Understanding Culture, Society, and Politics

KINSHIP- refers to the culturally defined relationships between individuals who are commonly
thought of as having family ties.
1. Affinal- People related by marriage
2. Consanguineal- People related by blood
3. Fictive- social courtesy

FAMILY
• Burgess and Locke: Family is defined as a group of persons united by the ties of
marriage, blood, or adoption.
• Eliott and Merrill: Defined family as the biological social unit composed of husband, wife,
and children.

PRINCIPLES OF DESCENT
1. Unilineality- principle of descent in which people define themselves in relation to only
one side, either their mother's side or their father's side
a. Matrilineality-it is tracing of descent through the female line.
b. Patrilineality - also known as the male line or agnatic kinship
2. Bilineal Descent - principle of descent in which people think of themselves related to
both their mother's kin and their father's kin at the same time

SOCIAL ROLES- a set of connected behaviors, rights, obligations, beliefs, and norms as
conceptualized by people in a social situation.
- Performance of roles depends on the cohesiveness of the members.
Cohesiveness measured in 4 ways:
1. Number of friends- The degree of cooperation and participation of the group on various
activities depend on the number of relatives and friends in the group.
2. Morale of the members- They have confidence with one another and if they have this
confidence, the greater would be the cohesiveness of the members in the group.
3. Sense of belongingness- The members even go to the extent of protecting and
defending the existence of the group.
4. Commitment of the members- When the members are committed to the group’s goals,
norms and activities, the members are able to work cooperatively as a team.

SOCIAL NETWORK
- an element of social interaction in which a web of relationships exists among people, either
directly and indirectly

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS
- created by man from social relationships in society to meet such basic needs as stability, law
and order and clearly defined roles of authority and decision making.
• Woodward and Maxwell: An institution is a set of folkways and mores into a unit which
serves a number of social functions.
• Horton: An institution is an organized system of social relationships which embodies
certain common values and procedures and meets certain basic needs of society.
• Landis: Social institutions are formal cultural structures devised to meet basic social
needs.
INSTITUTIONS
- provide a framework of continuity and predictability that allows to plan their activities more
accurately

1. Political Institutions/ Government - Government as the political institution administers the

regulatory functions of law and order and maintains security in society.
2. Education - is the process of socialization, which begins informally at home and then
formally in educational institutions.
3. Family- is the most basic social institution in a society and is a system of organized
relationship involving workable and dependable ways of meeting basic social needs.
4. Religion- is a set of beliefs regarding the ultimate power in the universe, the ideal and proper
pattern of behavior and ceremonial ways to expressing these beliefs.

STATE INSTITUTIONS
- an organized political community acting under a government and united by common set of
laws
- 3 important political functions:
1. maintains control over violence in its domain
2. allocates resources and rewards at its discretion, and
3. stands as the major focus of identity for the large majority of the people under its authority.

NON-STATE INSTITUTIONS
- institutions that are not controlled by the government or the state (non-governmental)
1. Banks- financial institution that lends money both to public as well as private organizations.
2. Corporations- made up of individuals, shareholders or stockholders who engage to business
3. Cooperatives- form of business governed on the principle of one member, one vote
4. Trade unions- refers to an organization of workers whose main objective is to protect the
welfare of its members.
5. Transnational advocacy groups- groups that organize across national boundaries to pursue
some political , social, or cultural goals
6. Civil organizations- include academic institutions, research teams, mass media, religious
organizations, and people’s organizations.
7. Development Agencies- promote progress by engaging in projects , policy-making, and
dialogues that are essential for development.

EDUCATION- Derived from the Latin word “educare” which means “to train”, “ to rear or bring-
up (a child)”

FORMS OF EDUCATION
1. Formal- learning of academic facts and concepts through a formal curriculum
- an organized, systematic, well-structured and administered according to the
laws and regulations
1. Primary education
2. Secondary Education
3. Tertiary Education

2. Non-formal- refers to an educational activity carried outside the structure of a formal

education (ALS, TESDA)
3. Informal- learning about cultural values, norms and expected behaviours by participating
in a society
- a lifelong process whereby every individual acquires from daily experiences
FUNCTION OF EDUCATION
1. productive citizenry- Through education, individuals are introduced to concepts
concerning democracy, power, inequality, and the like
2. self-actualization - According to Abraham Maslow, self-actualization is the highest form
of human need. It was defined as “to become more and more what one is, to become
everything that one is capable of becoming.”
a. Physiological needs
b. Safety needs
c. Love and belongingness
d. Esteem needs
e. Self-actualization

• The late president Ramon Magsaysay aptly observed that “education is the greatest
equalizer of opportunities” for everybody.
• The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) declare
that education is a fundamental human right and essential for the exercise of all
other human rights.

STRATIFICATION SYSTEMS
- classified as Closed or Open Systems.
1. Open System- describes a society where people frequently can, by acquiring skills and
working hard, move from one level of stratification to a higher level.
-are based on merits or achievements and allow movement and interaction between and
among strata.
2. Closed Systems only allow little change or movement of people from one stratum to
another.

FORMS OF SOCIAL STRATIFICATION

1. Caste System
- are usually a Closed form of Stratification in which people are born into their social
standing and stays there all their lives.
2. Class system
- In this system, individual freedom to choose his or her own career, education and even
associations is given a high regard. occupational, political or religious status of a person
that causes a change in their societal position.
a. upper class
b. middle class
d. lower class

3. Meritocracy
- In this stratification system, from the word itself, the social standing is based on
personal effort or merit.
4. Slavery
- It may be regarded as the most closed system – the ownership of people.

5. Estate Systems
- This system is characterized by control of land probably commenced during the middle
ages until 1800s.
 ❖ Social mobility- movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of
people within or between social strata in a society.
❖ Lateral mobility- also known as role-to-role mobility; a job change in which individuals
move internally from one position to another with little change in their salary or level
❖ Intergenerational mobility- any change in the status of family members between
generations
❖ Vertical mobility- change in the occupational, political or religious status of a person
that causes change in their societal position

SOCIAL INEQUALITY
- occurs when resources in a given society are distributed unevenly, typically through norms of
allocation, that engender specific patterns along lines of socially defined categories of persons.
1. Gender inequality- is born out of the deepening division in the roles assigned to men and
women, particularly in the economic, political and educational spheres.
2. Racial or ethnic inequality -is the result of hierarchical social distinctions between racial and
ethnic categories within a society and often established based on characteristics such as skin
color and other physical characteristics or an individual's place of origin or culture.
3. Health inequalities- are in many cases related to access to health care.
4. Ethnic inequality- ethnic affiliation or distinctiveness

TRANSNATIONAL MIGRATION
-is the process by which individuals from one country migrate to another country for economic,
political and social reasons.
-One of the best examples of transnational migration is the condition of OFW across different
geographical locations.
ADAPTATION- process of change by which an organism or species becomes better suited to
its environment.