SOCIETY
➢ system of interrelationships that
connects individuals.
➢ Latin: societas from socius (the
ties that bind people together)
➢ French: societé which means
companion, chum, comrade,
associate, or partner.
➢ No society could exist without
culture, and no culture could
exist without a society.
➢ Society is sometimes separated
from culture.
➢ According to Clifford Geertz:
○ “Society is the organization of social relations, while culture
emerges from symbolic forms (beliefs, ideologies, etc.)”.
➢ Ideology is a way of looking at and perceiving the world,
shared by the members of a community.
➢ Sociologists investigate human behavior from different
viewpoints such as the cultural, economic, political, and
psychological perspectives, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
➢ Family is the most basic building block of society.
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIETY:
1. Organized
2. Dynamic
3. Likeness
4. Differences
5. Interdependence
6. Cooperation
7. Conflict
CULTURE
➢ a blueprint for living in a particular society
➢ To sociologists, every human being is cultured.
➢ crucial to human existence
➢ all that human beings learn to do, to use, to produce, to know,
and to believe as they grow to maturity and live out their lives
in the social groups to which they belong
➢ taught and learned through social interaction
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS OF CULTURE
1. Can be learned
2. Can be material or immaterial
3. Patterned behavior
4. Can be created
5. Shared
2 TYPES OF CULTURE:
1. Material Culture
➢ consists of human technology—all the things human beings
make and use, from small, handheld tools to skyscrapers
➢ can be seen, touched, smelled, heard, and tasted
➢ humans use material culture to modify and exploit the
environment for survival and stability
2. Nonmaterial Culture
➢ which consists of the totality of knowledge, beliefs, values,
and rules for appropriate behavior.
➢ cannot be seen, touched, smelled, heard, and tasted
➢ structured by such institutions as the family, religion,
education, economy, and government.
➢ Norms are central elements of nonmaterial culture.
6 ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
1. Symbols
➢ anything that carries a particular meaning
recognized by people who share a culture.
2. Language
➢ a system of symbols that allows people to communicate
➢ Through language we can transmit culture.
➢ Wisdom over time is passed down through language.
3. Norms
➢ standards and expectations for behaving
➢ acceptable and appropriate within a culture
➢ are specific to a culture, time period, and situation
➢ Ideal norms
○ expectations of what people should do under perfect
conditions
○ norms that parents first teach their children
➢ Real norms
○ norms that are expressed with qualifications and
allowances for differences in individual behavior
○ specify how people actually behave.
➢ 2 Types of Norms:
○ Formal norms
■ important standards of behavior
■ Mores
● widely observed and have great moral
significance
● (ex. taboos Incest, rape, murder)
■ Laws
● officially written set of rules, ratified by the
government
○ Informal norms
■ considered less important but still influence how
we behave.
■ Folkways
● norms of routine or casual interaction
● (ex. Shaking hands, eating styles, saying
excuse me)
4. Rituals
➢ established procedures and ceremonies that often mark
transitions in the life course
➢ reflect and transmit a culture’s norms and other elements
from one generation to the next
5. Values
➢ involve judgments of what is good or bad and desirable or
undesirable.
➢ culture’s general orientations toward life
➢ it shapes the norms
6. Artifacts
➢ material objects that constitute a society’s material culture.
CULTURAL ISSUES
1. Cultural identity
➢ sense of belonging towards a culture.
➢ can be justified with the shared set of companionship,
principles or beliefs of living.
➢ includes:
○ Age
■ differences in age groups and culture within a
society
○ SOGIE
■ sexual orientation, gender identity, and expression
○ Ethnicity
■ cultural roots based on ancestry
○ Nationality
■ belongingness to a state/country
○ Religion
■ affiliation to an official church or spiritual group
○ Social class
■ Refers to economic status
2. Sub-culture
➢ group of people within a culture that differentiates itself
from the parent culture to which it belongs, often
maintaining some of its founding principles.
➢ A smaller cultural group within a larger culture
3. Counter-culture
➢ are a type of subculture that rejects some of the larger
culture’s norms and values
➢ In contrast to subcultures, which operate relatively smoothly
within the larger society, countercultures might actively
defy larger society by developing their own set of rules and
norms to live by, sometimes even creating communities that
operate outside of greater society.
4. High Culture
➢ describe the pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes
that exist in the “highest” class segments of a society
➢ People often associate high culture with intellectualism,
aesthetic taste, political power, and prestige.
➢ In North America, high culture also tends to be associated
with wealth.
➢ Events considered high culture can be expensive and
formal
5. Pop Culture
➢ pattern of cultural experiences and attitudes that exist in
mainstream society
➢ often expressed and spread via commercial media such as
radio, television, movies, the music industry, publishers, and
corporate-run websites.
➢ Unlike high culture, popular culture is known and
accessible to most people.
6. Culture Shock
➢ Sociologists use the term culture shock to describe the
difficulty people have adjusting to a new culture that
differs markedly from their own.
➢ When individuals travel abroad to countries with cultures
that are very different from their own, the experience can
be quite upsetting.
7. Cultural Lag
➢ a relatively slower advance or change of one aspect of a
culture
➢ the slower development of nonmaterial as contrasted with
material or technological culture traits
8. Ethnocentrism
➢ term anthropologists use to describe the opinion that one’s
own way of life is natural or correct.
➢ Some would simply call it cultural ignorance.
➢ means that one may see his/her own culture as the correct
way of living.
➢ can lead to prejudice and discrimination and often results
in the repression or domination of one group by another
9. Cultural relativism
➢ to avoid ethnocentrism
➢ refers to not judging a culture to our own standards of
what is right or wrong, strange or normal.
➢ trying to understand cultural practices of other groups in
its own cultural context.
➢ the recognition that social groups and cultures must be
studied and understood on their own terms before valid
comparisons can be made
➢ approach to performing objective cross-cultural research.
➢ requires behaviors and customs to be viewed and analyzed
within the context in which they occur.
