UNDERSTANDING CULTURE SOCIETY AND POLITICS

• Culture - It refers to the complex whole which encompasses knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals,
laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society. It
serves as a foundation of man’s continuing interaction with his surroundings.

• It is consists of the beliefs, behaviors, objects, and other characteristics common to the members
of a particular group or society. Through culture, people and groups define themselves, conform
to society's shared values, and contribute to society.

Two Types of Culture

Material Culture- it is a type of culture that are created by human person or is tangible. Examples are
food, clothing and technology.

Non-Material Culture – it is a type of culture that are being learned or observed by human. Examples are
religions, folk behavior, gestures and customs

Functions of Culture in different ways:

 Culture makes it possible for man to adapt and integrate himself to his environment by
being creative and resourceful in coming up ways and means of survival.
 Culture establishes patterns of acceptable social behavior such as etiquette, protocols,
good manners and right conduct, roles and duties, etc. established by folkways, mores
and laws.
 Culture conveys and facilitates meanings through verbal and nonverbal communication,
written and non-written language, forms and expressions, and symbolisms.
 Culture produces manmade things such as clothing, tools, instruments, machines,
equipment, structures, etc. made possible by technological know-how.
 Culture contributes to overall human satisfaction as we develop ways to make life more
enjoyable, more comfortable, easier, and more rewarding such as recreational activities,
leisure, entertainment and arts.

Significance of Culture:

 ADAPTATION AND INTEGRATION

 PATTERNS OF ACCEPTABLE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR
 CONVEYS AND FACILITATES MEANING
 HUMAN SATISFACTION
 PRODUCTION OF MAN-MADE THINGS

CHARACTERISCTICS of Culture

1. Culture is learned

2. Culture is dynamic

3. Culture is transmitted
 4. Culture is gratifying

5. Culture is shared

6. Culture is symbolic

7. Culture is relative

 Society - Comes from the Latin word “socius” which means comrade, companion or
friend.
 Pertains to a group of individuals involved in social interaction or sharing the same
geographical or social territory

Significance of Studying Society:

 REPRESENTATION OF OUR IDENTITY

 AVENUE FOR ECONOMIC INTERDEPENDENCE
 CHARACTERIZE THE TOTALITY OF TERRITORY
 SYMBOL OF POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE

 Politics - Comes from the Greek word “Politika” which means affairs of the cities.
 Refers to achieving and exercising positions of governance over a human community.

 Political institution is a relatively stable cluster of statuses, general norms, and role
behaviour, which are involved in the acquisition and exercise of society of wide power
and making decision.

Politics is defined in different ways according to Haque, but whatever definition is attached to it, there
are four important points inherent to it:
 Politics is a COLLECTIVE ACTIVITY, involving people who accept a common
membership or at last acknowledge a shared fate;
 Politics presumes an INITIAL DIVERSITY OF VIEWS, if not about goals then least
about means;
 Politics involves RECONCILING DIFFERENCES through discussion and persuasion;
and
 Political decisions become AUTHORITATIVE POLICY for a group, binding members
to decisions that are implemented by force if necessary.
PERCEPTION ON POLITICS

 Society
 Academics
 Public Affairs
 Power and Distribution of Resources
 Art of Government
CULTURE, SOCIETY AND POLITICS, ARE ESSENTIALS IN UNDERSTANDING HUMAN BEHAVIOUR AND
SOCIAL GROUPS.

1. Gender – socially constructed (e.g. characteristics of being male or female). Gender

served as guide on how males and females think and act about themselves, the ways they
interact with others, and the performance of their roles in the society.
Types of Gender

1. Heterosexual- Attracted to opposite sex.

2. Homosexual-Attracted to the same sex.

3. Bisexual-Attracted to both sexes.

4. Asexual-Incapable of being attracted to any sex.

5. Polysexual-Attracted to multiple type of gender.

6. Pansexual- Who accommodate all types of gender

7. Transgender-Their identities do not match their biological identity as male and female.

2. Socioeconomic status – refers to the category of persons who have more or less the same
socioeconomic privileges in a society.

