UCSP – Understanding Culture Society and Politics

Culture – the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the
characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time.

Society – People who interact in a defined territory and share a culture. Basically -People or group of people.

Politics – May be defined as: (1) art of government, (2) public affairs, (3) compromise and consensus, (4) power

Anthropology – The study of human societies and cultures and their development. The study of human biological and
physiological characteristics and their evolution. Greek words, Anthropos and logos. When translated in to English,
Anthropos means human while logos refers to knowledge. In this sense, anthropology can be understood as the
“knowledge about humans”.

CULTURE ANTHROPOLOGY SOCIETY

Anthropology regards culture as learned, symbolic, integrated, shared and all encompassing.
 Learned because culture is acquired by being born into a particular society in the process of enculturation, as
anthropologists would say, or socialization as sociologist would explain.
 Symbolic in the sense that it renders meanings to what people do.
 The systems of meanings and many other facts of culture such as kindred, religion, economic activities,
inheritance, and political process, do not function in isolation but as an integrated whole that makes society
work.
 Shared within exclusive domains of social relations, societies operate differently from each other leading to
cultural variations
 Around the world, people as members of their own societies establish connections with each other and form
relationship guided by their respective cultural practices and values. These complex relations underscore the all
encompassing nature of culture.

SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF SOCIETY

 Structural-Functional Approach
o Structural-functionalists view society as a “complex system whose parts work together to promote
solidarity(unity) and stability.”
 Social-Conflict Approach
o The Social-Conflict approach sees society as an “arena of inequality that generates conflict and change.”
 Symbolic-Interaction Approach
o The symbolic-interaction approach views society as the “product of the everyday interactions of
individuals.”

ETHNOCENTRISM
 When people find cultural practices and values not their own as disturbing and threatening. A literal meaning of
ethnocentricism is the regard that one’s own culture and society is the center of everything and therefore far
more superior than others.
 Chauvinism a position that everything about the other culture is wrong, unreasonable, detestable, and even
wicked.

CULTURAL RELATIVISM
 The concept of cultural relativism underscores the idea that the culture in every society should be understood
and regarded on its own terms. Societies are qualitatively different from one another, such that each one has its
own “unique inner logic”.

Prepare for an oral recitation on Thurs and the SUMMATIVE TEST will be on our last meeting of the week.

Ser Jeryle
Institution
Social group
Status
Roles

Ser Jeryle