UNDERSTANDING

CULTURE, SOCIETY,
AND POLITICS
PREPARED BY:
Patrick Jude T. Basco

MODULE 2 AND 3
RECAP
• NATIONALITY AND ETHNICITY
• GENDER
• SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS
• POLITICAL IDENTITY
• RELIGION
• EXCEPTIONALITY AND NON-
EXCEPTIONALITY
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS
OBJECTIVE:
At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:

• Analyze the concept, aspects and changes in/of culture

and society
• Explain the importance of cultural relativism in
attaining cultural understanding
• Analyze the significance of cultural, social, political and
economic symbols and practices

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

Analyze this!

Question
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS
 Theory of Evolution
Charles Darwin

Do you agree?
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS
 HUMAN EVOLUTION
AND CULTURE

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Culture
• Culture is the shared product of a human group or society.
The term culture was first used by the pioneer English
anthropologist Edward B. Taylor in his book Primitive
Culture, published in 1871.

• Defined as “that complex whole which encompasses

beliefs, practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts,
symbols, knowledge, and everything that a person learns
and shares as member of a society” (Tylor, 2010)

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Culture How culture started?

• Our thinking capacity

• The primary biological component of humans that allowed for culture is the
developed brain. It has the necessary parts for facilitating pertinent skills such as
speaking, touching, feeling, seeing, and smelling.

2. Our speaking capacity

• As the brain is the primary source of human’s capacity to comprehend sound and
provide meaning of it, the vocal tract acts as the mechanism by which sounds are
produced and reproduced to transmit ideas and values.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Culture How culture started?

3. Our gripping capacity

• This capacity to directly oppose your thumb with your other fingers is an exclusive
trait of humans. It allowed us to have a finer grip. Thus, we have the capability to
craft materials with precision.

4. Our walking/standing capacity

• Bipedalism is the capacity to walk and stand on two feet, whereas quadropedalism
uses all four limbs. Although apes are semi-bipedal, humans are the only fully bipedal
bipedal primates. Being bipedal, humans gained more capacity to move while
carrying objects with their free hands.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

Let's compare
HUMAN PRIMATES

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 ANTHROPOLOGY AND
THE STUDY OF
CULTURE

MODULE 3
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS
 Anthropology
• It is derived from two Greek words anthropos (human) and
logos(study), which intensively studies humans and the
respective cultures where they were born and actively
belong to.

• It is considered the father or even grandfather of all social

and behavioral sciences like sociology, economics, and
psychology

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Anthropology
“The study of people –their origins, their development, and
contemporary variations, wherever and whenever they have
been found on the face of the earth”.

• Franz Boas- the father of American Anthropology

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 5 Subdisciplines of Anthropology
1. Physical anthropology- anthropologists focus on human as
biological organisms, especially human evolution.
Anthropologists on this field analyze human fossils and observe
living primates and focus on how we have become what we are
today.

2. Linguistics anthropology- is the scientific study of written and

unwritten human language. They are concerned with what
languages have in common and the changes that took place over
time in order to understand people’s culture.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 5 Subdisciplines of Anthropology
3. Cultural anthropology- this area of study focuses on the origins and
history of human societies and culture such as the evolution of culture
of different societies. They explain the similarities and differences and
how these changes occur among the people.

4. Applied anthropology- attempts to solve contemporary problems

through the application of theories and approaches of the discipline.

5. Archaeology- it is the collection and preservation of artifacts of past

and present cultures.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Culture is everything that a person learns as
a member of a society.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Concept of Culture
• Culture is everything- It is what a person has, does, and thinks as part
of society. This implies all of a person’s belief system, set of
behaviors, and material possessions.

• MATERIAL CULTURE- Includes all the tangible and visible

parts of culture, which include clothes, food, and even
buildings.

• NONMATERIAL CULTURE- Includes all the intangible parts

of culture, which consist of values, ideas, and knowledge.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Concept of Culture
• Culture is learned- Culture is a set of beliefs, attitudes, and practices
that an individual learns through his or her family, school, church and
other social institutions.
Process of Learning in Culture
• Enculturation- The process of learning your own culture. As you
interact with your immediate family peers, you learn the values
and accepted behaviors in your society.

• Acculturation- The constant interaction between societies, culture

can be modified to accommodate desirable traits from other
cultures.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

Process of Learning in Culture
• Deculturation- When the culture of the older generation comes
into conflict with the needs and realities of the younger
generation, where the reason for the culture has been lost and
even the cultural trait itself is in the process of being forgotten.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Concept of Culture
• Culture is shared- The set of behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs that a person
possesses is part of a greater collection of values and ideas that is communally
owed and practiced by members of a society.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Concept of Culture
• Culture affects biology- Humans are born into cultures that have values on
beauty and body. As such, they alter bodies to fit into the physiological norms
that are dictated by culture.

Foot Binding or Mursi tribe of Ethiopia in

Lotus Feet of China Africa, wearing lip plates is a
UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS sign of beauty.
 Concept of Culture
• Culture is adaptive- Culture is a tool for survival that humans use in response
to the pressures of their environment. Both material and nonmaterial parts of
culture are influenced by the goal of humans to address their needs as dictated
by their environment and their biology.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Concept of Culture
• Culture is maladaptive- Culture can also cause problems
for the people who subscribe to it. These problems arise
when the environment has changed and culture has
remained the same.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

 Concept of Culture
• Culture changes- The final concept of culture is that it is never static.
This dynamism of culture is due the changing needs of humans as they
interpret and survive in their environment. As such, culture is
continuously reinvented by people. From the clothes that we wear to the
food that we eat, culture can be seen as ever changing.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

Elements of Culture
• Cultural universal- arise because every
human society lives within human and
environmental limits. Gender roles, the
• Cultural integration- occurs when
incest taboo, religious and healing ritual, cultural traits are
mythology, marriage, language, art,
dance, music, cooking, games, jokes, • Cultural diffusion- the process by
sports, birth and death which cultural traits are transmitted
• Subculture- is an ethnic, regional,
from one group or society to another.
economic, or social group exhibiting
characteristics patterns of behavior
sufficient to distinguish it from others
within an embracing culture or society.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

Ethnocentrism Cultural Relativism
• means to apply one's own culture or • It is the idea that a person's beliefs
ethnicity as a frame of reference to and practices should be understood
judge other cultures, practices, based on that person's own culture.
behaviors, beliefs, and people, Proponents of cultural relativism
instead of using the standards of the also tend to argue that the norms and
particular culture involved. values of one culture should not be
evaluated using the norms and
values of another.

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS

Ethnocentrism Cultural Relativism

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY, AND POLITICS