Two social position:

 Ascribed status is beyond an individual's control. It is not earned, but rather is

something people are either born with or had no control over. Examples of ascribed status
include sex, race, and age. Children usually have more ascribed statuses than adults, since
they do not usually have a choice in most matters.
 Achieved status is one that is acquired on the basis of merit; it is a position that is earned
or chosen and reflects a person's skills, abilities, and efforts. Being a professional athlete,
for example, is an achieved status, as is being a lawyer, college professor, or even a
criminal.
A family's social status or socio, for instance, would be an achieved status for adults, but an ascribed
status for children. Homelessness might also be another example. For adults, homelessness often comes
by way of achieving, or rather not achieving, something. For children, however, homelessness is not
something they have any control over. Their economic status, or lack thereof, is entirely dependent on
their parents' actions.

3. Ethnicity – is the expression of the set of cultural ideas held by a distinct ethnic or
indigenous group.
Ethnic group – people who collectively and publicly identified themselves as a distinct and unique based
on distinguishable cultural features that set them apart from the others such as shared ancestry and
common origin, language, and customs and traditions.

Indigenous Tribal groups in the Philippines

Ayta are called Negritos for their dark skin and kinky hair. They landed on the archipelago more than
30,000 thousand years ago and are thought to be the earliest inhabitants of the Philippines.
Badjao widely known as the “Sea Gypsies” of the Sulu and Celebes Seas, the Badjao are scattered along
the coastal areas of Tawi Tawi, Sulu, Basilan, and some coastal municipalities of Zamboanga del Sur in the
ARMM.

Gaddang once comprised a large group in the Cagayan Valley region and are mostly found in Central
Isabela, Nueva Vizaya, Quirino, and Cagayan. Most of them can also speak Ilocano, the lingua franca of
Northern Luzon

Ilocanos make up the 3rd largest ethnolinguistic group in the Philippines. There is, in fact, a diaspora of
Ilocanos; they are found all over the country, as far south as Mindanao. The language has become the
lingua franca of Northern Luzon.

Kalingas have a reputation for being “the strong people of the Cordilleras.” At the same time, Kalingas
greatly value family and kinship; thus, the household, extended household of the kinship circle, and
territorial region are significant units of Kalinga society.

Manobo simply means “people” or “person”; alternate names include Manuvu and Minuvu. The term
may have originated from “Mansuba,” a combination of man (people) and suba (river). Manobos are
concentrated in Agusan, Bukidnon, Cotabato, Davao, Misamis Oriental, and Surigao Del Sur.

Tausug is a combination of tau (person) and suug (the old name of Jolo Island). The present generation
of Tausugs are believed to be descended from the different ethnic groups that had migrated to the Sulu
archipelago. The dominant ethnic group in the Sulu archipelago because of their political and religious
institutions, the Tausug occupy Jolo, Indanan, Siasi, and Patikul in Sulu (ARMM).

T’boli are concentrated in Kiamba, Maitum, and Surallah in South Cotabato. As settlers from other
Philippine islands arrived, the T’boli gradually withdrew to the mountain slopes and lived in scattered
villages. Their cultural heartland lies in the highland lake complex: Sebu, Selutan, and Lahit Lakes. T’boli,
B’laan, and Tiruray belong to a single language group and are distinct from the other languages of
Mindanao.

Warays inhabit the islands of Samar and Biliran, and the eastern section of Leyte in the Eastern Visayas
Region. The Waray language belongs to the Visayan language family and is related to Cebuano,
Hiligaynon, and Masbateño. They produce some of the finest native Philippine wines, commonly called
pangasi and tuba

