Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics

Early Human Societies Pastoral

- Gathered in small groups - Animal domestication
- Nomadic lifestyle
Animal herders and subsist based on resources provided by
- Eventually they settle in areas close to rivers
their animals
- Underwent technological evolution
- Forged a sense of culture among members of society - Breed livestock (food), clothing, transportation
- Developed in dry regions of the world
- Semi sedentary

They follow their animals to fresh feeding grounds

Agricultural
- Cultivate crops (wheat, barley, peas, rice, millet)
- Developed farming skills
- Population increased
- People settled permanently and improved the
farming technology
- Money became a form of exchange
Hunting and Gathering
- Increase in social inequality
- “To make ends meet these days, you have to hunt and
gather”
- Oldest and most basic of economic subsistence
- Hunt animals and gather plants
- Nomadic settlement
- Live in small groups (20-30 members)

If there were an abundant supply of food, members increased

- Family is the basic unit of society

Horticultural
- Semi sedentary Industrial Revolution
- Small-scale farming

Simple forms of hand tools to plant (hoes, digging sticks)

- Surplus of food

Food supply is enough to feed members of society

- Nonsurvival actvities

Traders, healers, spiritual leaders, craftspeople

Industrial
- Industrial Revolution

New sources of energy were harnessed

Advanced forms of technology were applied

Machineries were invented

- Industrialization

Produced changes in society

- People left farmlands and transferred to urban areas

 Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
Post Industrial
- Focused on the use and application of new
information technology
- Centers on computers and other electronic devices
that create, process, and apply ideas and information
Characteristics of Post-Industrial Society
- The economy undergoes a transition from the
production of goods to the provision of services
- Knowledge becomes a valued form of capital
- Producing ideas is the main way to grow the economy
- Through processes of globalization and automation,
the value and importance to the economy of blue-
collar including manual labor decline, and those of
professional workers (e.g., scientists, creative-industry
professionals, and IT professionals) grow in value and
prevalence
- Behavioral and information sciences and technologies
are developed and implemented
Conflict
- Direct struggle between individuals or groups over
commonly valued goals
- Due to differences or disagreements
Competition
- One or more individuals in opposing interaction
toward attaining a similar goal
- Olympics, Quiz Bee, Beauty Pageant
Coercion
- Individual or groups are forced to behave in a
particular way
- It can prove to be an effective social control
- Compelling people to comply with laws out of
instilling penalty
Exchange
- A voluntary action performed in the expectation of
getting a reward in return
- Helping a friend in doing her project expecting that
in the future she will help you in your requirements
- Utang na Loob

Conformity
- Behavior that matches group expectations
- When we conform, we adapt our behavior to fit the
behavior of those around us

Social Interaction Social Structure

- Refers to the ways in which people respond to one - Refers to the way in which society is organized into a
another predictable relationship (societal institutions,
- Language, symbols, gestures politics, and religion) and social practices (social
- We attach meaning to the actions of other people roles)
- Daily activity of people
- Family, neighborhood, friends, classmates, teachers
and other school employees
Elements of Social Structure
- Letter, telephone, cellphone, e-mail, social media - Status
- May involve formal pattern - Roles
- It can take place anywhere - Groups
- Networks
Types of Social Interaction - Social Institutions

- Cooperation
- Conflict
Social Status
- Competition - Refers to any of the socially defined positions within
- Coercion a society
- Exchange - Guides the social interaction that occurs within any
- Conformity given setting
- A person holds more than one status simultaneously
 Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
Types of Social Status Role Strain
1. Ascribed Status - An individual finds it difficult to perform the role
- Assigned outside of your control [Gender, age] expected of them
2. Achieved Status - Problems of individuals in meeting or fulfilling their
- Achieved by an individual through his/her own efforts roles
[Teacher, Volleyball player, Pilot, Businessman]
3. Master Status
- Statuses that dominate others and determine the
person’s general position

