Department of Education

Division of Bataan
JUSTICE EMILIO ANGELES GANCAYCO MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL
SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL DEPARTMENT

UNDERSTANDING CULTURE, SOCIETY AND POLITICS

Part 1: Starting Points for the Understanding of Culture, Society, and Politics
Learning Competency: Articulate observations on human cultural variation, social differences, social change, and political identities.
UCSP11/12SPU-1a-1 / Demonstrate curiosity and an openness to explore the origins and dynamics of culture and society, and political identities.
UCSP11/12SPU-1a-2
I. INDIVIDUAL AND SOCIAL DIFFERENCES
Identity
 A distinctive characteristic that defines an individual or is shared by those belonging to a particular group.
 It can be also be influenced by other factors such as sexual orientation and gender, and nationality.
 It can also change over the course of a person’s lifetime.
 Identities are important because they shape both individual and group behavior as well as people’s views
about other people and society.

Social Differences
 Refer to the dissimilarities among the individuals that is based on their social characteristics and qualities.
 Social differences in large societies are more complex than small ones.
 It results to discrimination among the individuals.

Political Identity
 Associated with a group affiliation and describes the ways in which being a member of a particular group
might express specific political opinion and attitudes.

Social Change
 May not only be regarded as a process but also as a means, an end or even as a social movement, a condition
involving a program, an ideology and a problem.

II. CULTURE , SOCIETY, AND POLITICS AFFECT PERSONAL AND GROUP IDENTITY
Culture
 Commonly defined as a society’s way of life, provides the basis for forging identities.
 Defined by the Webster’s dictionary (2007), is the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief and
behavior that depends upon man’s capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding
generations.
 It refers to the total lifestyle of a people, including all of the ideas, values, knowledge, behaviors, and material
objects that every members share, everyone then is both encouraged or mandated to conform (Sullivan,
1995).

Society
 Refers to a group of people living in a community.
 According to MacIver and Page, “it is a web of social relationship, which is always changing.”

Politics
 Refers to the use of power to determine whose values will predominate, how rewards and resources will be
allocated, and the manner in which conflicting interests in society will be resolved (Segal, 1974; Sullivan,
1995).

Learning Competency: Analyze social political, and cultural change. UCSP11/12SPU-1b-3

III. SOCIAL, CULTURAL, AND POLITICAL CHANGE
 Society as a whole is ever changing.
 People’s individual and collective identities have oftentimes transformed social order and paved the way for
lasting change.
 Rapidly-advancing technology also has profound implications for sociocultural and political change.
 The phenomenon of international migration has also changed Filipino identities and beliefs.

Learning Competency: Recognize the common concerns or intersections of anthropology, sociology, and political science with respect to the
phenomenon of change. UCSP11/12SPU-1b-4 / Identify the subjects of inquiry and goals of Anthropology, Political Science, and Sociology.
UCSP11/12SPU-1b-5
IV. ANTHROPOLOGY, SOCIOLOGY, AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
Social Science
 Comprised of a wide array of academic disciplines that study the overall functions of society as well as the
interactions among its individual members and institutions.
 It consists of the disciplined and systematic study of society and its institutions, and of how and why people
behave as they do, both as individuals and in groups within society.

Anthropology
Lecture Handouts Prepared By Mr. John Albert R. Dela Rosa – SHS Teacher II - Social Science Page 1
  The systematic study of biological, cultural, and social aspects of man.
 Derived from two Greek words, Anthropos, which means “man,” and Logos, which means “study” or “inquiry.”
 It integrates elements from the biological sciences and humanities to fully comprehend the complex human
Edward Burnett
species, including their past practices and social patterns, across diverse cultures.
Taylor Four Fathers of Anthropology

Marcel Mauss Franz Boas AR Radcliffe- Bronislaw

Brown Malinowski

Sociology
 “The study of human social life, groups, and society” – Anthony Giddens.
 Systematic study of human social interaction.
 An academic discipline that attempts to provide a deeper assessment of individual and group behavior, as well as
social phenomena, by examining the interplay between economic, political and social factors.
 It seeks to explain the bases of social order and social change.

Founders of Sociology

Lecture Handouts Prepared By Mr. John Albert R. Dela Rosa – SHS Teacher II - Social Science Page 2
Emile Auguste Comte
Durkheim Herbert Spencer Karl Marx Emile Durkheim Max Weber
Herbert
Karl
Auguste Marx
Spencer
Comte

Political Science
 The systematic study of politics.
 “The activity through which people make, preserve, and amend the general rules under which they live.” –
Andrew Heywood.
 Focuses on the fundamental values of equality, freedom, and justice and its processes are linked to the dynamics
of conflict, resolution, and cooperation.
 Political scientists help us understand the nature and characteristics of authority and power distribution and how
it shapes the way society is organized.

Influential Political Scientists

NiccoloBaron de
Aristotle
Niccolo
Jean-Jacques Niccolo Jean-Jacques Thomas
Baron de Hobbes
Aristotle Aristotle Jean Bodin
Montesquieu
Machiavelli
Rousseau
Machivelli Machiavelli Rousseau Montesquieu

*** END OF CHAPTER I ***

Lecture Handouts Prepared By Mr. John Albert R. Dela Rosa – SHS Teacher II - Social Science Page 3