4. Religion – is an organized system of ideas about the spiritual sphere or the supernatural,
along with associated ceremonial or ritualistic practices by which people tried to interpret
and/or influence aspects of the universe otherwise beyond human control.
 Buddhism - There are many Buddhist temples in the country, catering to an
estimated 47,000 practitioners of the religion, according to a 2015 census. At the
in Malate, monks practice Humanistic Buddhism — a philosophy that prioritizes
charity, cultural activities, and education as a means of service. It highlights three
acts of goodness: doing good deeds, speaking good words, and thinking good
thoughts
 Christianity - Roman Catholicism is the largest religion in the Philippines. This
religion was first introduced through the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan
in the early 1500s. Magellan, whose original destination was Spice Island, arrived
 on Cebu Island in the Philippines due to a missed route. He then proceeded to
make Roman Catholicism a state religion by first converting the Chief of Cebu,
and several hundreds of his followers. Today, a large majority of the population of
the Philippines - around 80% - identifies as Roman Catholic.
 Hinduism - The temple on Mahatma Gandhi Street in Paco, Manila is the center
for worship of the 3,000 or so Hindus in the vicinity. The priest, or maharaj,
named Ashok Lakanani, supervises the weekly services on Tuesdays and Sundays.
The temple has been around for almost 40 years.
 Islam - Islam is the third-largest religion in the Philippines after Catholicism and
Christianity. The religion existed in the region for around a century before the
spread of Christianity. Islam first spread to Simunul Island in the Philippines
through foreign trade with countries such as India.
 Sikhism - Located a few blocks from the Hindu temple, the Khalsa Diwan Sikh
Temple has about 300 to 400 daily visitors, according to the ceremonial reader, or
granthi, Gurdeep Singh. This swells to about 2,000 to 3,000 on Sundays. Regulars
are mostly nationals who hail from India, Pakistan, Iran, and Iraq, among other
countries. The Khalsa Diwan Sikh Temple is located on United Nations Ave.,
Paco, Manila.
 Judaism - The Beit Yaacov Synagogue, the only Jewish place of worship in the
Philippines, has been in Makati since 1982. Prior to that, there had been a
synagogue in Manila since 1922, which took a hit during the Japanese occupation.
5. Exceptionality – refers to the state of being intellectually gifted and/or being physically
or mentally challenged conditions such as personality, behaviour, communication,
physical, and more than one specific exceptionality or disability
6. Nationality – the legal relationship that binds between a person and a country.

SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL BEHAVIOUR AND PHENOMENA

1. Norms – served as guides or models of behaviour which tells us what is proper or improper,
appropriate or inappropriate, right or wrong. They are usually in the form of rules, standards, or
prescriptions that are strictly followed by people who adhered on certain conventions and performed
specific roles.

2. Deviance – behaviour that the members of a social group define as violating the norms, values, and
law; any social behaviour which departs from the socially accepted norms.

Two types of Deviance

Formal – actions that violated enacted laws

Informal – violations to social norms that are not codified into laws.
In some cases, deviance is use for power struggle; capitalists use powers to gain wealth. Another
example are, political dynasty (self-preservation and expansion), monopolies, that makes unjust, and
makes social imbalances and inequalities.

3. Taboos – a social or religious custom prohibiting or forbidding discussion of a particular practice or

forbidding association with a particular person, place, food, or thing. Some of the foods who are taboos
became deviant because of religious customs.
Other food taboos are more cultural that religious. E.g. consumption of dog and cat in some western
countries is viewed as deviant since that the aforementioned animals are commonly kept as pets or
domestic animals.

SOCIAL, POLITICAL, AND CULTURAL CHANGE

SOCIAL CHANGE – refers to variations or modifications in the patterns of social organization, of sub-
groups within a society, or of the entire society itself. (e.g. industrial revolution, same-sex marriage, no
smoking)

POLITICAL CHANGE – it is the change in realm of civic and political societies and in the structure of
relations among civil society, political and the state.

CULTURAL CHANGE – refers to all alterations affecting new traits or trait complexes, to change in a
culture’s content and structure. (factors: physical environment, population, war and conquest, random
events, and technology)

Causes of Social, Political and Cultural Changes

1. Invention – a new combination or a new use of existing knowledge (classification: material invention –
phone, airplane, etc. and social invention – alphabet, texting, chatting, jejemon)

2. Discovery – people reorganized existing elements of the world they had not noticed before or learned
to see in a new way.

3. Diffusion – refers to the spread of cultural traits from one group to another. It can spread from one
society to another through trade, migration, and mass communication.

Diffusion involves the following social processes:

 Acculturation (socialization) – borrowing of one’s culture or cultural imitation. It is also

refers to learning through constant exposure and experience to culture.
 Assimilation (integration) – blending or fusion of two distinct cultures through a long
period of interactions. It is also the total assimilation of culture as manifested by change
of worldviews, attitudes, behaviour and perspectives of looking things
 Amalgamation (association) – biological or hereditary fusion and establishing a
connection with the culture there by bridging areas of convergence and cultural/biological
symbiosis.
 Enculturation – one culture is spread to the other through learning.
4. Action of Leaders- it represent a trigger to social change. In a general sense, a leader is someone who
has the power to influence others or who is in charge or in command of a social situation. Max Weber
defined power as the probability that an individual can realize his or her will even against the resistance
of others.

