Lesson # 4

THE ESSENCE OF ANTHROPOLOGY, POLITICAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY

Anthropology is the study of human beings and their ancestors.

Importance of anthropology:
Anthropology produces knowledge about what makes people different from one another and
what they all share in common.
Four fields of anthropology:
1. Physical anthropology – focus on humans as biological organism.
2. Cultural anthropology – investigates the contrasting ways groups of humans think, feel,
and behave.
3. Biological anthropology – tries to recover information about human cultures – usually
from the past – by studying material samples, skeletal remains, and settlements.
4. Linguistic anthropology – studies the nature of languages – communication systems by
which cultures are maintained and passed on to succeeding generations.
Political Science is the body of knowledge relating to the study of the state and government. It
primarily focuses on the ‘power’ that plays a crucial part in the struggle in which the individuals
and their group may be found involved according to their capability and degree of interest at all
levels – local, regional, national and international.
Sociology is considered the science of society and social behavior, which is viewed as an
aggregate (kabuuan) of individuals.
It seeks to discover the general principles underlying (hindi agad nakikita o nakatago) all social
phenomena and social relationship and to establish laws of change and growth in social sciences.
For instance, many consider suicide as a personal thing but a sociologist looks at it differently by
examining the various impersonal social forces at work in such a destructive act.

SOCIAL, POLITICAL and CULTURAL CHANGE

Social change refers to variations (konting pagkakaiba) or modifications (pagbabago) in the
patterns of social organization, of sub-groups within a society, or of the entire society itself.
There are three causes of social change:
1. Invention
2. Discovery
3. Diffusion
1. Invention is often defined as a new combination or a new use of existing knowledge. It
produces mechanical objects, ideas, and social patterns that reshape society to varying
degrees. It can be classified into:
a. Material inventions (example: mobile phone, airplane)
b. Social inventions (example: alphabet, texting, jejemon)
2. Discovery, on the other hand, takes place when people reorganized existing elements of the
world they had not noticed before or learned to see in a new way. A discovery is also an
addition to the store of verified knowledge.
3. Diffusion refers to the spread of culture traits from one group to another. It creates changes
as cultural elements spread from one society to another through trade, migration, and mass
communication.

Political change includes all categories of change in the direction of open, participatory, and
accountable politics.
Examples:
1. Youth awareness and active participation during election process.
2. The emergence of civil society groups as “pressure groups” during crises in
Philippine politics.

Cultural change refers to all alterations affecting new traits or trait complexes, to change in a
culture’s content and structure.
Examples:
1. Transnational families – one parent, or both parents are contracted to live and work in
another country away from their love ones.
2. Facebook – this technology has radically transformed worldwide interaction.