Hand-outs #1 UNDERSTANDING CULTURE SOCIETY AND POLITICS

Culture – refers to that complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs and any
other.
 It is learned because it is acquired by being born into a particular society in the process of enculturation,
as anthropologists would say, or socialization, as sociologists would explain. Through language, the
cultural traits of society are passed on to younger members in the process of growing up and through
teaching.
 is symbolic in the sense that it renders meanings to what people do. Beliefs, religion, rituals, myths,
dances, performances, music, artworks, sense of taste, education, innovations, identity, ethnicity, and
so on, are meaningful human expressions of what people do and how they act.
 It is integrated. The systems of meanings and many other facets 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.
 Since culture is shared within exclusive domains of social relations, societies operate differently from
each other leading to cultural variations. Even as culture is bounded, it does not mean that there are no
variations in how people act and relate with each other within a given system of their respective
societies.

In this sense, anthropology can be understood as the ‘knowledge about humans’ (Ibid.). The subject of
anthropological study is humanity but unlike other disciplines in the human sciences, anthropology studies the
diversity and similarity of the way a person live and make connections as social and cultural beings.

To illustrate how one can develop a sociological imagination, Mills distinguishes between two kinds of situations
that people find themselves in: “private troubles” (personal problems) and “public issues” (social problems). He
points out that there are indeed private troubles, but some of them also affect many other people since they
have large-scale causes. Examples of private troubles that are also public issues are poverty; unemployment;
lack of access to education; poor quality of education; air, water, and noise pollution; bullying; single
parenthood; and so on.

Sociology is the systematic study of human society (Macionis 2012: 2), focusing particularly on the dynamic
interplay between individual and society.

Sociologists use three theoretical approaches: the structural-functional approach, the social-conflict approach,
and the symbolic-interaction approach. A theoretical approach is a basic image of society that guides thinking
and research (Macionis 2012: 12)

Structural-Functional Approach
Structural-functionalists view society as a “complex system whose parts work together to promote solidarity and
stability” (Macionis 2012: 12). It involves an analysis of social structure, “any relatively stable pattern of social
behavior.

Social-Conflict Approach
The social-conflict approach sees society as an “arena of inequality that generates conflict and change” (Macionis
2012: 13). It therefore highlights inequality and change.

Symbolic-Interaction Approach
The symbolic-interaction approach views sees society as the “product of the everyday interactions of
individuals”(Macionis 2012: 16). Human beings live in a world of symbols.