Key International

Concepts
Ali Haider
CSS`2016
DD - Education Department
SOCIETY

 Humanly created organization

 System of interrelationships that connects
individuals in a common culture.
 All the products of human interaction took
place in society.
 Society gives is the experience of living with
others around us.
 Humans create their interactions, and once
created the products of those interactions
have the ability or power to act back upon
humans to determine or constrain action.
 Often, we experience society (humanly
created organization) as something apart
from the individuals and interactions that
create it.
PRODUCTS OF HUMAN INTERACTION:
COMPONENTS OF SOCIETY
Culture
 Culture is a ‘way of life’ which is shared by members of a
society and shapes how we act, think, and feel
 Patterned Repetitive ways of thinking, feeling and acting
are characteristic of Culture
 Culture has been used to designate everything that is
humanly produced (habits, beliefs, arts, and artifacts) and
passed from one generation to another
 Culture is learned through Socialization and enculturation
 Culture is a human trait: Several species display a limited
capacity for culture, only human beings rely on culture for
survival
 Culture shock: Personal disorientation when experiencing
an unfamiliar way of life
The Elements of Culture

 Culture relies on symbols in the

form of words, gestures, and
actions to express meaning
 The fact that different meanings
can come to be associated with the
same symbol (for example, a wink
of an eye) shows the human
capacity to create and manipulate
symbols.
 Societies create new symbols all the
time (for example, new computer
technology has sparked the creation
of new cyber-symbols).
The Elements of Culture

Symbol: Anything that carries a particular

 Language 
meaning recognized by people who share a

culture
The symbolic system by which people in a
culture communicate with one another.  Values: Culturally defined standards that
 people use to decide what is desirable, good,
Humans communicate ideas, feelings,
and beautiful and that serve as broad guidelines
experiences through the use of language. for social living.
 Language is not only a tool, or a means of  Values are abstract standards of what ought to
expression, but it also structures and be (for example, equality of opportunity).
shapes our experiences of the world and  Values can sometimes be in conflict with one
what we see around us. another.
 Cultural transmission the process by which  Lower-income countries have cultures that value
one generation passes culture to the next survival; higher-income countries have cultures
that value individualism and self-expression.
The Elements of Culture

 Beliefs: specific ideas that people hold to be  Mores and folkways are the
true

basic rules of everyday life.
Specific statements which people, who share a
culture hold to be true (for example, “A Although we sometimes resist
qualified woman could be elected president”). pressure to conform, we can
 Norms: Rules that guide human behavior, see that norms make our
are of two types:
dealings with others more
 Mores: Norms that are widely observed and orderly and predictable.
have great moral significance. (for example,
sexual taboos) Observing or breaking the rules
 Folkways: Norms for routine or casual of social life prompts a
interaction which are matters of everyday response from others in the
politeness (for example, greetings or dining
etiquette),
form of either reward or
punishment. Sanctions
Popular Culture

 Popular culture is generally

recognized by members of a
society as a set of the practices,
beliefs, and objects that are
dominant or prevalent in a society
at a given point in time.
 Represent the tastes of ordinary
people rather than an educated
elite.
 These practices embody the most
broadly shared meanings of a social
system.
Social Facts

 Social facts are things such as institutions, norms and values which exist
external to the individual and constrain the individual.
Sociological Imagination

 An awareness of the relationship between and

individual and wider society
 The ability to view society from an outsider rather
than from the perspective of our limited experience
 Seeing ‘strange in the Familiar’
 From time to time, everyone feels like an outsider.
 For some categories of people, however, being an
outsider is not part of the dominant group.
 The greater people’s social marginality, the better
they are able to use the sociological perspective or
imagination
 Social change encourages sociological thinking by,
sociological thinking can bring about social change.
ETHNICITY:

 Cultural practices and outlooks of a given

community of people that set them apart
from others.
 Members of ethnic groups see themselves as
culturally distinct from other groups in a
society, and are seen by those others to be
so in return.
 Many different characteristics may
distinguish ethnic groups from one another
but the most usual are language, history or
ancestry - real or imagined, religion, and
styles of dress of adornment.
 Ethnic differences are wholly learned.
People organized in society on the basis
of status they achieve
 Social Status: Socially defined
roles and positions in a society
(student, professor,
administrator).
 Role: Every status carries a
cluster of expected behaviors, how
a person in that status is expected
to think, feel, as well as
expectations about how they
should be treated by others.
SOCIAL ORGANIZATION: How people
organized in society
Social Structure:
 The stable patterns of social relationship that exist within a particular
group or society.
 The major components of social structure include culture,
social class, social status, roles, groups, and social institutions.
 Social structure guides people’s behaviors.
A person’s location in the social structure underlies his or her
perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors.
 People develop these perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors
from their place in the social structure, and they act
accordingly.
 All of the components of social structure work together to
maintain social order by limiting, guiding, and organizing human
behavior.
Social INSTITUTIONS:

 Structures that are patterned to

cater the basic needs of society.
 Social Institution includes the
family, religion, law, politics,
economics, education, science,
medicine, the military, and the
mass media
Social Stratification

 The division of people into layers

or strata to signify their position in
society.
 When we talk of social
stratification, we draw attention
into the unequal positions occupied
by individuals in society.
 In the larger traditional societies
and in industrialized countries
today there is stratification in
terms of wealth, property, and
access to material goods and
cultural products.
Socialization

 Socialization is a lifelong process

during which we learn about social
expectations and how to interact
with other people.
 Social groups often provide the first
experiences of socialization.
Families, and later peer groups,
communicate expectations and
reinforce norms.
 People first learn to use the tangible
objects of material culture in these
settings, as well as being introduced
to the beliefs and values of society.
 Multiculturalism?

 The view that cultures, races, and

ethnicities of a minority groups,
deserve special acknowledgment of
their differences within a dominant
political culture. Mean they can
practice their culture without the fear
of being persecuted.
 It is a practice of giving equal
attention to many different
backgrounds in a particular setting.
 Appealing and positive endorsement
of cultural diversity
Ethnocentrism

 Evaluation of other cultures

according to preconceptions
originating in the standards and
customs of one's own culture.
 Ethnocentrism is insensitive to
other cultures While cultural
relativism shows high sensitivity.
 Some typical examples of
ethnocentrism are thinking that
the foods in other cultures are
disgusting, that the child-rearing
practices are primitive.
Cultural Relativism

 Cultural relativism refers to not judging a

culture to our own standards of what is right
and wrong, strange or normal. Instead we
should try to understand cultural practices of
other groups in its own cultural context.
 Regarding and valuing the practices of a
culture from the point of view of that culture
and to avoid making hasty judgments
 Proponents of cultural relativism also tend to
argue that what is considered moral in one
society maybe considered immoral in other.
And since no universal morality exists. No one
has right to judge another society’s custom.
 Critiques: “The Idea of cultural relativism is
nothing but an excuse to violate human
rights”