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SOCIETY AND CULTURE
UNIT 1
OUTLINE
I.
INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY
A. Nature and Meaning
B. Sociology and Other Social Sciences
C. History and Development
D. Forerunners
E. Major Theories
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------SOCIOLOGY
Nature and Scope
 As a field of study, sociology is concerned with the study of people in a group or social context, not as isolated
individuals. It promises to help man understand what is happening to him in relation to his environment and
why certain social phenomena occur.
 Explains human behavior in relations to social interactions among individuals which cause or influence their
behavior.
Meaning
 Derived from Latin word socios (companion with others) and Greek word logos (study of reason) to described
the new science of social life.
 It is a scientific study of human interaction and the products of such interaction.
 It focuses on nature of human groups and the products of group living.
 Studies a wide variety of current issues and problems
Sociology and Other Social Science
Anthropology
 There are two main divisions in the study of anthropology – physical and cultural (or social) anthropology.
 Physical anthropology stresses the biological sciences and focuses on the origins and evolutionary aspects of
human beings as well as their characteristics.
 Cultural or social anthropology is concerned with the study of total societies and includes systems, beliefs,
customs, languages, politics and many other related topics.
 Man’s behavior in groups is often influenced by his culture and environment – two important aspects which
are also the focus of anthropology.
Geography
 Geography originated from the Greek word geographia, meaning earth description. It focuses in spatial
analysis.
 Geography’s subinterests are physical georgraphy, human geography, systematic geography and regional
geography.
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Human Geography is the study of the way human beings live in their physical and cultural environment.
Subdivisions of human geography are…
1. Economic Geography – studies how people make a living; it is concerned with the use of earth’s
natural resources
2. Urban Geography – studies cities and towns in relation to their locations, sizes, shapes and functions
3. Political Geography – studies the influence of geography on nations, national interests and internal
relations.
Systematic Geography keeps the entire world in view while investigating a single element like a landform or
climate.
Regional Geography focuses attention on a particular region or country. Its goal is to view an entire area
bringing into consideration factors like the natural environment, the people, their economic and cultural
activities.
Psychology
 Psychology is the study of human behavior. It follows that psychologists study the behavior of a person
primarily the individual behavior, mental process and examination in the mind. Other concerns of
psychologists include the human personality and its development.
 One of the many branches of psychology is social psychology, a new field formed by integrating sociology
and psychology.
 In sociology, we observe the behavior of people and how they relate to others in a group. In social
psychology, when an individual is behaving differently from others in a group, there is a need to study first
his/her behavior as an individual and find out the cause of such behavior before he/she finally adjust in a
group.
Economics
 Economics is the study of the economic life of human beings and focuses primarily on the various
dimensions of wealth such as production, distribution and consumption. It also deals with statistics on gross
national product, per capita income, savings and credit, investments, economic cycles and capital
information.
 A great deal of human behavior is economically motivated.
Political Science
 Political science is the study of the political behavior of human beings that focuses on the various aspects of
government, political institutions, political processes and political parties.
 Sociologists are likewise interested in power distribution, source of political beliefs and the role of women
and ethnic minorities in political events, among others.
History
 History is the study of the chronology of significant events, people and places in the past. Sociology makes
use of date and information that are provided by history. In the search for underlying forces that influence
human behavior, history uses the sociological approach.
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Humanities
 Humanities emphasizes human subjectivity and dramatizes individual experiences. The science that contains
records of man’s experiences, high values, sentiments, ideals and goals, it is ultimately the expression of
man’s feelings and thoughts.
 Knowledge of the humanities is important in the development of the complete person who is ready to take
on his/her responsibilities in this constantly changing world.
 The study of sociology also focuses on the cultures of peoples in different places. In the process, sociology
recognizes man’s essential worth as a member of society as humanities does.
 As society evolves, man express himself in various ways particularly in the areas of humanities (arts,
architectures, dance and theatre)
HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY
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During Era of Enlightenment (18th century), the stage s for liberalism and reliance on the scientific method,
sociology as a science was also growing.
Early sociologists possessed a multi-disciplinary orientation and deduced ideas from philosophy and the
biological and physical sciences.
Between 1760 to 1825, Henri Saint-Simon based his ideas on the science of society on the law of nature. He
discussed his ideas with Auguste Comte, then his student and secretary. It was Comte who coined the term
“sociology”.
The sociology course was first taught in the US (1876), in France (1889), in Great Britain (1897), after World War
I in Poland, India, Egypt, and Mexico (1925), in Sweden (1947), and Paris (UNESCO, 1954).
FORERUNNERS OF SOCIOLOGY
Auguste Comte
 Founder of sociology
 He developed the first complete approach to the scientific study of society
 He used the method of positivism, emphasizing the techniques of observation, comprehension and
experimentation in the development of knowledge concerning the nature of society and human action.
 He was also interested in 2 major social concerns 1) Law of Dynamics which is the study of social change
and 2) Law of Statics which is the study of social order.
Harriet Martineau
 An English sociologist, translated Comte’s works
 She observed British and American social practices and customs
 In her book, Society in America, she scrutinized American religion, politics, child rearing and immigration
with emphasis on race, status and gender and the effects of law, trade, economy and population on
contemporary society’s social problems.
