UNDERSTANDING

CULTURE,SOCIETY
&POLITICS
MODULE 1
 LESSON 1
 Lesson 1: Anthropology and the Study of
Culture
 Defining Anthropology, its goals and
perspectives
 Objectives
 Are you now ready to start your learning journey
in this course? Great! Let’s take a look at the
Most Essential Learning Competency and the
specific task that you need to accomplish in this
lesson.
 Most Essential Learning Competency: Discuss
the nature, goals and perspectives in
anthropology, sociology and political science.
This lesson provides various activities and
discussions for you to articulate the nature of
anthropology, its goals and perspectives.
 Vocabulary List
 Take a minute or two to read these words
until you become familiar with them. It
would be very helpful if you will get your
pen and notebook to copy the definition of
the important terms below
 Vocabulary List
 1. Anthropology – is the study of humanity
that looks into the biological variation in
time and space (physical or biological
anthropology), and the interplay of society
and culture (cultural anthropology).
 2. Culture- a complex whole which
encompasses beliefs, practices, values,
artifacts, laws, symbols and everything that
a person learns and shares in society.
 Vocabulary List
 3. Deculturation -the loss of cultural beliefs
and practices tied with the changing times.
4. Cultural diffusion - a process of
accommodating desirable traits from other
culture through acculturation, assimilation,
amalgamation, enculturation, colonization
and revolutionary movement
 REVIEW PRACTICE TASK
 Before you start your learning adventure,
try to answer the first task below. This task
will give you an overview of what you will
learn as you go along the way in this
module. Are you ready?
 Directions: Read each statement below.
State whether you AGREE or DISAGREE
to each of the statements. Write the
answers in your notebook.
 1. Culture is innate.
 2. Culture makes an individual unique.
 3. Culture is never static.
 4. Cultural problems arise when the
environment changes but remained the
same.
 5. Culture can be lost or forgotten.
 6. Culture is always classified as
intangible/non-material. If you scored 3
(three) and above, you can now proceed to
the lesson proper.
Learning Activities :Defining the
Nature of Anthropology
 Every individual differs in various ways. So,
putting your lens closer to these differences
reveal how individuals are alike in terms of their
physical features, routines and interaction with
each other. The differences and similarities by
which individuals live, act and interact is a
manifestation of the numerous aspects of
human existence. One of these aspects is man’s
unique social behavior tied to their cultural
backgrounds.
 Culture is the invisible bond which ties people
coming from the same society together. It affects
our judgment skills, perceptions, attitudes and
even our emotions. It has a direct impact on our
behavior. Thus, the culture we have shapes our
values and belief systems which influences our
personalities. Furthermore, our culture gives us
our identity and sense of belongingness to our
community. It is for this reason that
understanding culture is important and this is the
focus of one field in social sciences called
cultural anthropology
 ANTHROPOLOGY
 Anthropology is defined as the study of
humanity. It is derived from the two Greek
words “anthropos” which means man and
“logos” means study.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF
CULTURE
 Since culture is a design or a roadmap
that guides the behavior of members in a
society, it has the following characteristics\
1.Culture is Everything
 It is what a person has, does and think as
part of society. This covers all of a
person’s belief systems, set of behaviors,
and material possessions
 Culture therefore can be
classified into two types:
 Material Culture – includes all tangible and
visible parts of culture like clothes, food, and
even buildings. -Objects are important in the
study of human history because they provide a
concrete basis for the prevailing ideas of the
times and can be used to validate the existing
realities.
 Non-Material Culture – includes all intangible
parts of culture, which consists of values, norms,
laws, sanctions and knowledge among others
 CHARACTERISTICS OF
CULTURE
 2.Culture is Shared This implies that a particular
behavior cannot be considered as part of culture
if there is only one person practicing it.
 Culture is shared is intra and inter-generational.
3.Culture is Learned Culture is a set of beliefs,
attitudes and practices that an individual learns
through his or her family, school, church, and
other social institutions. Diffusion – is the spread
of culture from one society to another.
 • Culture affects Biology Humans are born into
cultures that have values on beauty and body.
