SUBJECT CODE: CORE 016

SUBJECT TITLE: Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

You are expected to analyze the human forms and functions of social organizations.
CONTENT/CORE CONTENT

 Four Ways to Identify Social Groups

 How Nature and Nurture Influenced Behavior
 Types of Identity and Theories
 Social Control and Forms of Deviance
 Social Control , Social Structure and Social Groups
 Functions and Characteristics of Institutions
 Rules of Social Interaction to Maintain Stability
 The Role of Innovation in Response to Problems and Challenge

Proponents of Social Learning Theory argue that the set of behavior of an

individual is acquired through enculturation and socialization process. The
variation in human behavior of an individual is acquired through enculturation
and socialization process where the variation in human behavior is attributed to the
differences in cultural templates of every society that the individual learns from.

Today, the social learning perspective is more accepted by sociologists and

anthropologists in explaining the development of behavior and attitude among humans.
“No man is an island,” as every individual interacts unintentionally or on purpose with
others, this led one eventually to either form his own or be a member of a group.

What is a group? It can pertain to a social aggregate or collection of people who can just
be in one place at the same time. A social group on the other hand, is more than either
a social aggregate or a social category. It is a collection of people who share some
characteristics, interact with one another, and have some feeling of unity.
Four ways to identify social groups according to Gelles and Lavine (1999)

1. Members of the group have shared identity – if members recognize that they have
something in common and make them believe to be different.
2. Members of social group interact regularly – when members make a point of getting
together every so often.
3. Social groups have social structure – formally or informally, they established a
structure of roles and statuses to coordinate their activities.
4. Social groups depend on consensus – members must agree to some extent on
values, norms and goals.

Groups within society

1. Primary Group – small warm association based on ongoing, personal, intimate

relationships. They are fundamental in forming the social nature and ideas of any
individual. The family which is a primary group possesses characteristics of face-to
face interaction, typically informal, small and personal.
2. Secondary Group – is a cool, impersonal association whose members’ relationships
are limited and instrumental. Others describe it as formal, large and impersonal.
3. In-group – is a group to which people feel that they belong; it commands their loyalty
and respect. Members usually regard themselves superior to members of out-group.
4. Out-group – by contrast, one feels opposed to or in competition with.
5. Reference groups – members are identical to themselves. They are groups of
individuals who compare themselves regularly. It is always a social group.
6. Electronic community – a new type of human group born in 1990. Using internet,
people meet on–line for various purposes which may start plainly as means to
communicate.

Difference between Nature and Nurture

In the "nature VS nurture" debate, nurture refers to personal experiences (i.e.

empiricism or behaviorism). Nature is your genes. The physical and personality traits
determined by your genes stay the same irrespective of where you were born and
raised. Nurture refers to your childhood, or how you were brought up.

Intelligence is based on nature and nurture. Study finds that environment plays a
significant role in how smart you are. It is often debated whether intelligence is
significantly influenced by a person's environment or their genes. Now, a study has shown
that intelligence is a product of nurture as well as nature. Mar 25, 2015

IQ development shifts from nurture (environmental) influences to nature (genetic)

influences as children move into adulthood, approximately from age 12 to 16. A thicker
cortical region, which is associated with higher IQs, also appears to be associated with
greater susceptibility to environmental inputs.
 Talcot Parsons, a sociologist, spoke of the birth of new
generations of children as a recurrent barbarian invasion.
For Parsons, human infants do not possess culture at birth.
They have no conception of the world, no language or a
morality. It is in this sense that Parsons uses the word:
“barbarian” in reference to infants. They are uncultured,
unsocialized persons. All an infant needs to live and cope
within the cultural context awaiting him is acquired through
the process termed enculturation by the anthropologist and
socialization by the sociologist

What is Enculturation?

 Enculturation is the process of socialization into the maintenance of the norms of one’s
indigenous culture such as the salient values, ideas, and concepts.
 It includes learning the cultural characteristics, such as language and traditions and
customs which distinguish the members of one group of people from another. It is also
based on the idea that the individual is surrounded by a culture; where he acquires by
learning, what the culture deems to be necessary.
 It is the process by which people learn the requirements of their surrounding culture
and acquire values and behaviors appropriate necessary in culture.
 The process where the culture that is currently established teaches the individual the
accepted norms and values of the culture or the society where the individual lives.