5. Social Conflict- it is defined as struggle for agency or power in society. It occurs when two or more
actors oppose each other in social interaction, reciprocally exerting social power in an effort to attain
scarce or incompatible goals and prevent the opponent from attaining them.

Defining Culture and Society from the Perspectives of Anthropology and Sociology
Culture is all around us, an inherent part of our social life as well as our personality and sense of
subjectivity. Culture is a quality that some people have more of than others: how “cultured” someone,
depends on social class, education, tastes in music or film, and speech habits.

In social sciences, sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, there is hardly a consensus regarding the
meaning of the term culture, and various definitions of culture are in circulation. Researchers Kroeber
and Kluckhohn (Culture: A Critical Review of Literature, 1952) gathered array of various definitions of
culture and have divided them into six primary categories:

1. Descriptive definition of culture which view culture as a total system of customs, beliefs,
knowledge, laws, means of expression, and so forth.

2. Historical definitions of culture which view culture as the continuation of generations.

3. Normative definitions of culture which related to value systems that construct social and
personal behaviour.

4. Psychological definitions of culture which stress culture’s role in interpersonal relations.

5. Structural definitions of culture that focus on relational aspects of cultural components through
abstraction.

6. Socio-genetic definitions of culture which focus on the genesis and continued existence of a
culture.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Anthropologists have defined the term culture in literally hundreds of ways. Virtually all definition,
however, share certain features. There is wide agreement that culture:

• is learned from other people while growing up in a particular society or group;

• is widely shared by the members of that society or group.

• So profoundly affects the thoughts, actions, and feelings of people in that group that
anthropologists say “individuals are a product of their culture” and “learning a culture is an
essential part of human development”; and

• in large part accounts for the differences between groups of people in how they act, think, and
feel.

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Sociologists distinguish between culture and society.

• A society a group of people living in a given territory who share a culture and who interact with
people living in a given territory more than with people of territories. In this way, culture and
society are different but they are connected.

• Culture is what people share with one another within a society. The fact that the youth share a
similar culture with other helps to define the group or society which you belong.
 In sociological terms, culture does not refer solely to the fine arts and refined intellectual taste. It
is consists of all objects and ideas within a society, including bagoong, k-pop songs, and taglish words.
Because the term culture includes everything that a group of people has, thinks and does, we should not
be surprised to learn that social scientist do not agree on a specific dimension

Although sociologists, anthropologists and other social scientist tend to agree on the basic aspects or
principles of culture, they have quite different views on how culture affects the people’s lives. These
different views correspond to the three (3) major sociological perspectives: functionalism, conflict
theory and symbolic interaction.

The Functionalist View of Culture

According to the functionalist perspective, societies can operate smoothly only if their members
are able to meet the demands and challenges of the environment in effective, coordinated ways.
Accordingly, it emphasize that culture serves as a buffer between people and their environment. Culture
represents the solutions that the people of a society have worked out over time to meet distinct
environmental and historical challenges and have passed onto the next generation so that each new
generation does not have to start out from scratch.

For example, in a given society language performs in an important function such that gives people sense
of unity and to link them to one another so that cooperation will be possible. Conflicts,
miscommunication and chaos are prevented with the use of language shared within groups.

The Conflict View of Culture

From a conflict perspective, society is not held together because everyone learns and shares
common cultural values. Conflict theories are concerned with how the groups that control the means of
material production impose their products, values and norms on other groups. A famous conflict
theories, Karl Marx who believes, that those “who have” own the means of production are powerful
enough to force, control and manipulate those who “have not.”

A major short coming of this perspective is that it sees the production as imposing a culture—their
products, values and norms such as consumerism on other less powerful groups, It hardly acknowledges
that members of these less powerful groups often want to purchase what industrialization has to offer,
thus rejecting, consciously or unconsciously, aspects of their culture.

The Symbolic Interactionist View of Culture

Symbolic interactionists are not concerned with the functions of culture or with the question of
how a dominant culture is imposed on others. Instead they are more concerned with the symbolic
properties of culture. They define symbols as essential to civilization because:

1. Cultures emerge and are perpetuated as a result of symbols;

2. Interaction between people cannot take place without symbols;

3. Infants are being transformed into human beings when they acquire symbols.
A symbol may be defined as any kind of physical form- a material object, a color, a sound, a word, an
odor, a movement, a taste- that receives its value or meaning form those who use it.