As such, they alter their bodies to fit
physiological norms that are dictated by their
culture. •
 Culture is Adaptive Culture is a tool for survival
that humans use in response to the pressures of
their environment. •
 Culture is Maladaptive People when manifesting
a set of cultural practices, fail to adapt to the
environmental changes leads to mal-adaptation.
•.
 Culture Changes Culture is never static.
This dynamism of culture is due to the
changing needs of man as they interpret
and survive in their environment.
Identifying the Goals in Studying
Anthropology :
 1. Explore and study the various cultures
of man.
 2. Realize that anthropology as a
discipline has a strong commitment to
issues of social justice.
 3. Understand the process of
anthropological interpretation and
representation
Anthropological Perspectives in
Anthropology
 Anthropology has different distinctive ways of
thinking about the world, human cultures,
societies and people. Anthropological
perspectives focuses on the study of the full
scope of human diversity and the application of
that knowledge to help people of different
backgrounds. Some aspects of the
anthropological perspectives are culture, cultural
relativism, fieldwork, human diversity, holism
and biocultural focus.
 The four main perspectives of Anthropology
are
 the cross-cultural or comparative emphasis,
 evolutionary/historical emphasis,
 Ecological
 and
 holistic emphasis. From an anthropological
perspective, these concepts are related to
each other and they are also seen as
integrated with one another.

 Practice Task 1
 Directions: Read and analyze the words in each
item. Write TANGIBLE if it is a material culture
and INTANGIBLE if it is a non-material culture.
 1. heirloom
 2. antiques
 3. Mayon Volcano
 4. folk songs
 5. superstitious beliefs
 6. values and traditions
 7. Jose Rizal’s monument
 8. Uyayi
 9. Myth of Bakunawa
 10. earthen jars
 11. kundiman
 12. rituals
 13. ancestral house
 14. hanging garden of Babylon 15. Pearl of the Orient
 Good job! Let’s move on to the next activity.
 Practice Task 2 Directions: Analyze the situations in
every item. Tell whether the following situations show
Enculturation, Acculturation, and Deculturation
 1. Jillian learned to become religious and obedient from
her parents and friends. She learned it by observing the
people that surrounds her.
 2. Pedro is learning on how to use chopsticks before he
flew to China for his internship.
 3. Children nowadays prefer playing with their iPads,
Xbox and mobile games rather than playing traditional
games like “patintero”, “piko” and “tumbang preso.
 4. After Juana’s scholarship program in
Michigan University, she prefers wearing crop-
tops and other western-inspired clothing. 5.
Before travelling to Korea, Kardo enrolled in a
Basic Korean language tutorial.
 6. The University of the Philippines will be
offering an elective course that will analyze
popular Korean drama series.
 7. Leon’s native tongue is West Miraya but he
speaks English in the University. 8. Tatay Isko
asked his 10-year old grandson to teach him
how to send a text message using an android
phone.
 8. Tatay Isko asked his 10-year old
grandson to teach him how to send a text
message using an android phone.
 9. Nowadays, only few teenagers are
practicing “pag-mamano” which is known
as the traditional honoring-gesture of
Filipinos.
 10. Pedro uses messenger and direct
messages in expressing his feelings to
Feliza.
 Practice Task 3
 Directions: Read the statements below
and identify the sub-discipline of
anthropology described in each item. Write
the answers in your notebook
 1. Ana Marie studies the language of the
indigenous people in the farthest mountains of
Cordillera.
 2. Juan Tamad Jr. seeks to examine the tombs of
the Mummy Pharaohs in Egypt.
 3. According to studies, the early Homo sapiens
has larger skull than that of the present human. 4.
Len-len idolizes the Korean’s pop culture and
drama.
 5. Clifford Geertz’ study on culture revealed that
the webs of significance suggests that all humans
create and modify their cultures, and in turn
cultures define the context where the humans are.
 Assignment
 Directions: Choose one characteristic of
culture and illustrate it in a long-bond
paper. Do not forget to label them with the
appropriate characteristic of culture. Make
your output creative and neat. This will be
compiled in your portfolio.