Two phases of Enculturation:

1. Unconscious stage – where individual unconsciously internalizes his culture; and
2. Conscious stage – which involves the innovation initiated by the individuals.

Two aspects of Enculturation:

1. Informal – which some call “child training”
2. Formal – more commonly termed “education”

What is Socialization?
 Socialization refers to the process of deliberate shaping by way of the tutelage of the
individual.
 It is the process through which people learn the rules and practices needed to
participate successfully in their culture and society.
 It is when one acquires a sense of personal identity and learns what people in the
surrounding culture believe and how they expect one to behave.
 It is indeed a lifelong process that starts when a helpless infant gradually transforms
into a more or less knowledgeable and more or less functional and cooperative
member of the society.

In the course of socialization, every individual develops a sense of identity and enable
himself/herself for independent thought and action. The concept of identity can be viewed
in a number of ways.
Identity relates to the understanding that people hold on
and believe to what is meaningful to them as it may be
sourced from gender, sexual orientation, nationality,
ethnicity, and social class.

 Identity formation – is the compilation of values,

attitudes, and beliefs that the individuals received
from their families’ peers and community enable
them to create a personal identity.
 Primary identity – consists of the roles and status that
an individual learns as a child.

Two types of identity:

1. Social identity – refers to the characteristics that other people attribute to an individual.
Examples: Christians, homeless, student, father, widow and teacher.
2. Self-identity or personal identity – makes one unique or distinct individuals. It refers to
the process of self-development through which one formulates a unique sense of
oneself and his/her relationship to the world around him/her.
 Shared identities – established a set of common objectives, visions, interest or
experiences found on a significant basis for social movements like
environmentalists, feminists or advocates of peace and order.

Theories on Identity:

 Status is an individual’s position in his/her society which carries with it a set of defined
rights and obligations.
 It is a part of person’s social identity and defines his relationships to others.
 Status set refers to all the statuses a person can hold at a given time. This happens
when a man is a father of the family, a brother to his sister, a mayor to his town.
 There are two kinds of status:

1. Ascribed status – is a social position where a person receives at birth or takes on

involuntarily later in life. Examples are being a son, a Filipino, a widower or a teenager.
2. Achieved status – is a social position a person takes on voluntarily that reflects
personal ability and efforts such as being a choir, director, physician, ballet dancer,
lawyer, honor student.
 Roles – is a set of expectations from people who occupy a particular status.

CONFORMITY AND DEVIANCE

Conformity is following the roles and goals of one’s society. One conforms if he chooses
a course of action that a majority favors or that which is socially acceptable. Most familiar
examples of non-conformity are negative instances of rule-breaking like stealing. Abusing
a child or driving while drunk.

Deviance is any behavior that violates a cultural norm.

Theories That Explain the Existence of Deviants

 Social Control Theory: Deviance is primarily caused by a lack in stronger social bonds
within a society.
 Rational Choice Theory: The individual decisions to follow or to go against social
norms are dependent in their perceived cost and benefit of such action.
 Differential Association Theory: Conformity or deviance is learned by an individual
from those, s/he associates with.
 Labeling Theory: Actions are initially not considered deviant until they are labeled as
such by members of the community.
 Conflict Theory: Society consists of opposing groups of people whose access to power
is unequal.
 Structural Functionalist Theory: This theory proposes two perspectives in the
formation of deviant behavior.
 On the Micro-level, deviance is the product of breakdown of social norms. On the
macro level, deviance is the product or roles strain that an individual experiences due
to the lack of resources to cope with the demands of social norms.

Forms of Deviance
1. Criminal deviance – is the violation of society’s formally enacted criminal law. It spans
a wide range starting from a minor traffic violation, to sexual assaults, to murder.
2. Non-criminal deviance – is where most sociologists argued to focus on; includes
xenophobia (intense or irrational dislike or fear of people from other countries),
homophobia (hated or fear of homosexual-gays, lesbians), mental disorders, and
other similar deviations.