Role Strain and Role Conflict

- Role strain arises when conflicting expectations are
built into a single status
- Role conflict occurs when conflicting expectations
arise from two or more statuses that an individual
Social Role occupies
- Set of expectations for people who occupy a given
status [behavior, obligations, privileges]
- You occupy a status – you play a role
1. Reciprocal Role
- Role that can’t be fulfilled alone
- A man can’t perform the role of a husband without a
wife
- Doctor-Patient; Athlete-Coach; Boss-Employee;
Friend-Friend
2. Role Expectations
- Behaviors and actions expected
- Doctors treat their patients, Parents provide for their
children, Police uphold the law
3. Role Conflict Social Role
- An individual finds himself/herself pulled in various
directions while trying to respond to the statuses Role Exit
he/she holds at the same time
- Difficulty in time management - Disengage from a social role that have been central
to their lives
- A priest who decides to get out of priesthood and
decides to get married
- Doubt – unhappiness, burnout, frustrations
- Search for Alternatives – leave of absence,
temporary separation
- Action Stage/Departure – leave job, end marriage
- Creation of New Identity
 Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
Characteristics of bureaucracy (ideal type) according to Max
Social Groups Weber
- Collection of individuals who regularly interact with - Division of labor
one another - Hierarchy of authority
- Written rules and regulations
Types of Social Group
- Impersonality
- Primary Group - Employment based on technical qualification
- Secondary Group
- In-Group
- Out-Group
- Reference Group

Primary Group
- Small group characterized by intimate, face-to-face
association and cooperation
- Families, childhood/close friends, highly influential
group

Secondary Group
- Larger, less intimate, and more specialized group
- Impersonal and objective-oriented relationship Social Networks
for a limited time
- Members treat others as means to achieve - Series of social relationships that link a person
his/her objectives directly to others, and indirectly links him/her to
- Professional relationship more people
- Age of Internet – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
In-Group
Social Institutions
- A group to which people feel they belong
- It comprises everyone who is regarded as “we” - Integrated beliefs, norms and values formed and
patterned around the social needs, activities, and
or “us”
way of life of members of society
- Family, Religious (Church), Government, Educational
Out Group (School) , Economic, Health, Mass Media
- A group in which people feel they do not belong
- Viewed as “they” or “them”
Deviance
- Act that violates a norm
Reference Group - Action that is perceived as violating widely shared
values or norms
- A group in which an individual compares - Depends on time, place, situation, culture
himself/herself
- Strongly influence an individual’s behavior, Can be understood within its social context
attitudes - Portrait of a nude lady
- Source of role model - Lady in two-piece swimsuit
- Favorite NBA team
Deviance depends on….
Formal Organization 1. Time
- Fashion and grooming change
- Group designed for a special purpose and 2. Place
structured for maximum efficiency - Where behavior or action occurs determines whether
- Student organizations, professional associations is appropriate or deviant
and etc. - Women driving is common in the Philippines but in
- Bureaucracy – a component of formal Saudi Arabia it is banned by law
organization that uses rules and hierarchical
ranking to achieve efficiency
 Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
3. Situation
- Laughing in class
- Joke vs. Moment of Silence
4. Culture
- Men greeting each other
- US: Handshake
- Japan: Bow
- Europe: Kiss on cheek
Two Concerns of Deviance
The study of deviance has two concerns:
1. Why people violate laws or norms
2. How society reacts to this violation
Theories of Deviance
1. Structural Functionalism (Emile Durkheim)
- Deviance helps to define the limits of proper
behavior
Anomie
- describe the loss of direction felt in a society
when social control of individual behavior has
become ineffective
2. Strain Theory (Robert Merton)
- Deviance results when socially approved goals
cannot be reached by socially approved means
Types of deviance that emerge from this are:
- Conformity, innovation, ritualism, retreatism,
rebellion
Conformity
- Accepting socially approved goals and the use of
legitimate means to achieve that goal
Innovation
- Accepting the goal of success but rejected the
use of socially accepted means
- Cheating, corruption, drugs
Ritualism
- People no longer set high success goals
- People reject the importance of success once
they realize that they will never achieve it
- Work becomes simply a way of life rather than a
means to the goal of success
Retreatism
- Withdrawal from society
- Rejecting goals and procedure
- Drug addicts, alcoholics
Rebellion
- People reject and attempt to change the goals and
the means approved by society
- Rebels try to overthrow the existing system and
establish a new (different goals and mean)
- Reject goals of what for them are unfair social order
- Members of revolutionary organization
Symbolic Interactionism
- Deviance is learned through interaction with others
- Product of face-to-face interactions
- Largely influenced by interpersonal relationships
between members of society
Differential Association
- Deviance is a learned behavior
- People learn it from different groups in which they
are associated
Social Disorganization
- Crime is most likely to occur in communities with
weak social ties
- A person is not born a criminal, but becomes one over
time, based on his or her social environment
Labeling
- Society tends to react to a rule-breaking act by
labeling it as deviant
- “I become a criminal because you classify my acts as
crime”
- Once a person is labeled a thief or drunkard, he/she
may stuck with that label for life, and maybe
rejected or isolated
Conflict
- Class conflict within society creates deviance
- It affects deviance in two ways:
1. Class interests determine which acts are criminalized
and how heavily they are punished
2. Economic pressures lead to offenses, particularly
property offenses, among the poor
Types of Deviance
1. Primary and Secondary Deviance
Primary Deviance
- Deviance involving occasional breaking of norms
that are NOT a part of a person’s lifestyle or self-
concept
- Honor roll student comes home past curfew one night
Secondary Deviance
- Deviance in which an individual’s life and identity
are organized around breaking society’s norms
 Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
- The “robbers” in Ocean’s 11 had a criminal history Institutions
because they had broken the law on multiple
occasions 1. Family
2. Political Institutions
Social Control 3. Economic System
4. Non-State
- Regulates people’s behavior and actions – sanctions 5. Education
- Techniques and strategies for preventing deviant 6. Religion
human behavior in any society 7. Health
- Without it, chaos and confusion would reign
Kinship Structure
2 Types of Social Control
- Identified as the primary socialization unit in
1. Formal Social Control
Philippine society (Kaut, 1965; Jocano, 1969; Nurge,
2. Informal Social Control
1965, among others)
- It refers to relations formed between members of
Formal Social Control society developed through blood or consanguineal
relationships, marriage or affinal relationships,
- Produced and enforced by the state adoption and other culturally accepted rituals.
(government) and representatives of the state (Contreras)
that enforce its laws like police, military, and
other city, state, and federal agencies Types of Kinship
Informal Social Control 1. Kinship by BLOOD (CONSANGUINEAL)
- Achieved by blood affinity or by birth
- Enforced by family, primary caregivers, peers, - E.g., parents – children; siblings, nieces/nephews;
other authority figures like coaches and aunts/uncles
teachers, and by colleagues Principles of Descent

