Defining Culture and

Society: The Perspective of

Anthropology and
Sociology
• Social sciences like anthropology and sociology are
interested in people’s behavior. Society and culture are among
the most dominant forces that shape how people behave and
act in given situations.
•Society is a collection of people having the same culture.
For instance, the Philippine society, despite geographical
barriers, shares general similarities in terms of day to day
practices, beliefs, values, and moral conduct. Filipinos from the
different parts of the archipelago are described to be jolly,
hospitable to visitors, and family-centered.
•Culture can be simply defined as a way of life, but E. B.
Tylor defines it as “that complex whole which encompasses
beliefs, practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts,
symbols, knowledge, and everything that a person learns and
shares as a member of society”
Culture is present in different forms

• Material cultures are tangible objects significant to the society.

They can be public figures, historical places, things essential to
the everyday lives of the people or special resources exclusive to
their place.
• On the other hand, culture can also be in intangible forms, such
as value systems, mores, and laws. This is known to be
nonmaterial culture.
Classification of
Culture
• Norms are the standard of behavior set by society
• In contrast to norms, taboos are the forbidden behavior in
society.
 Elements of Culture

Beliefs Values People

Language Technology Norms

Types of
Norms

•Proscriptive

•Prescriptive
 Forms of
Norms
• Folkways
• Mores
• Taboos
• Laws
 Characteristics of
Culture
• Culture is learned • Culture is adaptive
• Culture is • Culture is
transmitted orally or compulsory
by writing • Culture interact and
• Culture is shared change
• Culture is patterned
and integrated
Theories on Culture
and Society
 Structural functionalism

• Focuses on the interrelated parts of society and the important

functions they perform to sustain its needs. Like an organism
with different body parts, society has various institutions with
unique roles for its survival.
• Manifest functions are the expected outcome of social
phenomena, while latent functions are its unintended effects.
Critical theory
• Is considered as a conflict theory since it focuses on the
inequalities present in society. It sees culture and social as a
mechanism of superior groups to further take advantage of
other sectors in society.
Interpretive approach
• deals with micro interactions and relationships of people within
society. It explains how people, as members of society, make
sense of their world and attach meaning to it. This theory places
premium significance to language and symbols that people use
to communicate with each other. Herbert Blumer coined the
term symbolic interactionism which asserts that relationships
are facilitated by using symbols, interpretation and attaching
meaning to one’s and others’ action.
 Culture as Dynamic,
Flexible, and Adaptive
Critical theory
• Is considered as a conflict theory since it focuses on the
inequalities present in society. It sees culture and social as a
mechanism of superior groups to further take advantage of
other sectors in society.
Interpretive approach
• deals with micro interactions and relationships of people within
society. It explains how people, as members of society, make
sense of their world and attach meaning to it. This theory places
premium significance to language and symbols that people use
to communicate with each other. Herbert Blumer coined the
term symbolic interactionism which asserts that relationships
are facilitated by using symbols, interpretation and attaching
meaning to one’s and others’ action.
 Culture as Dynamic,
Flexible, and Adaptive
• Change is inevitable even in the way of life of people in a society.
Being dynamic and flexible is one of the aspects of culture.
Meaning, culture changes as time passes.
• Cultural lag occurs when material culture innovates in the society
but non-material culture towards it remains stagnant.
• One possible reason why cultural changes occur is to adapt to
the present environment or to existing social situations. The
adaptive feature of culture is essential to society’s survival.
Subcultures and
Countercultures
Subculture
• is the shared way of
living of a subgroup in
a society. For instance,
each ethnic and
indigenous group in the
country has their own
unique traditions.
Counterculture