Different forms of deviance

1. Physical deviance – is the most visible form of deviance and it can evoke stereotypes,
stigma and discrimination. Sociologists describe two types of physical deviance:
a. Violations of aesthetic norms (what people should look like, including height,
weight and the absence of disfigurement); and
b. Physical incapacity, which would include those with physical disability.
2. Sexual Deviance – may include exotic dancers, strippers, sex tourism and
anonymous sex in public restrooms, bisexuality, online sexual predators, prostitutes,
premarital chastity and many others.
3. Deviance in cyberspace – is a relative new phenomenon , but already has many
different forms, including online pedophile subculture, cyberbullying, online
misbehavior of college students, “sexting,” and the illegal downloading of music,
movies and readings.
4. Elite Deviance – is defined as “criminal and deviant acts by the largest corporations
and the most powerful political organizations” that result in harm.
5. Positive deviance – is defined as intentional behaviors that significantly depart from
the norms of a referent group in honorable ways.

Social Control
  Social control refers to the techniques and strategies for preventing deviant behavior in
any society.
 It is a way of instilling cultural conformity which often involves rule-breaking.
 It also refers to the diverse ways in which the behaviors of a society are constrained
into social approved channels. Thus, everyone is subject to social control.

Two elements that promote social control:

1. Internalization – is an integral part of communicating and incorporating social norm to
an individual personality.
2. Sanction – is powerful in leading an individual to conform to social norms.

Types of Sanctions:
1. Formal sanction – are rewards and forms of punishment that are formally awarded by
an institution such as government, council, or establishment.
2. Informal sanction – are rewards and forms of punishment that are spontaneously given
by an individual or a group of people as a response to a behavior that was either
accepted or approved.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND SOCIAL GROUPS

Sociologists define "society" as a group of interacting individuals who share the same
territory and participate in a common culture. As we have already seen, "interaction" is
a process by which communicating individuals influence each other’s' thoughts and
activities. All of these interactions must be ordered or organized some way; according to
some framework. We refer to this frame work as social structure.

Social structure is the organization of social positions and the distribution of people in
them. Our text defines social structure as "the way in which a society is organized into
predictable relationships"

It's important to realize that we are not concerned with personalities but positions; e.g.,
faculty member; short stop; half-back; President of the U.S., etc. (This is not as easy as it
seems. Think of the President. What thoughts fill your mind? It is difficult to separate the
man from the position).

The basic components of social structure are: statuses, roles, groups, and institutions.

We've already discussed six basic social institutions:

1. Family – caring for the young
2. Education – transmitting cultural knowledge from one generation to the next
3. Religion – reaffirming the values that bind people together
4. Politics – governing people, maintaining order
5. Economy – providing food, shelter, and necessary services
6. Recreation – entertainment/ recreation/ relaxation

There are two levels of social structure:

1. Micro level: small, interpersonal level – dorm life; organizational network in the
 office.
2. Macro level: the "Big Picture;" how does it fit into society?

Example: The Prison

Micro level: Look at a prison. We see that it's comprised of administrators, guards, and
prisoners. There's also an elaborate set of rules governing the relationships between the
three. But when we look deeper we find more. There's an informal network among the
prisoners and they divide themselves into many different categories and these categories
describe what they do in the prison. Here are some of the positions in prison:

a. toughs: those who quarrel easily and fight without cause

b. gorilla: those who use violence to obtain their goals
c. merchant or peddler: buys and sells goods; exploits fellow prisoners by
manipulation, not force
d. wolf or fag: prisoners who enter into homosexual relationships (label applies to the
role they take)
e. square John: they conform to the values of the greater society (in effect, support
prison officials)
f. rat or squealer: informers
g. real man or right guy: quiet; doesn't talk; doesn't push people around, but can
handle the toughs and the gorillas; doesn't let other prisoners down; i.e. the Clint
Eastwood type

The importance of this is that some prisoners assume much admired roles – the real men;
while others are considered scum – the rats. The problem for prison administrators is to
maintain order and control when they are in the minority – more prisoners than guards.

The Macro Level: Here we wouldn't focus on the internal workings of a particular prison,
but rather how prisons fit into the larger society.

What is the purpose of prisons (containment and isolation; punishment; retribution;

rehabilitation)?

The Components of Social Structure: Some Terms

Status – refers to a position in the social structure. Each person possesses several
statuses, age, sex, race, occupation, nationality, son, daughter, mother, father, etc.

a. Master status – is the basic which gives you a sense of who you are. Think of the
question, "Who and what are you, what do you do?" (Usually it’s a job).

b. Ascribed status – is the one that has been assigned or given to us and we can't
change it easily: race, sex, age, etc.

c. Achieved status – is earned by us; doctor, lawyer, college graduate, etc.).

