People rarely distinguished the difference between the terms “culture” and “society”

but for sociologist, the two terms have different meanings and the distinction is
important.

A society describes a group of people who share a common territory and a culture. By
“territory” sociologist refer to a definable region—as small as neighborhood (e.g.,
barangay), a city(e.g., manila), a country (e.g., Philippines),to as large as the global
regional context (e.g., Asia). While the culture refers to a “the complex whole which
encompasses beliefs, practices, values, attitudes, laws, norms, artifacts, symbols,
knowledge and everything that a person learns and shares as a member of society”.
(E.B. Tylor1920[1871]). To clarify a culture represents the beliefs, practices and
artifacts of a group, while society represents the social structures and organization of
the people who share those beliefs and practices. Neither society nor culture could
exist without the other.

HUNTING AND GATHERING SOCIETIES

- These are the earliest form of society, they are small and generally with less than 50
members and nomadic. The members survive primarily by hunting, trapping, fishing and
gathering edible plants. The family determines the distribution of food and how to
socialize children. There is division of labor based on sex wherein men are responsible
for hunting and women are gatherers.
PASTORAL SOCIETIES
- They rely on products obtained through the domestication and breeding of animals
for transportation and food. They are common in areas where crops cannot be
supported and only have to move when the land in which the animals graze is no longer
usable. They also allow for job specialization, since not everyone is needed for gather or
hunt for food.
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETIES

- These societies rely on the cultivation of fruits, vegetables and plants in order to
survive. They often forced to relocate when the resources of the land are depleted or when
the water supplies decrease.

AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES

- They rely on the use of technology in order to cultivate crops in large areas, including
wheat, rice and corn. Productivity increases, and as long as there is plenty of food,
people do not have to move. This time, towns form and then cities emerged,
specialization increases, and the economy becomes more complex.
INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES

- They uses advanced sources of energy to run large machinery which led to
industrialization. Innovates in transportation led to people to travel, work in factories
and live in cities. Occupational specialization became even more of an identifier than his
or her family.
POST-INDUSTRIAL SOCIETIES

- Their economy is based on the services and technology not production. The economy
is dependent on tangible goods, people, must pursue greater education, and the new
communications technology allows work to be performed from a variety of locations.

Cultures has key features (classification and elements) and characteristics that are present in
all cultures.
CLASSIFICATION OF CULTURE
All cultures has visible/tangible and non-visible or non-tangible components. Cultural
components that are visible and tangible are called material culture which include all material
objects or those components or elements of culture with physical representation such as
tools, furniture, buildings, bridges, gadgets, etc. components of culture which are
created/produced, change and utilized by culture.
On the other hand, there are components of culture that are non-tangible or without physical
representation and these are called non-material culture which can be categorized into
cognitive and normative non-material culture. Cognitive culture include the ideas, concepts,
philosophies, designs, etc. that are product of the mental or intellectual functioning and
reasoning at the human mind while the normative culture includes all the expectations,
standards and rules for human behavior.
The material and non-material cultures are always interlink. The existence of material
culture is justified by the non-material culture (cognitive and/or normative).
Any form/element of the material culture will be meaningless and will cease to exist without
the ideas and normative expectations that support it. Example, a chair will just be a piece of
wood or metal without the function that it serves in a society, and its worth or value varies
depending who created it, who will seat on it or use it.
ELEMENTS OF CULTURE
All cultures consists of key of elements that are crucial to human existence.

BELIEFS-are conceptions or ideas of people have about what is true in the environment around
them like what is life, how to value it, and how one’s belied on the value of life relates with his or
her interaction with others and the world. These may be based on common sense, folk wisdom,
religion, science or a combination of all of these.

VALUES-describe what is appropriate or inappropriate (good or bad: desirable or undesirable:

worthy or unworthy) in a given society or what ought to be. They are broad, abstract and shared to
influence and guide behavior of people.

PEOPLE-live in a culture wherein symbols are used to understand each other. Symbols can
be verbal (words) or non-verbal (acts, gestures, signs and object) that communicate
meaning that people recognized and shared.

LANGUAGE-is a shared set of spoken and written symbols. They are basic to communication
and transmission of culture. It is known as the storehouse of culture.

TECHNOLOGY- refers to the application of knowledge and equipment to ease the task of
living and maintaining the environment. It includes all artifacts, methods and devices
created and used by people.
 NORMS-are specific rules/standards to guide for appropriate behavior. Societal norms have
different types and forms.
TYPES

PROSCRIPTIVE DEFINES AND TELLS US THINGS NOT TO DO

PRESCRIPTIVE DEFINES AND TELLS US THING TO DO

FORMS

FOLKWAYS ALSO KWON AS CUSTOMS, THEY ARE NORM FOR

EVERYDAY BEHAVIOR THAT PEOPLE FOLLOW FOR
THE SAKE OF TRADITION.
THEY ARE STRICT NORMS THAT CONTROL MORAL
MORES AND ETHICAL BEHAVIOR. MORES ARE NORMS
BASED ON DEFINITION OF RIGHT AND WRONG.
TABOOS THEY ARE NORMS THAT SOCIETY HOLDS SO
STRONGLY THAT VIOLATING IT RESULTS IN
EXTREME DISGUST.
LAWS THEY ARE CODIFIED ETHICS, AND FORMALLY
AGREED, WRITTEN DOWN AND ENFORCED BY AN
OFFICIAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCY

By themselves, norms are guidelines of human behavior. Sanctions are encourage conformity
to norms. Sanctions are socially imposed rewards and punishments in society which maybe
formal or informal.
Characteristics of Culture
All cultures share basic characteristics that are key to its existence.
1. Dynamic, flexible and adaptive. This basically means that cultures interact and change.
Most societies interacts with other societies and as a consequence their cultures interact that
lead to exchanges of material (e.g. tools and furniture) and non-material (e.g. ideas and
symbols) components of culture. All cultures change, or else they would have problems
adjusting and adapting to changing environments. Culture is adaptive and dynamic, once we
recognize problems, culture can adapt again, in a more positive way, to find solutions.
2. Shared and may be Challenged (give the reality of social differentiation). As we share
culture with others, we are able to act in appropriate ways as well as predict how others will
act. Despite homogenous (the same), It may be challenged by the presence of other cultures
and other social forces in society like modernization, industrialization and globalization.
3. Learned through socializations or enculturation . It is not biological , we do not inherit it but
learned as interact in society. Much of learning culture is unconscious. We learn, absorb and
acquire culture from families, peers, institutions and the media. The process of learning culture
is known as enculturation.
4. Patterned social interactions. Culture as a normative system has the capacity to define and
control human behaviors. Norms are cultural expectations in terms of how one will think, feel
or behave as set by one’s culture. It sets the pattern in terms of what is appropriate or
inappropriate in a given setting. Human interaction are guided by some forms of standard and
expectation which in the end regularize it.
5. Integrated. This is known as holism, or the various parts of a culture being interconnected or
interlinked. All aspects of a culture are related to one another and to truly understand a
culture, one must learn about all of its parts, not only a few.
6. Transmitted through socialization/enculturation. As we share our culture with others, we
were able to pass It on to the new members of society or the younger generation in different
ways. In the process of socialization/enculturation, we were able to teach them about many
things in life and equip them with the culturally acceptable ways of surviving, competing and
making meaningful interaction with others in society.
7. Requires language and other forms of communication. In the process of learning and
transmitting culture, we need symbols and language to communicate with others in society.
Symbol is something that strands for something else. Symbols vary cross-culturally and are
arbitrary. They only have meaning when people in a culture agree on their use. Language,
money and art are all symbols. Language is one of the key elements of culture needed for
people in one culture to interact or for one to interact with other people in other cultures.

Today, we live in a rapidly changing globalized society. And, as modern technology get more
innovative, people from various cultures get closer in interaction with each other. Depending
on the level of sensitivity and respect people have for other cultural groups, this interaction,
may be seen as positive or negative.

[Ethnocentrism] is the view of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything and
all others are scaled and rated with reference to it. Each group nourishes its own pride and
vanity, boast itself superior, exalts its own divinities and looks with contempt on outsiders.
-William Graham Summer
Ethnocentrism, a term coined by William Summer, is the tendency to see and evaluate other
culture in terms of one’s own race, nation or culture. This rests on the belief of the superiority
of one’s own culture or ethnic group compared to others. While societies have the tendency to
display or manifest certain amount of ethnocentrism, cultural sensitivity is also expected
especially if one visitor. Non-sensitivity to cultural practices of other groups may be mis-
interpreted and this may lead to conflict with others or maybe seen by others as a rude behavior
especially when articulated or expressed in front of others. Learning to take the role of the
other person gives one the ability to see the perspective of the other before articulating or
giving judgement. To do this, it is important to:
1. Study the cultural context in which the action occurs.
2. Determine the circumstances of place, time and condition surrounding it.
3. Look into the reasoning behind any cultural element.

People are highly influenced by the culture or many culture outside the realm of their society.
In this globalized society, one’s exposure to cultural practices of others may make one to give
preference to the ideas, lifestyle and products of other culture which is termed by John D.
Fullmer as xenocentrism. People who usually experience xenocentrism came from a country
with lower economic position as compared to the one preferred. This may be triggered by
comparison wherein the person sees one’s position as interior and would like to improve
one’s status or experience a better condition compared to his/her current position.

Cultural relativism is the principle that an individual human’s beliefs and activities should be
understood by others in terms of that individual’s own culture. Though Franz Boas coined the
term, the concept was popularized by his students. Cultural relativism highlights the
perspective that no culture is superior to any other culture when comparing systems of
morality, law, politics, etc. Culture is seen to have equal value. It rests on the idea that all
cultural practices and beliefs are equally valid and that truth itself is relative, depending on the
cultural environment.
Followers of the idea of cultural relativism also embraces the views that religious, ethical,
aesthetic and political beliefs are completely relative to the individual within a cultural identity.
It also covers ideas of moral relativism (ethics depend on a social construct), situational
relativism (right or wrong is based on the particular situation) and cognitive relativism (truth
itself has no objective standard)
Cultural relativists claim the following:
1. Different societies have different moral codes
2. The moral code of a society determines what is right or wrong within that society.
3. There are no moral truths that hold for all people at all times.
4. The moral code of our own society has no special status, it is but one among many.
5. It is arrogant for us to judge other cultures. We should always be tolerant of them.

~THE END~
PREPARED BY:
ROXY ALAPA & MEMBERS
GROUP 1 REPORTER (^_^)