Colours, words, gestures become symbols because people agreed upon their meaning over time. Hence,
symbolic interactionists conceive of culture as an elaborate and complex system that has been
constructed and passed on from one generation to another. They are also interested on how meanings
are constructed and how they change over time and across cultures. This perspective makes us aware
that the key in understanding and interacting with someone from another culture is to learn the symbol
system of that culture.

The symbolic interactionist perspective has at least two weaknesses.

• First, although it is relatively easy to grace why a particular symbol is associated with a physical
form after the fact, there is no systematic framework for predicting what symbolic meanings will
arise.

• Second, it is not clear as well how people come to agree on meanings.

CULTURE

 Language
 Working schedule
 Medical cure
 Celebrations
 Folk art
 Jokes
 Clothes and Dressing
 Food
 Manners

Although each society is complex and dynamic in terms of what it has, what it thinks and does, there are
four important aspects that make it whole.

FOUR ASPECTS OF CULTURE

1) Beliefs
These are conceptions that people accept as true about how the world operates and where
individuals fit in. Beliefs can be rooted in blind faith, experience, tradition or scientific method. Whatever
the origin, the belief can exert powerful influence on behaviour.

2) Values
These are general and shared perception of what is good, right, appropriate and worthwhile, and
important with regard to modes of conduct in case of self-reliance or obedience; and that which
concerns states of existence like freedom of choice or equal opportunity. While beliefs are conceptions
about the world and how the people in it operate, values are conception about the world and how the
people should be.

Filipino anthropologists, Dr. Felipe Landa Jocano, Professor Emeritus at the Asian Center of the University
of the Philippines explained that there are three elements that constitute the Filipino value system:
1. Halaga- It is the evaluative aspect to what Filipinos find most virtuous which constitute three
dimensions: (1) pagkatao or self-worth, (2) pakikipagkapwa-tao or dignified relationship with others, (3)
pagkamaka-tao or compassion.

2. Asal- It is expression of the evaluative aspect of Filipino value system which constitute three
standards: (1) kapwa or relational, (2) damdamin or emotional, and (3) dangal or honor.

3. Diwa- This refers to the kalooban or inner self which in essence is intertwined reason and emotion.

According to Dr. Jocano, much of Filipino values are stirred with emotions and concerned of their
affective and end-results, which maybe a reason why Filipinos tend to always put in their minds the
concept of hiya or shame, amorpropio or self-esteem, delicadeza or circumspection, palabra de honor or
word of honor and utang na loob or debt of gratitude.

3) Norms - All societies have guidelines that govern moral standards and even the most
routine aspects of life. Sociologists call the written unwritten rules that specify the
behaviours appropriate to specific situations as norms.
Some norms are considered more important than other norms. Accordingly, William Graham
Summer, a classical liberal American social scientist distinguished between folkways and mores:

1. Folkways- these are norms that apply to routine matters like eating, sleeping, appearance, posture,
use of appliances and relations to various people, animals and environment.

2. Mores- are norms that people define as pivotal to the well-being of the group. The set of ethical
standards and moral obligations as dictates of reason that distinguishes human acts as right or wrong or
good from bad.

4) Symbols - Symbol is any kind of physical phenomenon--- a word, an object, a color, a

sound, a felling, an odor, a movement, a taste to which people assign a meaning or value.
The meaning or value is not evident from the physical phenomenon alone. This is a
deceptively simple idea that suggests that people decide what something means.

ETHNOCENTRISM AND CULTURAL RELATIVISM

CULTURAL VARIATION

It refers to the differences in social behaviors that different cultures exhibit around the world.

• ETHNOCENTRISM

It is a perception that arises from the fact that cultures differ and each culture defines reality differently.
Judging another culture solely by the values and standards of one’s own culture
 • CULTURAL RELATIVISM

The attempt to judge behavior according to its cultural context. The principle that an individual person’s
beliefs and activities should be understood by others in terms of that individual’s own culture.

Looking Back at Human Biocultural and Social Evolution

Evolution - is a natural process of biological changes occurring in a population across successive

generations.

- It helps us identify and analyze man’s physiological development which is important in his
substinence

HOMO HABILIS “HANDY MAN”

 Species with a brain of a Broca’s area which is associated with speech in modern humans and
was the first to make stone tools.

 The ability to make and use tools is a unique quality to humans such that the species is
recognized to be the first true man.