Social class – roughly consists of people who occupy the same status in society. (Marx
– depends on relationship to the means of production (job); Weber – status group, people
who share similar interests, attitudes, likes, and dislikes). College professors can have
different life-styles; one goes to bars and basketball games while the other goes to fancy
restaurants and classical music concerts). According to Weber, garbage collector and
factory owner can both belong to the same status group if they both like Mozart and have
similar likes and dislikes.

Roles – are socially prescribed ways of acting in a particular status. They involve certain
behavior patterns, obligations and privileges. We play a different role for each of the
different statuses we occupy. Usually, one status has many different roles assigned to it.
(Run country, veto bills, State of the Union Address, commander of armed forces, submit
budget to Congress, greet foreign dignitaries, etc). We call this a role set.

a. Role set – wherein each status usually has several roles attached to it – doctor as
medical professional; doctor as nurse supervisor; doctor as instructor to other
doctors; doctor as medical researcher; doctor as hospital administrator; doctor as
surgeon.

b. Role model – is sort of an ideal: a person who occupies a status and plays the roles
associated with that status in the way that s/he would like to play them. Be able to hit
the ball like Ted Williams or Mickey Mantle.

c. Role expectations – are social norms that define how a role should be played. (What
is an English Professor supposed to teach? How are children expected to behave in
front of company?)

d. Role performance – is the actual role behavior: how well we actually play the roles
we have.

e. Role strain – are difficulties that result from the differing demands and expectations
associated with the same social position (status). The Captain of a Navy ship has
many roles. One of them is to maintain high morale among the officers and crew.
Another is to accomplish the assigned mission or task. Often these two are
incompatible, and it's hard to meet role expectations.

f. Role conflict – are difficulties that occur when incompatible expectations arise from
two or more social positions (statuses) held by one and the same person: for
example, a priest hearing confession – a man comes in and confesses to killing the
President of the United States – here, two different roles, associated with two different
statuses - (priest's confidentiality V.S. his role as a responsible citizen to report a
crime to the police) have two roles which are in conflict. How many people have seen
the movie Sergeant York? Gary Cooper has serious doubts about joining the Army.
In fact, he won't do it until those doubts are settled. (Man of God vs. soldier expected
to kill). He will not assume that second status (soldier) until he resolves the dilemma.
He was trying to avoid role conflict by not assuming the position (status) of soldier.
How does he re solve this problem? He decides that a man of God can, and must,
under certain circumstances, kill. In other words, the roles do not necessarily conflict.
 Once he resolves this dilemma he readily accepts the second status which is that of
soldier.

Group – is a number of people (three or more) who interact together in an orderly way on
the basis of shared expectations about each other's behavior. Note the distinction between
group and category. The latter are people who share the same characteristic: red hair, for
example. Note that a group is more than a simple aggregate – people who happen to be
at the same place at the same time.

a. Primary group – is relatively small number of people who interact over a relatively
long period of time on an intimate, face-to-face basis. These groups are the building
blocks of social structure families, roommates, husband and wife, peer group, small
town, or neighborhood.

b. Secondary group – is a relatively large number of people who interact on a

temporary, anonymous, and impersonal basis. Formal organizations like Ford Motor
Company, IBM, DuPont; they exist to serve a purpose.

c. Associations and institutions: What's the difference between the terms?"

The importance of this is that some prisoners assume much admired roles – the real
men; while others are considered scum – the rats. The problem for prison
administrators is to maintain order and control when they are in the minority – more
prisoners than guards. Prisoners certainly don't obey from love or respect. They are
at the legal limits of coercion. How do they do this, then? They allow the breaking of
trivial rules in exchange for cooperation. They allow an "informal social structure" to
develop where prison leaders (prisoners, themselves) have a say in what goes on. In
May, 1980 very violent riots took place in the New Mexico State Pen. Why? The
informal structure was disrupted. Cries of political corruption booted out leaders to
other prisons and left the prisoners without leaders. As a result, the toughs and
gorillas took over – macho contests. A riot ensued: When the authorities tried to
negotiate, they found that they had to deal with several different groups of prisoners.

What are some of the characteristics of institutions?