Built-in Controls
- Rely on deterrents such as personal shame or
fear of supernatural punishment or magical
retaliation
A. Patrilineal form of descent – both males and females belong
to the kin group of their FATHER (agnatic succession)
- Only the MALES pass on to their children their family
identity
- Salic Law; Fur (Sudan)

Sanctions B. Matrilineal – persons are related if they can trace their

descent through females to the same woman ancestor
2 Types of Sanctions
- Only DAUGHTERS can pass on the family line to their
1. Formal and Informal Sanctions offspring
- Rain Queen (province of Limpopo, South Africa) her
Formal Sanctions eldest daughter is the heir, and males are not
entitled to inherit the throne at all
- Penal laws, fines, death penalty 2. Kinship by RITUALS – baptism, confirmation, and
marriage
Informal Sanctions - This mutual kinship system, known as compadrazgo,
meaning godparenthood or sponsorship, dates back
- Unfavorable and favorable public opinion, giving at least to the introduction of Christianity and
perhaps earlier
or withdrawing of affection, love or friendship;
verbal admiration or criticism, reprimands or Suki relationships (market- exchange partnerships) may
verbal commendations develop between two people who agree to become regular
customer and supplier.
Social Institutions
Patron-client bonds also are very much a part of prescribed
- a group of social positions, connected by social patterns of appropriate behavior.
relations, performing a social role
Friendship - Filipinos also extend the circle of social alliances
with friendship
 Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
3. Kinship by Marriage
- A socially sanctioned sexual and economic union
between men and women (Howard and Hattis, 1992)
Aspects of Mate Selection
Endogamy: Requires a person to marry someone from its
locality, own race, own class, own religion
Exogamy: Requires mate selection outside certain groups,
usually family or certain kin or from other categories
(Incest is taboo)
Theories on Mate Selection
Homogamy – tendency to select a mate with personal’s
characteristics similar to one’s own - the idea “like
marries like” applies to this type
Heterogamy – tendency to select a mate different from
one’s own - “opposite attracts” best characterize this
idea
Forms of Marriages
1. Monogamy: one woman and one man are
married only to each other (Serial monogamy –
several spouses in her or his lifetime, but only
one spouse at a time)
2. Polygamy: In this case, the husband or wife has
more than one partner at the same time. (Saudi
Arabia)
a. Polygyny – a marriage of a man to several women
b. Polyandry: This family consists of a wife with more than
one husband. (Todas of Southern India, Nyinba in Nepal
and Tibet)
Family
- Set of people related by blood, marriage, or
agreed-upon relations who share primary
responsibility for reproduction and caring for
members of society (Schaefer)
- Is the basic or the most fundamental unit in any
society.
Functions of Family
- Reproduction of the race and rearing the young
- Cultural transmission or enculturation
- Socialization of the child
- Providing affection and a sense of security
- Providing the environment for personality
development and the growth of self-concept
- Providing social status
Family Structures based on form
1. The Nuclear Family
- This usually consists of two generations of family,
parents and their own or adopted children residing
in the same household.
2. The Extended Family
- This is also known as the three-generation family.
Consisting of grandparents, their children, and their
grandchildren
3. Transnational Families
- Families who live apart but who create and retain a
‘sense of collective welfare and unity, in short
“familyhood,” even across national borders’
(Bryceson and Vuorela 2002)
4. Separated Families
- Husband and wife separated from each other
5. Single Parent Family
- It consists of one parent and a child or children
residing in one household.
6. Reconstituted Family (Blended Family)
- This is a family where one or more parents have been
married previously and they bring with them
children from their previous marriage(s).
Family Classification
A) On the Basis of Lineage (Kinship Pattern)
- “To whom are we related” In terms of property,
inheritance, and emotional ties.
- Patrilineal Family: Tracing kinship Through the male
line
- Matrilineal Family: Tracing the kinship through the
female line
- Bilateral descent: Both sides of a person’s family are
regarded as equally important
B) On the Basis of Authority “Who Rules?”
- Patriarchal Family: The father is considered the
head.
- Matriarchal Family: Authority is held by the mother
- Egalitarian family: Family in which spouses are
regarded as equals
C) On the basis of Residence “Where do we live?”
- Patrilocal: When a married couple lives with or near
the husband’s family.
- Matrilocal: When a couple lives with or near the
mother’s family.
- Neo-Local: When a married couple sets up a home
separate from either side of their families
D) D). On The basis of Affiliation (Sociology in our times
(Kendall, 2017)
1. Family Of Orientation
- The family into which a person is born and in which
early socialization usually takes place.
2. Family Of Procreation
- The family that a person forms by having, adopting
or otherwise creating children
 Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
Familism: Pride in extended family
Sociological Perspectives on the Family
- Muslim marriage “is governed by a complex set of
Functionalist View social rules.”

