UNITAS IN DIVERSITAE:

STARTING POINTS FOR

THE UNDERSTANDING OF
STUDY OF SOCIETY,
CULTURE, AND POLITICS

Jhe-Rico Sam S. Colina

Humanities and Social Sciences
Senior High School Department,
Far Eastern University Alabang
 SCOPE
 Culture and CulturalDiversity
 Elements of CulturalDiversity
 Nationality
 Ethnicity
 Gender
 SocioeconomicClass
 PoliticalIdentity
 Exceptionality
 Religion

 Effects of CulturalDiversity
CULTURAL DIVERSITY
 CULTURE (ARCINAS 2017)
A strong part of people’s lives that influences their
values, humor, hopes, loyalties, worries and fears

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 the society (citing
Taylor 1920)
 CULTURE AND ITS DIVERSITY
(ARCINAS 2017; SANTARITA AND MADRID 2016)

Happens due to differences

in environment and history
as it is affected by forces
that both encourages and
resists change
Derived from the behaviour
of human groups influenced
by beliefs, practices, and
material possessions
 SOME ELEMENTS
OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY
 NATION AND NATIONALITY
 Nation: large group of people
imagining themselves to have
sprung collectively from a
common past, and feeling a
moral obligation to devote
themselves to the achievement
of a common future via the
mechanism of an all-
encompassing political
community (David 2017)
 Nationality: identity that is tied to
being part of a nation or country
(Alejandria-Gonzales, 2016)
 GENDER
(SANTARITA AND MADRID 2016;
ALEJANDRIA-GONZALES 2016)
 Socially constructed roles,
behaviors, activities, and
attributes that a given society
considers appropriate for men
and women (citing WHO, 2013)
 Differs from SEX which refers to
the biological characteristic of
humans
 Becomes a basis of one’sidentity
 Heterosexual – attracted to person of oppositesex

 Homosexual – attracted to person of same sex

 Bisexual – attracted to bothsexes

 Asexual – totally incapable of being attracted to anysex

 Polysexual – attracted to different types ofgender

 Pansexual – accommodates all types ofgender

 Transexual – persons who undergo medical sexual

reassignment
 Transgender – people whose gender identities do not
match their biological identity

TYPES OF GENDER
(SANTARITA AND MADRID 2016)
Categorization of persons
who have more or less the
same socioeconomic
privileges in a society
Varies between each
societies due to inherited
privilege, life achievement,
and wealth

SOCIOECONOMIC CLASS
(ARCINAS 2017; SANTARITA AND MADRID
2016; ALEJANDRIA-GONZALES 2016)
 Organized system of ideas
about the spiritual sphere or
the supernatural, along with
associated ceremonial or
ritualistic practices by which
people try to interpret and/or
influence aspects of the
universe otherwise beyond
human control (citing
Haviland 2008)

RELIGION
(SANTARITA AND MADRID 2016)
The set of attitudes and
practices that an
individual adheres to in
relation to the political
systems and actors within
his or her society
Can be acquired through
subscription of a political
ideology or religious belief

POLITICAL IDENTITY
(ALEJANDRIA-GONZALES 2016)
EFFECTS OF CULTURALDIVERSITY
(SANTARITA AND MADRID 2016;
ALEJANDRIA-GONZALES 2016)
 PROMOTES DIVERSITY AND PLURALITY
IN CULTURALTRADITIONS

Cultural Relativism –
cultures must be
understood in the
context of their locality
Ethnocentrism – individual’s
culture is most efficient and
superior
Racism and discrimination

Due to biases in the

perspectives of the observer

IN SOME CASES, MAY LEAD TO

DISCRIMINATION ANDOSTRACISCM
 TOWARDS BIOLOGICAL
EGALITARIANISM

Biological Egalitarianism –
equality of biological make-up
despite of our ancestry
 TRANSLATION
(Agpalo 1976):

All men are equal, be the

color of the skin black or
white. One may be superior
to another in knowledge,
wealth and beauty, but can
not be superior in being
(from the Teachings of the
Katipunan, 1895)