DEFINING CULTURE and SOCIETY

FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF

ANTHROPOLOGY AND
SOCIOLOGY
Topics to be covered:

 Culture and society as anthropological

and sociological concepts
 Perspective in approaches to the study
of culture and society
Activity:
Answer the following activities to check what
you know about the topic.
A. Differentiate culture from society. Write your
answer in the box.
Culture Society
Activity:
Answer the following activities to check what
you know about the topic.
B. How are culture and society interlinked with one
another.
Culture and Society
Guide Question
How are culture and society defined
from the perspectives of Anthropology
and Sociology?
Defining Culture and Society from the perspectives of Anthropology and Sociology

Society - describes a group of people who share

a common territory and a culture.

By as small as neighborhood
"territory", (e.g. barangay)
sociologists refer a city (e.g. Tarlac City)
to adefinable
a country (e.g. Philippines)
region
to as large as the global
region context (e.g. Asia)
Culture - refers to "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". (E.B.
Taylor 1920 [1871])
To clarify, a culture represents the beliefs,
practices, and artifacts of a group; while,
society represents the social structures and
organization of the people who share those
beliefs and practices.

Neither society nor culture could

exist without the other.
Types of Society
1. Hunting and gathering societies
- the earliest form of society;
- small and generally with less than 50
members and is nomadic;
- they survive primarily by hunting, trapping,
fishing, and gathering edible plants;
- the family determines the distribution of food
and how to socialize children;
- members are mutually dependent upon each
other;
- there is a division of labor based on sex
wherein men are responsible for hunting and
women for gathering.
Types of Society

2. Pastoral societies
- rely on products obtained through the
domestication and breeding of animals for
transportation and food;
- common in areas where crops cannot be
supported

3. Horticultural societies
- rely on the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, and
plants in order to survive.
Types of Society

4. Agricultural societies
- rely on the use of technology in order to
cultivate crops in large areas, including wheat,
rice, and corn;
- in this time, towns form, and then cities
emerged, and the economy becomes more
complex.
Types of Society

5. Industrial societies
- they used advanced sources of energy to run
large machinery which led to industrialization.
Innovations in transportation led people to
travel, work in factories, and live in cities.

6. Post-industrial societies
- their economy is based on services and
technology, not production;
- the economy is dependent on tangible goods,
people must pursue greater education, and the
new communications technolgy allows work to
be performed from a variety of locations.
Classification of Culture
All cultures have visible/tangible and nonvisible
or nontangible components.
Material Culture - visible and tangible component;
include all material objects or
those components with physical
representation;
which are created/produced,
changed and utilized by people;
e.g. tools, buildings, gadgets, etc.
Classification of Culture

Nonmaterial Culture -
Cognitive Culture - include ideas, concepts,
philosophies, designs, etc.
that are products of the
mental or intellectual
functioning and reasoning of
the human mind.

Normative Culture - includes all the expectations,

standards, and rules for
human behavior.
Elements of Culture
Beliefs - conceptions or ideas people have about
what is true in the environment around
them; based on common sense, folk
wisdom, religion, science or a
combination of all these.

Values - describe what is appropriate or

inappropriate (good or bad; desirable or
undesirable; worthy or unworthy) in a
given society.
Norms - are specific rules/standards to guide
appropriate behavior. Societal norms
are of different types of norms.

Types proscriptive defines and tells us things not to do.

prescriptive defines and tells us things to do.

aka customs, these are norms for everyday

Forms folkways behavior that people follow for the sake of
tradition or convenience.
these are strict norms that control moral and
mores ethical behavior; are norms based on
definitions of right and wrong.
these are norms that society holds so strong
taboos
that violating it results in extreme disgust.
these are codified ethics and formally agreed,
laws written down and enforced by an official law
enforcement agency.
The Filipino Values
The Filipino Values
Characteristics of Culture
1. Dynamic, Flexible and Adaptive - means that cultures
interact and change. Most cultures are in contact with
other cultures because they exchange ideas and
symbols.

2. Shared and may be Challenged - because we share

culture with other members of the group, we are able to
act in socially appropriate ways as well as predict how
others will act.

3. Learned through socialization and enculturation

(the process of learning culture is enculturation). We learn
cultures from our families, peers, institutions, and media.
Characteristics of Culture
4. Patterned social interactions - Culture does not exist in
isolation. It develops through social interaction. The
experience of other people is impressed on a person as
he/she grows up.

5. Integrated - this is known as holism, or the various parts

of a culture being interconnected or interlinked. All
aspects of culture are related with one another.

7. Requires language and other forms of

communication. Language is the most important
symbolic component of culture.
Orientations in Viewing Other Cultures
Ethnocentrism - a term coined by William Sumner,
is a tendency to see and evaluate
other cultures in terms of one's
own race, nation, or culture.

Xenocentrism - a term coined by John D. Fullmer,

is one's exposure to cultural
practices of others may make
one to give preference to the
ideas, lifestyle, and products of
other cultures.
Orientations in Viewing Other Cultures
Cultural Relativism - is the principle that an individual
human beliefs and activities
should be understood by others
in terms of that individual's own
culture;
Though Franz Boas coined the
term, the concept was
popularized by his students;