Family serves six functions for society: Influences on family structure

1. Reproduction
1. Industrialization
2. Protection 2. Divorce
3. Socialization 3. Class
4. Regulation of sexual behavior 4. State benefits
5. Affection and companionship
6. Provision of social status Industrialization
Conflict View - According to Talcott Parsons the industrialization
era brought with it increased geographical and
- In wide range of societies, husbands exercised social mobility, resulting in the breakdown of the
power and authority within the family (Domestic extended family to the privatized nuclear family. ›
violence) DIVORCE
- View family as economic unit that contributes to
social injustice as it transfers power, property - Government providing financial assistance to single
and privilege from one generations to the next parents, many families broke up.
…. Inheriting the privilege or the unfortunate - And more single parent families were formed as well
as reconstituted ones.
social and economic status.
CLASS
Interactionist View
- Low incomes tend to have a higher divorce rate due
- Interested in how individuals interact with each to financial conflicts.
other, whether they are cohabiting partners or - Lower class families are usually matrifocal or single
longtime married couples, conducted studies on parent and tend to contribute to the financial and
social instability of the society
the parents – child relationship
- Middle class families tend to have less kids than
lower class ones although there is more financial
Feminist View stability.
- Higher class families have an average of one or two
- Interest in family as social institution because children, thus making most higher class families
“family” is the focus of women’s work nuclear ones.
- Urge social scientists and agencies to consider
single parent, lesbian and single women STATE BENEFITS

- State granting benefits to pregnant teenagers and

Variations in Family Life and Intimate single mothers
Relationships - 4Ps - provides conditional cash grants to the poorest
of the poor, to improve the health, nutrition, and the
Social Class Differences education of children aged 0-18.

1. Upper class – the emphasis is on the lineage and Patterns and Trends
maintenance of family position
2. Lower class – they do not worry too much with Marriage and Family
“family name”. More on survival and oftentimes 1. Parenthood and Grandparenthood
children assume adult responsibilities – - The most important role of parents is socialization of
including marriage and parenthood children
- “Boomerang generation” or “full-nest syndrome”
Racial and Ethnic Differences 2. Adoption
- Process that “allows for the transfer of the legal
- Native-American families draw on family ties to rights, responsibilities, and privileges of parenthood”
lessen many hardships they face to a new legal parent or parents
- “Transracial adoption” – adoption of non-white child
Machismo: Sense of virility, personal worth, and pride in by white parents
one’s maleness
 Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics
3. Dual-Income Families 8. Remaining Single

4. Single-Parent Families
9. Marriage without Children

5. Stepfamilies

10. Same Sex Marriage

6. Divorce/Annulment

7. Cohabitation
- couples who choose to live together without
marrying practice