UCSP Reviewer
social change, and history of the world.
Nature, Goals, and Perspective of Anthropology, Sociology,
and Political Science
• Anthropology - includes matters about human ancestry,
economic process, social change, and history of the world.
• Sociology - is a systematic study of groups and societies that
people build and how these affect their behavior.
• Political Science - is a study of the complex behavior of
various political actors such as the government,
administration, opposition, and subject.
• Produce new knowledge and new theories about human
kind and human behavior - through this goal you can
demonstrate an ability to respect the culture of others
without abandoning their own points of view.
• The study of politics has something to do with power.
• Sociology - enable us to appreciate that all things and
interdependent with each other.
• To understand human cultures in different ways - Discover
what all people have in common (folklores, traditions,
language, etc.)
• Anthropology - is a comparative study of cultural and social
life.
• Political Science - give and take relationship with the
government and the people.
• Sociology - focuses on various social connections,
institutions, organizations, structures, and processes
1. Anthropology
Banks, William E. (2020) - the study of humans, their close relatives,
and their cultural environment.
➢ includes matters about human ancestry, economic process,
➢ about how various people can be, and it tries to go through
in what sense that all humans have similarities.
➢ study of human race including our pre-historic origin and
contemporary human diversity.
Strauss (1983) - anthropology tries to grasp its object through its
most diverse manifestations’.
Czarina Saloma, et. al. - Anthropology came from the Greek word-
anthropos which means ‘human’ and logos means ‘reason’- it means
‘reason about humans’ or ‘knowledge about humans’.
2. Sociology
Steven Loyal (2003) - the study of human social life, groups, and
society.
➢ seeks to give a deeper assessment of individual and group
behavior, including social events.
➢ gathers social inputs which composed of frequent forms and
manners such as viewpoints, consolidated values, and norms
of social institutions which form part of social array.
3. Political Science
Department of Social Sciences and Philosophy - a classical discipline
that deals with the study of political phenomena.
➢ Goal: deepen human understanding of the forms and nature
of political action and to develop theoretical tools for
interpreting politically meaningful phenomena.
 ➢ Focus: fundamental values of equality, freedom, and justice
and its process linked with the dynamics of conflict,
resolution, and cooperation.
Concept, Aspects and Changes In/Of Culture and Society
Society (Palispis, 2007 p. 254) - group of people sharing a common
culture within a defined territorial boundaries.
Culture - composite or multifarious areas that comprise beliefs,
practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, symbols,
knowledge, and everything that a person learns and shares as a
member of society.
Culture is:
1. A product of human interaction.
2. A social heritage that is complex and socially transmitted.
3. Provides socially acceptable patterns for meeting biological and
social needs.
4. A distinguishing factor.
5. Cumulative
6. Meaningful to human beings
Aspects of Culture
1. Dynamic, flexible and adaptive.
2. Shared and contested.
3. Learned through socialization or enculturation.
4. Patterned social interactions.
5. Integrated and at times unstable.
6. Transmitted through socialization.
7. Requires language and other forms of communication.
The Social and Cultural Change
Social change - alteration in the social order of a society.
➢ may include changes in nature, social institutions, social
behaviors, or social relations.
Cultural change - deals with the evolution of cultural components.
➢ modification of a society through innovation, invention,
discovery, or contact with other societies.
• Culture - this is a complex whole which includes knowledge,
beliefs, arts, morals laws, customs, and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a member of society.
• Cultural variation - this is the differences in social behaviors
that different cultures exhibit around the world.
• Knowledge - an information received and perceived to be
true.
• Beliefs - the perception of accepted reality.
• Social norms - established expectations of society as to how
a person is supposed to act depending on the requirements
of the time, place, or situation
• Cultural relativism - the attempt to judge behavior according
to its cultural context.
• Ethnocentrism - judging another culture solely by the values
and standards of one’s own culture.
• Cultural understanding - respecting, embracing and
understanding one’s culture.
• Society - social system that is composed of people assigned
to perform a definite task and function.
• Enculturation - process whereby individuals learn their
group’s culture through experience, observation, and
instruction.
Dean Champion (and his associates) - “the range of variations
between culture is almost endless and yet at the same time cultures
ensemble one another in many important ways”
Cultural variation – differences in social behaviours that different
cultures exhibit around the world.
• affected by man’s geographical set-up and social experiences
Ethnocentrism - bad or good?
• can lead to negative judgments of the behaviors of groups or
societies.
• can also lead to discrimination against people who are
different.
• can create loyalty among the same social group or people in
the same society.
• National pride is also part of ethnocentrism.
Cultural relativism - not judging a culture to our own standards of
what is right or wrong, strange or normal.
• the ability to understand a culture on its own terms and not
to make judgments using the standards of one’s own culture.
• Goal: promote understanding of cultural practices that are
not typically part of one’s own culture.
• using the perspective of cultural relativism leads to the view
that no one culture is superior than another culture when
compared to systems of morality, law, politics, and the like.
Cultural, Social, Political, and Economic Symbols and Practices
1. Cultural Symbols and Practices
Symbols - the basis of culture.
