Module 2
Module 2
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
Secondary Teacher Education Department
2nd Semester, SY: 2024-2025
Module in GE 3
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
MODULE 2:
THE SELF, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE
OVERVIEW
This module focuses on the different notions of the self in relationship with
the society, culture, community, and family. It will cover concepts about social
comparison, gender, and the looking-glass self as to how it affects self-concept.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
Upon completion of this module, the student will have reliably identified new
ways and paradigms to re-examine the true nature of self, and explain the
relationship between external reality and the self.
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
ACTIVITY 1
MEVOLUTION
Instruction:
Create a collage using your own picture to show how you developed from
the time you were born up to present. For each picture, write a caption to tell a
story about your own evolution. Focus on the physical challenges manifested
while you were growing up.
Use the space below to plan or outline your collage. Share it to the class.
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
ANALYSIS 1
Answer the following questions briefly:
3. What new insights about your social self do you have at this point?
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
ACTIVITY 2
Watch the video clip about “The Real-Life Mowgli” using this link:
https://youtu.be/oqSsFsPYH4A.
Questions:
1. What can you infer from the case of Tarzan and Mowgli?
2. How much of who are you are now a product of your society, community,
and family?
4. Had you been born into a different family and schooled in a different
college, how much of who you are now would change?
Jon is a Math professor in a Catholic university for more than a decade now.
Jon has a beautiful wife named Joan, which he met in college. Joan was Jon’s first
and last girlfriend. Apart from being a husband, Jon is also blessed with two doting
kids, a son and daughter. He also sometimes serves in the church too as a lector
and a commentator. As a man of different roles, one can expect Jon to change and
adjust his behaviors, ways, and even language depending on his social situation.
When Jon is in the university, he conducts himself in a matter that befits his title as
a professor. As a husband, Jon can be intimate and touchy. Joan considers him
sweet, something that his students will never conceive him to be. His kids fear him.
As a father, Jon can be stern. As a lector and commentator, on the other hand, his
church mates knew him as a guy who is calm, all-smiles, and always ready to lend
a helping hand to anyone in need.
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
Questions:
NOTE: This will be recorded as your recitation. Hence, in this part you are
encouraged to be factual with what you perceive. You may cite theories, prominent
people and terms to support your thoughts.
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
ABSTRACTION
The last characteristic of the self being private suggests that the self is
isolated from the external world. It lives within its own world. However, we also see
that this potential clash between the self and the external reality is the reason for
the self to have a clear understanding of what it might be, what it can be, and what
it will be. From this perspective then, one can see that the self s always at the mercy
of external circumstances that bump and collide with it. It is ever-changing and
dynamic, allowing external influences to take part in its shaping. The concern then
of this lesson is in understanding the vibrant relationship between the self and
external reality. This perspective is known as the social constructionist perspective.
"Social constructionists argue for a merged view of “the person” and “their social
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
context” where the boundaries of one cannot easily be separated from the
boundaries of the other"(Stevens 1996).
Social constructivists argue that the self should not be seen as a static entity
that stays constant through and through. Rather, the self has to be seen as
something that is in unceasing flux, in a constant struggle with external reality and
is malleable in its dealings with society. The self is always in participation with social
life and its identity subjected to influences here and there. Having these
perspectives considered should draw one into concluding that the self is truly
multifaceted.
The dynamics and capacity for different personne can be illustrated better
cross-culturally. An overseas Filipino worker (OFW) adjusting to life in another
country is a very good case study. In the Philippines, many people unabashedly
violate jaywalking rules. A common Filipino treats road, even national ones, as
basically his and so he just merely crosses whenever and wherever. When the
same Filipino visits another country with strict traffic rules, say Singapore, you will
notice how suddenly law-abiding the said Filipino becomes. A lot of Filipinos has
anecdotally confirmed this observation.
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
The same malleability can be seen in how some men easily transform into
sweet, docile guys when trying to woe and court a particular woman and suddenly
just change rapidly after hearing a sweet “yes.” This cannot be considered a
conscious change on the part of the guy, or on the part of the law-abiding Filipino
in the first example. The self simply morphed according to the circumstances and
contexts.
Interesting too is the word, mahal. In Filipino, the word can mean both “love”
and “expensive.” In our language, love is intimately bound with value, with being
expensive, being precious. Something expensive is valuable. Someone whom we
love is valuable to us. The Sanskrit origin of the word is “lubh,” which means desire.
Technically, love is a desire. The Filipino word for it has another intonation apart
from mere desire, valuable.
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
In one research, it was found that North Americans are more likely to attribute
being unique to themselves and claim that they are better than most people in doing
what they love doing. Japanese people, on the other hand, have been seen to
display a degree of modesty. If one finds himself born and reared in a particular
culture, one definitely tries to fit in a particular mold. If a self is born into a particular
society or culture, the self will have to adjust according to its exposure.
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
For Mead and Vygotsky, the way that human persons develop is with the use
of language acquisition and interaction with others. The way that we process
information is normally a form of an internal dialogue in our head. Those who
deliberate about moral dilemmas undergo this internal dialog. “Should I do this or
that?” “But if I do this, it will be like this.” “Don’t I want the other option?” and so
cognitive and emotional development of child is always a mimicry of how it is done
in the social world, in the external reality where he is in.
Both Vygotsky and Mead treat the human mind as something that is made,
constituted through language as experienced in the external world and as
encountered in dialogs with others. A young child internalizes values, norms,
practices, and social beliefs and more through exposure to these dialogs that will
eventually become part of his individual world. For Mead, this takes place as a child
assumes the “other” through language and role-play. A child conceptualizes his
notion of “self” through this. Can you notice how little children are fond of playing
role-play with their toys? How they make scripts and dialogs for their toys as they
play with them? According to Mead, it is through this that a child delineates the “I”
from the rest. Vygotsky, for his part, a child internalizes real-life dialogs that he has
had with others, with his family, his primary caregiver, or his playmates. They apply
this to their mental and practical problems along with the social and cultural
infusions brought about by the said dialogs. Can you notice how children eventually
become what they watch? How children can easily adapt ways of cartoon
characters they are exposed to?
