of
religion, also came into play during the Bronze Age, perhaps most notably
relating to the ancient Egyptians who built the pyramids during this
time. The earliest written accounts, including Egyptian hieroglyphs and
petroglyphs (rock engravings), are also dated to this era.

5. Iron Age
The discovery of ways to heat and forge iron kicked off the Iron
Age (roughly 1,300 B.C. to 900 B.C.). At the time, the metal was seen as
more precious than gold, and wrought iron (which would be replaced by
steel with the advent of smelting iron) was easier to manufacture than
bronze.
 Along with mass production of steel tools and weapons, the age saw
even further advances in architecture, with four-room homes, some
complete with stables for animals, joining more rudimentary hill forts, as
well as royal palaces, temples and other religious structures. Early city
planning also took place, with blocks of homes being erected along paved
or cobblestone streets and water systems put into place.
Agriculture, art and religion all became more sophisticated, and
writing systems and written documentation, including alphabets, began
to emerge, ushering in the Early Historical Period.