➢ Examples: objects, figures, sounds, and colors. It
could also be facial expressions, gestures or word
interpretations.
1. Mano or pagmamano - performed as a sign of
respect to elders and as a way of requesting a
blessing from the elder.
2. Bambanti Festival - aims to celebrate the
province’s rich culture and tradition, its land and
most especially its people.
2. Social Symbols and Practices
George Herbert Mead (1863- 1931) American sociologist and the
father of sociological tradition - our concept of the self is acquired
through the use of symbolic gestures.
Gestures - earliest form of communication between animals.
Public Symbols - symbols which interest social
anthropologists.
➢ express aspects of the ideology of the group,
understood within a specific social and moral
system, and the same symbols may mean something
quite different to members of another social group.
(e.g. Okay hand gesture)
3. Political Symbols and Practices
Political symbolism - symbolism that is used to represent a
political standpoint.
➢ can be any object, person, word, performance, or
gesture that represents a political institution,
 hierarchy, movement, belief, or ideology. can be any
object, person, word, performance, or gesture that
represents a political institution, hierarchy,
movement, belief, or ideology.
➢ Examples:
1. Scales of justice - relate to fairness in the judicial
process. They indicate that each side of a case
will be considered in a court case.
2. LGBT symbols (Rainbow flag) - used to promote
the political goal of LGBT rights.
3. The Philippine Flag
4. Economic Symbols and Practices - supply and demand should
reach an equilibrium.
1. Scarcity - explains the basic economic problem that the
world has limited–or scarce–resources to meet seemingly unlimited
wants.
2. Supply and Demand
• Supply - refers to the amount of goods that are
available.
• Demand - refers to how many people want those
goods.
3. Cost-Benefit Analysis (benefit cost analysis) - process by
which organizations can analyze decisions, systems or projects, or
determine a value for intangibles.
4. Economic Incentives - what motivates a person to behave
in a certain way, while preferences are your needs, wants and
desires.
Points to Ponder:
1. A symbol has meaning within a group, because of a shared
understanding of what the symbol signifies.
2. Stories, traditions, history, and cultural norms contribute to the
meaning of a symbol.
3. At the most basic level, symbols are important because they help
people compose meaning in their interactions with one another.
Socialization
1. When does socialization begin? At birth or shortly thereafter
2. Which of the following is TRUE of socialization? Early childhood is
the period of the most intense and the most crucial socialization.
3. The general process of acquiring culture is referred to as
socialization.
4. Which of the following is normally learned during the socialization
process? a.
• The roles we are to play in life
• The culture's norms
• The language of the people around us
5. Which of the following statements is TRUE? Human infants come
into the world ready to learn a culture but are not born with one.
Socialization - lifelong process where individuals develop a self-
concept and prepare for roles, which in turn shape personality.
More specifically, it is the process by which humans:
1. acquire a sense of self or a social identity,
2. develop their human capacities,
3. learn the culture(s) of the society in which they live, and
4. learn expectations for behavior.
• Socialization is a learning process that begins shortly after
birth. Human infants are born without any culture.
• Early childhood is considered as the period of the most
intense and the most crucial socialization.
 • Socialization is not a one-way process such that people
simply absorb these lessons. It is also a process by which
people negotiate, resist, ignore, and even challenge those
lessons.
Agents of Socialization:
1. The Family - the basic unit of society, the primary social
institutions or social group where one is born.
2. The Peer Group - the informal grouping of two or more
members, more or less of the same age, the neighborhood,
or school is called peer group, friends, clique, gang, or
barkada.
3. The Church - provides spiritual guidance, norms of conduct,
and rules of behavior.
4. The School- a formal agency for weaning children from home
and introducing them to society.
5. The Workplace - where the individual gets socialized to its
norms and values and finds his or her place in its hierarchy of
statuses.
Forms and Functions of Social Organization
Group - people who have the chance to interact with others and think
of themselves as belonging together.
• exists as long as individuals are interested to be connected
among themselves.
• prevalent in our social lives and provide a significant way to
understand and define ourselves—both through groups we
feel a connection to and those we do not.
• play an important role in society.
• There are four primary sociological perspectives for studying
groups: functionalist, critical, feminist, and symbolic
interactionist.
1. Functionalist - perspective is a big-picture, macro-level
view that looks at how different aspects of society are
intertwined.
2. Structural functionalism - recognizes that there are
tensions or conflicts between different structural
elements of the system.
• Primary group – this typically a small social group whose
members share close personal and enduring relationships.
This also includes intimate relationships that are usually long
lasting.
Ex: Family, Childhood friends
• Secondary group – This has the opposite characteristics of a
primary group. It can be small or large and they are mostly
impersonal and usually short term. These groups are typically
found at work and school.
Ex: School mates, coworkers
• Reference group – This is a group which we compare
ourselves such us those college freshmen serves as a
standard against which behaviors and attitude are measured.
It is use to guide our behavior and attitudes to identify social
norms.
Ex: Parents, siblings, teachers
1. Manifest functions - those that are obvious and easily
discovered even by strangers.
2. Latent functions - are those that are less apparent and more
difficult to uncover.