Core Subject Title: Understanding Culture, Society and Politics

Grade: Grade 11
Subject Teacher: Aira Joyce N. Cuaterno

TOPIC: THE SOCIAL SCIENCES: SOCIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY, AND POLITICAL SCIENCE

THE SOCIAL AS “DRIVER OF INTERACTION”

Study of Society:
1. Mapping the social forces impinging on social actors as their lives intersect in society.
2. Rehearsing the structures and components of cultural practices and traditions
3. Exposing the asymmetrical power distributions among members of social communities and
organizations.

SOCIOLOGY
What is Sociology?
 Focuses on the ubiquity of social forces in unlikely forms: sex, gender, religion, class, race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation, and the like.
 “the study of human social life, groups and society”

Social forces
 Represent a constellation of unseen yet powerful forces influencing the behavior of individuals
and institutions.
 normally in the guise of rules, norms, and expectations

Social map
 Person’s specific economic and political location.
 “the vivid awareness of the relationship between private experience and wider society” –C.
Wright Mills
 it allows the social actors to discern opportunities where there is none by converting their
personal troubles into public issues.

HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY
French Revolution (1789) Industrial Revolution in England (18th Century)
Auguste Comte (1798-1857) “Father of Sociology” He believed that society operates according to
certain laws, just as the physical world operates according to gravity and other laws of nature.
Herbert Spencer (1820- 1903) “Survival of the fittest” He likened society to an organism with a life and
vitality of its own.
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) “Niche Problematique”
Social Fact - it has distinctive characteristics and determinants which are capable of holding an
external constraints on the individual
Karl Marx (1818-1883) “The Communist Manifesto” He reiterated that political revolution was vital in the
evolutionary process of society, the only means to achieve improvement of social condition.
Max Weber (1864-1920) “The most important proponent of interpretive sociology” He believed that a
“sympathetic understanding, vertsehen, of the mind of others” was essential to understanding the
behavior of others
SOCIAL INTERACTIONISM “governed by the meanings shared and co- created by social actors in every
interaction or encounter” - Charles Horton Cooley - Herbert Blumer - George Herbert Mead

ANTHROPOLOGY
 Is derived from two Greek words: Anthropos and logos.
 Studies humans and the respective cultures where they were born and actively belong.
 Considered the father or even the grandfather of all social sciences and behavioral sciences.
Franz Boas “father of American Anthropology” He believed that the same method and strategy could
be applied in measuring culture and human behavior while conducting research among humans
including the uniqueness of their cultures.
Alfred Kroeber and William Henry - indigenous rights like traditional cultural preservation and ancestral
domain of the American tribes

As a Social Science
 It focuses on human diversity around the world.
 Anthropologist look at cross-cultural differences in social institutions, cultural beliefs, and
communication styles.

CULTURAL DIVERSITY Multiculturalism

SOCIAL DIVERSITY refers to the gaps between people as measured by the presence or absence of
certain socially desirable traits
CASTE SYSTEM the system of dividing society into
CLASS A person’s position is based upon
ESTATE Gives emphasis to birth as well as wealth and possessions
SLAVERY Had economic basis wherein the master shows power over slave

POLITICAL SCIENCE
 The systematic study of government and politics.
 Is the discipline that problematizes the nature of power and studies how possession and exercise
of power can shape individual actions and collective decisions for that matter.
 The activity through which people make, preserve, and amend the general rules under which
they live.

POWER Ability to influence others. It gives authority to lead

ORDER Is attained through obedience on the rules set by leaders
JUSTICE Is felt in a society with order.
SOCIAL CHANGE The alteration of mechanisms within the social structure, characterized by changes
in cultural symbols, rules of behavior, social organizations, or value system.
SOCIAL ACTIVISM
 is an intentional action with the goal of bringing about social change.
 The efforts to promote, inhibit, or (re)direct social, political, economic, environmental issues with
the desire to make improvements in society and correct social injustice.
BARON DE MONTESQUIEU – separation of powers
 EXECUTIVE BRANCH carries out the laws but cannot make laws to make themselves powerful.
 LEGISLATIVE BRANCH the part that makes laws
 JUDICIAL BRANCH the judiciary is responsible for making sure that criminals are punished so that
members of the government cannot ignore the law as the judiciary can
THOMAS HOBBES the founders of modern political philosophy
JOHN LOCKE “Father of Liberalism"