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
(Isaksen, 2013).
Self in Families
Apart from the anthropological and psychological basis for the relationship
between the self and the social world, the sociological likewise struggled to
understand the real connection between the two concepts. In doing so, sociologists
focus on the different institutions and powers at play in the society. Among these,
the most prominent is the family.
While every child is born with certain givenness, disposition coming from his
parents’ genes and general condition of life, the impact of one’s family is still
deemed as a given in understanding the self. The kind of family that we are born
in, the resources available to us (human, spiritual, economic), and the kind of
development that we will have will certainly affect us as we go through life. As a
matter of evolutionary fact, human persons are one of those beings whose
importance of family cannot be denied. Human beings are born virtually helpless
and the dependency period of a human baby to its parents for nurturing is relatively
longer than most other animals. Learning therefore is critical in capacity to actualize
our potential of becoming humans. In trying to achieve the goal of becoming a fully
realized human, a child enters a system of relationships, most important of which
is the family.
Human persons learn the ways of living and therefore their selfhood by being
in a family. It is what a family initiates a person to become that serves as the basis
for this person’s progress. Babies internalize ways and styles that they observe
from their family. By imitating, for example, the language of its primary agents of
rearing its family, babies learn the language. The same is true for ways of behaving.
Notice how kids reared in a respectful environment become respectful as well and
the converse if raised in a converse family. Internalizing behavior may either
conscious or unconscious. Table manners or ways of speaking to elders are things
that are impossible to teach and therefore, are consciously learned by kids. Some
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
behaviors and attitudes, on the other hand, may be indirectly taught through
rewards and punishments. Others, such as sexual behavior or how to confront
emotions, are learned through subtle means, like the tone of the voice or intonation
of the models. It is then clear at this point that those who develop and eventually
grow to become adult who still did not learn a simple matters like basic manners of
conduct failed in internalizing due to parental or familial failure to initiate them into
the world.
Another important aspect of the self is gender. Gender is one of those loci of
the self that is subject to alteration, change, and development. We have seen in the
past years how people fought hard for the right to express, validate, and assert their
gender expression. Many controversies may frown upon this and insist on the
biological. However, from the point-of-view of the social sciences and the self, it is
important to give one the leeway to find, express, and live his identity. This forms
part of selfhood that one cannot just dismiss. One maneuvers into the society and
identifies himself as who he is by also taking note of gender identities. A wonderful
anecdote about Leo Tolstoy’s wife that can solidify this point is narrated below:
Sonia Tolstoy, the wife of the famous Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, wrote
when she was twenty-one, “I am nothing but a miserable crushed worm, whom no
one wants, whom no one loves, a useless creature with morning sickness, and a
big belly, two rotten teeth, and a bad temper, a battered sense of dignity, and a love
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
which nobody wants and which nearly drives me insane.” A few years later she
wrote, “It make me laugh to read over this diary. It’s so full of contradictions, and
one would think that I was such an unhappy woman. Yet is there a happier woman
than I?” (Tolstoy 1975)
This account illustrates that our gender partly determines how we see
ourselves in the world. Often times, society forces a particular identity unto us
depending on our sex and/or gender. In the Philippines, husbands for the most part
are expected to provide for the family and hold it in. Slight modifications have been
on the way due to feminism and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ+)
activism but for the most part, patriarchy has remained to be at work.
Nancy Chodorow, a feminist, argues that because mothers take the role of
taking care of children, there is a tendency for girls to imitate the same and
reproduce the same kind of mentality of women as care providers in the family. The
way that little girls given dolls instead of guns or any other toys or are encouraged
to play with makeshift kitchen also reinforces the notion of what roles they should
take and the selves they should develop. In boarding schools for girls, young
women are encouraged to act like fine ladies, are trained to behave in a fashion
that befits their status as women in society.
Men on the other hand, in the periphery of their own family, are taught early
on how to behave like a man. This normally includes holding in one’s emotion,
being tough, fatalistic, not to worry about danger, and admiration for hard physical
labor. Masculinity is learned by integrating a young boy in a society. In the
Philippines, young boys had to undergo circumcision not just for the original, clinical
purpose of hygiene but also to assert their manliness in the society. Circumcision
plays another social role by initiating young boys into manhood.
The gendered self is then shaped within a particular context of time and
space. The sense of self that is being taught makes sure that an individual fits in a
particular environment. This dangerous and detrimental in the goal of truly finding
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
one’s self, self-determination, and growth of the self. Gender has to be personally
discovered and asserted and not dictated by culture and the society.
APPLICATION
Paste a picture of you when you were in elementary, in high school, and
now that you are in college. Below the picture, list down your salient characteristics
that you remember.
After having examined your “self” in different stages, write your thoughts on
the following:
A. Similarities in all stages of my “self”
B. Differences in my “self” across the three stages of my life
C. Possible reasons for the differences in D. Aspects of yourself you think
may be changed or would you like to change Take a clear shot/picture
of your output. Submission shall be made through Google classroom.
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Module in GE 3 Prof. Christine M. Adlawan
REFERENCES
➢ Alata, Eden Joy, et. al., (2020) Understanding the Self. Rex
Bookstore, Inc.
➢ Otig, V. S., Gallinero, W. B., Bataga, N. U., Salado, F. B., & Visande, J.
C. (2018). A Holistic Approach in Understanding the Self. Malabon City,
Philippines: Mutya Publishing
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