HOMO RUDOLFENSIS (1.9 to 1.8 million years)

 Species characterized by a longer face, larger molar and premolar teeth, and having a larger
braincase compared to habilis particularly larger frontal lobes, areas of the brain that processes
information.
HOMO ERECTUS “Upright Man”

 Their body proportions is similar to that of modern humans. Adapted to hot climates and mostly
spread in Africa and Asia. They were the first hunters with improvised tools such as axes and
knives, and were the first to produce fire.

HOMO HEIDELBERGENESIS

 They were the first of early human species to live in colder climates, first to hunt large animals
on routine basis using spears, and first to construct human shelters.

Homo Floresiensis “Hobbit”

HOMO SAPIENS

 The species name means “Wise Man” that appeared from 200,000 years ago. The present
human race belongs to this species.
 They were the first to produce art in cave paintings and crafting decorated tools and
accessories.
HOMO SAPIENS NEANDERTHALENSIS “Neanderthal Man”

 Subspecies with short yet stocky in body build adapted to winter climates especially in icy cold
places in Europe and Asia. This is the closer relative of modern humans. The first to practice
burial of their dead., hunting and gathering food, and sewing clothes from animal skin using
bone as needles.

MAN’S CULTURAL EVOLUTION

Cultural period Time frame Cultural development

PALEOLITHIC Traditionally  Use of simple pebble tools
AGE (OLD coincided with the  Learned to live in caves
STONE AGE) first evidence tool  Discovered the use of fire
construction and  Developed small sculptures; and monumental
use by Home some painting, incised designs, and reliefs on the
2.5 million years
walls of caves
ago
 “food-collecting cultures”

Cultural period Time frame Cultural development

NEOLITHIC Occurred sometime  Stone tools were shaped by polishing or
 AGE (NEW about 10,000 BCE grinding
STONE AGE)  Settlement in permanent Villages
 Dependence on domesticated plants or
animals
 Appearance of such crafts as pottery and
weaving
 “food-producing culture”

BECOMING A MEMBER OF SOCIETY

 THE SELF AND SOCIALIZATION

The understanding of how are as social changes being brings about an important point: the concept of
self and socialization. As we with the immensity of patterns that affect and shape who we are in society,
we need to understand more the concept of self.

As individuals, we all have various perceptions, feelings, and beliefs about who we are and what we are
like. How do we come to develop these ideas? Do they change as we age?

We were not born with these understandings. Buildings on the work of George Herbert Mead,
sociologists recognize that we create our own designations: the self. The self is a distinct identity that
sets one apart from others. It is not a static phenomenon, but continues to develop and change
throughout our lives.

Sociologists and psychologists alike have expressed interest on how the individual develops and modifies
the sense of self as a result of social interaction.

Cooley: Looking-Glass Self

In the early 1900s, Charles Horton Cooley advanced the belief that we learn who we are by interacting
with others. Our view of ourselves, then, comes not only from direct contemplation of our personal
qualities but also from our impressions of how others perceive us. Cooley used the phrase looking-glass
self to emphasize that the self is the product of our social interactions with other people.

The process of developing a self-identity or self-concept has three phases. First, we imagine how we
present ourselves to others- to relatives, friends, even strangers on the street. Then we imagine how
others evaluate us (attractive, intelligent, shy, or strange). Finally, we develop some sort of feeling about
ourselves, such as respect or shame, as a result of these impressions

Mead: Stages of the Self

1. The Preparatory Stage

During the preparatory stage, children imitate people around them, especially family members
with whom they continually interact. As they grow older, children become more adept at using symbols
to communicate with others. Symbols are the gestures, objects and language that form the basis of
human communication. By interacting with relatives and friends, as well as by watching cartoons on
television and looking at picture on books, children in the preparatory stage begin to understand the use
of symbols.

2. The Play Stage

The child begins to pretend to be other people. Just an actor “becomes” a character; a child
becomes parents, superhero, or ship captain. In fact, Mead noted that an important aspect of the play
stage is role playing. Role taking is the process of mentally assuming the perspective of another in order
to respond from that imagined viewpoint.

3. The Game Stage

The child begins to consider several tasks and relationship simultaneously. At this point in
development, children grasp not only their own social positions but also those of others around them.

According to Mead, the self begins as the privileged centre of a person’s world. Young children picture
themselves as the focus of everything around them and find it difficult to consider the perspective to
others.

