Soc. Sci.

1: Society and
Culture

FIRST SEMESTER, 2022 - 2023

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MINDANAO
PALMA CLUSTER CAMPUSES, COTABATO
 Objectives:

1) Define ‘society’
2) Identify the different social
institutions
3) Define ‘culture’
 What is Society?
- one of the basic building blocks used by sociologists
to be able to understand the world we live in
- denotes the totality of social organization and its
complex network of social relationships or social
interaction
- symbolizes that group within which human beings
can live a total common life.
- a group of people who live within the same territory,
share a common culture, perpetuate themselves through
reproduction, and constitute a more or less self-sufficient
unit (Zanden 1993:50)
- a geographical aggregate consisting of members who
live in common life and interact one another
- can be small (tribal community) or large (modern nation
with millions of members)
 However, with today’s technological
communication, one can have a society of
people who share common culture without
sharing a common habitat or geographical
territory.
These may be professional organization,
trade organization or labor unions.
 Society Has:
1) Structure
2) Function

Social Structure – refers to the patterns of

relationships between units of a specified whole
- is observed in the regularity of people’s behavior
and interrelation with one another
Social Function – refers to the “series of service activities
carried on by an organized group of persons in a society for
the benefit of its members” (Fairchild 1955:293)
- is observed in the regularity of people’s behavior and
interrelation with one another
Merton (1957) identified the functions of social function to
what the system does and the outcomes that arise from a
certain type of structure.
 Within the society there exist organized systems of
social norms, beliefs, values, and material culture formed
around the social needs of people known as social
institution.
These create clusters of relatively stable rules that
govern social activities in a society and constitute
practices based on similar principles that display some
degree of regularity (Howard and Hattis, 1992:428).
 4 Types of Social Institutions:

1) Those that deal with the economy and property relations -

farms, banks, markets
2) Those concerned with social control - politics & law, govt,
courts and police
3) Those concerned with the supernatural - religion, church,
monasteries, mosques
4) Those based on the principle of kinship by descent and
marriage - family
- Each performs definite functions that are integrative and
interrelated with each other
 Types of Functions:
1) Manifest
2) Latent

Manifest – the observed consequences that are

intended and recognized by participants in a system

Latent - functions that are unintended and

unrecognizable
 examples:
1) Manifest
- The family has the manifest functions of
procreation and education

2) Latent
- Training the children for certain
occupational skills
 What is Culture?

- According to E.B. Taylor, culture is a complex

(multifaceted) whole which includes knowledge,
beliefs, arts, morals, customs, and other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a member of society
- Functionalists define this as the totality of meanings,
values, customs, norms, ideas and symbols relative to
a society (Waters 1994:173)
- includes all the creations (material and non-material)
and achievements of humans, the inherited expectations,
and the past and present gains as a result of living
together
- prescribes what one can do or not do and how one
should do things in various situations
- simply put, culture is a way of life which is a product of,
as well as guide for social interaction.
Characteristics of Culture?

1) Culture is learned
2) Culture is transmitted
3) Culture is shared
4) Culture is patterned and integrated
5) Culture is adaptive and maladaptive
Characteristics of Culture?

1) Culture is learned 5) Culture is adaptive and

2) Culture is transmitted maladaptive
3) Culture is shared 6) Culture is compulsory
4) Culture is patterned and 7) Culture is essential for social
integrated life
Elements of Culture?

1) beliefs
2) Norms
3) Values
4) Material culture and Technology
5) language
Questions