 She was also interested in religious tolerance and the emancipation of slaves.
Herbert Spencer
 His aim was to enable people to understand society better.
 He has an “organismic” view of the nature of society. He saw society as a living organism with specific
parts or organs, each performing specific functions.
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He systematically defined the various areas of study within sociology, namely, social control, politics,
religion, family, stratification, associations, communities and the society of knowledge.
He thought that the major focus of sociology should be social evolution rather than the suggestion and
implementation of strategies for social improvement.
Emile Durkheim
 The son of a Rabbi, he was educated in France and Germany. He has impressive academic reputation
and was one of the first French professors of sociology.
 He is best remembered for his notion that behavior must be understood and comprehended within a
larger social context.
 He stressed the importance of studying societies as total units or entities (the sum or various parts such
as the political, religious or family systems). The sum of various parts produced an entity which is the
society itself.
 For Durkheim, the group and society is the of sociology central object of sociological study. He was
likewise considered one of the founders of a major sociological system of interdependent parts, each of
which plays an important role so that the total social system may be maintained.
 His theoretical work on how suicide rates vary in countries is considered as one of the important
contributions to sociology. In his work, Suicide (1897), he stressed that the cause of suicide are the
cohesiveness or lack of cohesiveness of religious and occupational groups.
 His other contributions to sociology on the aspects of social behavior were on the areas of crime and
punishment, religion and the workplace.
Max Weber
 Born in Germany, he took his academic training in economic and legal history but gradually developed
an interest in sociology.
 He encouraged his students to use verstehen (German word for insight or understanding) in their works.
According to Weber, to comprehend social behavior, people must understand the meanings attached to
their actions.
 Weber’s legacy is the use of the key conceptual tool: the ideal type. An ideal type is a model that serves
as a measuring instrument against which actual cases can be evaluated.
 He is recognized as one of the founder of symbolic interactionism which focuses on social life and
human behavior from the standpoint of the individuals involved in day-to-day interaction. Through
actions, gestures and words (symbols), the meaning of events and situations are, therefore,
communicated.
Karl Marx
 He spent most of his life in exile although he was born and educated in Germany. He went to France
after his paper was rejected in Germany. He then met Friedrich Engels who became his longtime friend,
 Marx and Engels attended the Communist League (a coalition of labor) in 1847. The following year, they
wrote the Communist Manifesto which urged the masses (proletariat) to unit and overthrow capitalist
societies (bourgeoisie).
 He is one of the earliest and most important proponents of the conflict theory. His landmark in sociology
was his research on group identification which influences and individual’s place in society.
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Marx has an evolutionary model of society. He believed that societies undergo fixdd number of stages –
ancient, feudal and capitalist. For him, the history of civilization is the history of class struggle and
conflict is the main source of social change.
Georg Simmel
 German philosopher who obtained his doctorate from University of Berlin in 1881
 He is among the pioneers who recognized, designated and analyzed the impact o social differentiation,
expansion of social groups, structure of the economy and other developmental and environmental
influences in the development of the human personality.
 Simmel suggested that an interesting subject for sociological research would be small groups.
MAJOR THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES IN SOCIOLOGY
The Social Change/ Evolutionary Perspective
 The earliest theoretical approach was based on the work of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer.
 This approach seemed to offer a satisfying explanation how human groups come to exist, grow and develop.
Sociologists using this approach as a frame of reference look for patterns of change. The change may be seen in
the context of the development cycle or in terms of levels or stages of completeness.
The Functionalist Perspective
 The functionalist views society as an organized network of cooperating groups operating orderly according to
generally accepted norms. For him, society tends to maintain a balanced harmonious equating system because
most members share a set of rules and values.
 Talcott Parsons and Robert Merton, prominent contemporary sociologists, maintained that every institution
fulfills a certain functions and persists because it is functional.
 Social change disturbs the stable equilibrium of society, but after a time, society regains a new equilibrium.
The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective
 This approach suggests no grand theories of society since society and social and political institutions are
conceptual abstractions, and only people and their interactions can be studied directly.
 George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley stressed the social origin of personality. Mead concentrated
on how important symbolic communication is to personalities and social systems as well as on how roles
interrelate and become the centers of subsystem of personality.
 It was noted that people interact mainly through symbols, which include signs, gestures, and most importantly,
written and spoken words. A word has no inherent meaning unless people reach an agreement that this carries
a special meaning when used.
The Conflict Perspective
 This approach stems from work of different scholars but most directly based on the book of Karl Marx whose
writings were mostly on political economy, who saw class conflict and class exploitation as the prime moving
forces in the history of men.
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Marx stressed the conflict between classes for ownership of productive wealth, modern conflict theorists take a
less narrow view; they view the struggle for power and income as a continuous process but one in which
categories of people, e.g., classes, races, nationalities, and even sexes, appear as opponents.
Conflict theorists do not see the harmonious equilibrium of society as a natural condition, but as an illusion
which is formed by people who do not see how the dominant groups and classes have silenced those whom
they exploit.
Reference:
Omas-as, Roberta L., General Sociology
Prepared by:
MACBanaga
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