• is a type of subculture which rejects some of the norms

acceptable to the general public.
Ethnocentrism and Cultural Relativism
The Concept of Ethnocentrism
• Ethnocentrism is a tendency to believe that one’s culture is
superior or above other cultures.
• The ethnocentric view considers one’s own culture as the
“center of everything,” seeing the world only from the
perspective of one’s own culture.
• An ethnocentric individual believes that his own culture is
right, more proper, more natural or normal.
A Different Perspective: Cultural Relativism
• Cultural relativism suggests that every culture is equal.
• Franz Boas, a German-American anthropologist, was
among the scholars who first introduced this concept of
cultural relativism.
• According to this concept, a specific culture should only be
viewed in the context of its own cultural standards.
Xenocentrism
• is the preference for the
products, styles, or ideas of
someone else's culture rather
than of one's own.
Forms of Tangible and
Intangible Heritage
Tangible Heritage
• This includes artifacts, historic places, monuments,
buildings, or any object that is important for the
culture.
• It is composed of both movable and immovable
cultural heritage. Examples of movable cultural
heritage are artifacts or objects that can be easily
transported, such as sculptures, musical instruments,
clothing, and tools for livelihood. Immovable cultural
heritage includes structures such as monuments,
buildings, or even a whole town.
• A special form of heritage which could also be considered
as part of tangible heritage is natural heritage.
Intangible Heritage
• Intangible heritage represents the non-material aspect of a
cultural heritage. This includes oral tradition, performing
arts, rituals, festivities, knowledge about nature, or skills in
producing traditional crafts.
 Preserving
Our Cultural
Heritage
• The Heritage Cycle, developed
by Simon Thurley might aid in
the preservation of one’s
cultural heritage. By
following the cycle, one can
pass the heritage of past
generations to future
generations to come. The cycle
starts from enjoying a
cultural heritage, leading to
understanding it, eventually
valuing it, and caring for it.
 Enculturation and
Socialization
Aristotle once said: “man is a social animal.” Humans
are, by nature, social beings that regularly interact with
their environment.
•Socialization is the lifelong social process where
people develop their individual potentials and learn or
adapt culture.
• The personal development of people is dependent on
this process.
• Enculturation, on the other hand, is the process where an
individual or a group learns culture through experience or
observation.
• On the other hand, learning the culture of another society is
called acculturation.
• Individuals who are not able to undergo the socialization
process are called feral children.
 Aspects of Culture and Society III (Patterned
Social Interactions, Integrated and at Times
Unstable, Requires Language and Other Forms
of Communication )
• Society and culture are developed through patterns of
interaction.
• Since culture is susceptible to change, it is at times
unstable and contested.
•Language is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a
systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings
by use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or
marks having understood meanings.”
On your social media account, share the most
bizarre or unique word from your
hometown/province or dialect with its
meaning. Post it with the format, “In
_______________, we don’t call it ____________.
Instead we call it ________________________.”
For example, “In Bicol, we don’t call it
maganda. Instead, we call it magayon.” Submit
a screen capture of this post to be monitored by
your teacher. See how your friends will react
and respond to your post and might lead to
exchange of cultural ideas.
 Biological
Evolution of
Man
• Evolution is the process of developing physical and biological
change in a species over a period of time.
• Theory of Evolution that proposed that the current human
race spurred from a line of primates that evolved through
“survival of the fittest,” wherein primitive species competed
among each other for survival.
GRACILE ROBUST HOMO SPECIES
AUSTRALOPITHECINES AUSTRALOPITHECINES

• Australopithecus • Australopithecus • Hominids

anamensis Aethiopicus • Homo habilis
• Australopithecus • Australopithecus • Homo rudolfensis
afarensis Robustus • Homo erectus
• Australopithecus • Australopithecus • Homo sapiens
africanus boisei sapiens
• Cultural evolution is learned behavior passed on from one
generation to another.
Conformity and
Deviance
Social Control
• Originally, the term social control referred only to a
society’s capacity to regulate itself, but in recent years, it
has been altered to reflect its capacity to influence human
behavior towards the maintenance of a given order.
• Today, social control is defined simply as “the various
means by which members of society encourage conformity
to cultural norms.”
• In a book written by Edward Alsworth Ross in 1901, he
refers to social control as the “foundation of order within a
society.”
• Through symbols, members of the same culture
recognize each other. Through language, members of
the same society can communicate effectively because
they appropriate standard meanings to symbols.
Through values, members of a culture are able to define
what is desirable and what is undesirable, hence
directing not just actions, but also points of views.
However, it is through norms, that members of society
gain a sense of security and trust in their personal
interactions.
Informal Means of Social Control
VS.
Formal Means of Social Control
The Concept of Deviance
• Deviance refers to “recognized violations of
cultural norms.”
• Secondly, deviance is not an inherent trait of
human beings, nor of the behaviors themselves.
Instead, it is a product of social processes.
 Various Forms of Deviance

• Formal deviance as they refer to the violation of formally

enacted laws. Crimes are an example of formal
deviance—it is easy to spot who the violators are, and the
punishment of non-conformity are also easy to put into
action as the law already has these codified.
• Informal deviance refers to violations of informal cultural
norms. Some examples of informal deviance include picking
one’s nose in public, talking while the mouth is full, and in
some cultures, public display of affection.