Nonetheless, as people mature the concept of self also changes and begins to reflect greater
concern for the reaction of others. He used the term “significant others” to refer to those individuals
who are most important in the development of self. Parents, friends, co-workers, coaches, and teachers
are often among those who play a major role in shaping a person’s self.

For Mead, what we call our sense of self stems from the human ability to be self-conscious, to
take ourselves as objects of experience. A sense of self, he argues, only arises as we begin taking the
perspectives of others toward ourselves, internalizing them as our own perspective and viewpoint on
“who I am.” The self, then, is an emergent product of social experience. Only by being able to take
others’ perspectives can we gain a viewpoint from outside of our own egos from which to think about
and evaluate our personal identities

The “I” and the “Me”

Central to Mead’s theory of the self are the concepts of the “I” and the “Me.” While it’s tempting
to think of the “I” and the “Me” as two separate parts of the self, in Mead’s thinking, it’s more accurate
to see the “I” and the “Me” as a dynamic relationship that actually forms what we call the self

The self, in other words, is the relationship between the “I” and “Me.” The “Me” is the internalization of
others’ perspectives on ourselves—the perspective we get of ourselves from how others treat us (as a
man, for example, or an “at-risk youth”). The “I,” then, is the part of us that responds to these
internalized attitudes—how, for example, we act based on others’ perspectives of us as a man or a
troubled youth. The perspectives of the “I” and the “Me” may sometimes fuse, Mead argues, but often
the “I” acts creatively in response to the “Me,” conforming to the “Me,” to be sure, but rarely in a total
way.

SOCIALIZATION
 • A continuing process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms,
values, behavior, and social skills appropriate to his and her social position.

Agents of Socialization

• Family

For the most people, the process of socialization begins in the family. Family is their first source
through which they commerce their social communication. As a child, a person learns to see and
interpret himself and society through the eyes and understanding of his parents and other elders of the
family.

It is with the aid of the older family members that he/she becomes familiar with social culture. It is
through family that ‘socially acceptable’ way of thinking and behaving are imparted to a child. Values
such as sharing, honesty, idealism, discipline are also cultivated in a person through family.

• School

Schools could foster competition through built in systems of reward and punishment, such as
grades and evaluation by teachers. Consequently, a child who is working intently to learn a new skill can
sometimes come to feel stupid and unsuccessful. However, as self-matures, children become capable of
increasingly realistic assessment of their intellectual, physical, and social abilities.

• Peer Group

It is a group of people of approximately the same age, sharing similar interests and probably
belonging to similar backgrounds. A person may belong to several peer groups at a single point in time.
Adolecents join a particular peer group and learn how to be a functioning member of that group. The
norms and values that the group deems important become more apparent as interactions and shared
experiences within peer group accumulate over time, strengthening group similarity.

• Mass Media and Technology

It is the strongest and the most argued indirect agent of socialization. It send across a lot
multitude ideas without having any kind of interpersonal communication. It influences our lives to a
great extent, as we tend to learn a lot from mass media, which include newspapers, magazines, radio,
the Internet, video games, and of course, the most dominant of them all, television.

• Workplace

Workplace is another agent of socialization. Just as the children spend a significant part of day at
their school, the adults spend much of their day at their workplace. At the workplace, a person meets
people of different age, groups and belonging to different social and cultural backgrounds. This makes
him come in close contact with different thought processes, belief systems and etc. The interaction that
then happens, helps a person to broaden his/her horizon in terms of social acceptance and tolerance
towards others.

• Religion

Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that relate humanity
to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions, and
sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to explain the origin of life or the universe.
They tend to derive morality, ethics, religious laws, or a preferred lifestyle from their ideas about the
cosmos and human nature.

• Government

Government or state is an indirect agent of socialization. This means, though we do not come in
contact with the institution directly, it does have an impact on our social life and well-being. The
government sets rules and regulations (most which often beome laws), which the people of the
state/country fneed to follow, and reach of them often becomes not only a moral wrong but a social
wrong as well.

Apart from setting various laws and laying sanctions on us, the government, as a socializing agent, also
has a responsibility of assuring social security of people. It is important to note that though government
is an indirect agent of socialization, it is an important institution of every society. Based from
observations of Filipino social scientists, the Philippine political environment is characterized by a
centralization of power. Political power and authority is concentrated in the hands of the elite and the
participation of most Filipinos often is limited to voting in elections.