They are inherently conservative. We say that patterns of behavior become

institutionalized. By this we mean that they become fixed, rigid, and traditional. It's difficult
to change and innovate. Education; stop the experimenting – get back to the basics.
Religion; bring prayer back into the schools. Recreation; until recently, refusing to change
the criteria for amateur status in the Olympics, (Why not let the pro's participate? What
took them so long to allow women to run the marathon?) Economy; in the U.S. people
were afraid of socialized medicine when it would provide better care for the poor.
Government; campaigning takes more and more time from the presidency, yet people
resist implementing 1 six-year term. Institutions are closely linked within the social
structure. Religion, politics, recreation, economy, family, education, all are compatible and
interrelated within a given society. If not, the society would disintegrate. (Witness the
tremendous strain Catholicism places upon the government in
communist Poland. Because institutions are linked together when one changes, the others
tend to experience "adjusting changes."
Functions of institutions:

There are two kinds (from Robert Merton):

 Manifest functions are those that are intended. What is the manifest function of
education, for example? Education is intended to provide training which enables
individuals to function in society. It is intended to teach the youth.
 Latent functions are hidden and unintended. What is a latent function of education?
It gets the kids out of the home and frees up mothers from baby-sitting so they can
get into the labor force.

Rules of Social Interaction to maintain stability of Social Life

Be respectful to everyone you interact with. Give them a chance to talk, don't say or do
anything insulting, respect their differences, and generally treat them the way that you
would want to be treated. The most important part of interacting well with others is to listen
to them.

The most common forms of social interaction are exchange, competition, conflict,
cooperation, and accommodation.

A social interaction is a social exchange between two or more individuals.

These interactions form the basis for social structure and therefore are a key object of
basic social inquiry and analysis. Social interaction can be studied between groups of two
(dyads), three (triads) or larger social groups.

The Role of innovation in response to problems and challenges:

CHALLENGES HINDERING INNOVATION IN AN ORGANIZATION

(Brendan Playford)
Innovation is fast becoming one of the most important factors for an organization’s success
and growth. As such, cultivating innovation in an organization should be a critical
organizational initiative. Despite that, many organizations face internal challenges which
hinder the progress of innovation. Here are nine of these common challenges and how to
solve them:

1. Members aren’t empowered to innovate. Many managers fear that innovation will
distract employees from their day-to-day roles. As a result, members do not feel
empowered to take risks or try new ideas. Internal innovation requires the support
of leadership and managers to take hold across the organization.

2. Members aren't motivated to innovate. Once they are empowered, they must also
feel the motivation to innovate. Motivation initiatives like contests or even
unstructured time can help encourage them to spend time innovating.

3. You're missing an innovation strategy. Like any organizational initiative,

developing a concise innovation strategy is crucial. An innovation strategy dictates
the direction of innovation and its operational implementation. Without one,
innovation efforts risk misalignment.

4. Innovation is centralized to one functional group. In many organizations,

innovation is the responsibility of solely one functional group. The myth that one
functional group is more suited to innovate than others is a severe hindrance to the
pace of innovation; each group provides a unique perspective on the problems
critical for driving successful innovation.

5. Lack of collaboration. Collaboration is the key to innovation. While many

organizations understand the importance of collaboration internally, collaboration
externally can be equally important. Innovation ecosystems bring together group
partners, and even competitors to drive innovation forward.

6. Lack of diversity. Having diverse teams can provide the organization’s innovation
initiatives with a wealth of ideas generated from different perspectives.

7. Being contented with success. Many organizations risk complacency once their
organization reached success. The fear of pulling resources from existing offerings
can be one of the biggest hindrances to future innovation. However, constant
innovation is the key to sustained success long-term.

8. Missed connections. Deep empathy is the key to understanding changes in

demand and staying abreast of future trends; it provides the organization with a
roadmap for what problems to solve next. Utilizing feedback sessions regularly can
help keep your organization tuned in to the needs of an organization.
9. You're measuring innovation incorrectly. Measuring and benchmarking
innovation is core to constantly improving its success. However, traditional KPIs may
not give your organization the best insight into success. Instead, try measuring on
the amount of new ideas generated, percent of time spent on innovation, or the
investment value of innovation-related initiatives.

Innovation is crucial initiative for driving success in your organization long-term.

When beginning innovation initiatives, it’s important to be aware of and plan for these
challenges. Building a strong innovation culture in your organization not only helps
to avoid these challenges, but also to ensure that innovation is a strategic focus for
everyone.