UNDERSTANDING CULTURE SOCIETY AND POLITICS

1. MODULE 1: THE
NATURE AND GOALS
OF ANTHROPOLOGY,
SOCIOLOGY AND
POLITICAL SCIENCE

2. LESSON 2: Perspectives of
Anthropology, Sociology and
Political Science

3. ANTHROPOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES

4. Cultur
e
Cultural
Relativism
Human
Diversity
Holism Bio-Cultural
Focus

5. Cultur
e
the arts and other
manifestations of human
intellectual achievement
regarded collectively.

6. Cultural
Relativism
the idea that we should seek to
understand another person’s beliefs
and behaviors from the perspective of
their culture rather than our own.

7. Cultural
Relativism

8. Human
Diversity
Peoples’ differences that are associated with their
cultural group, including race, ethnicity, national
origin, religious affiliation, language, age, gender,
gender identity, physical and mental capabilities,
sexual orientation, marital status, or socioeconomic
status.

9. Human
Diversity

10. Holism
the perspective on the human condition that
assumes that mind, body, individuals, society, and
the environment interpenetrate, and even define
one another. In anthropology holism tries to
integrate all that is known about human beings
and their activities.

11. Holism
“the whole is greater than the sum of its
parts.”

12. Bio-Cultural
Focus
specific research focus centered at
the intersection of biological
anthropology and cultural
anthropology.

13. SOCIOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES

14. Functionalist Perspective
attempts to explain social
institutions as collective means to
meet individual and social needs.

15. Functionalist Perspective
Structural-functionalism

16. conflict Perspective
refers to the inequalities
that exist in all societies
globally.

17. Symbolic interaction Perspective
a theoretical approach to
understanding the relationship
between humans and society.

18. Main principles of symbolic interactionism
1. Human beings act toward
things on the basis of the
meanings that things have for
them
2. These meanings arise out of
social interaction
3. Social action results from a
fitting together of individual lines
of action

19. The looking glass self
He developed the
idea of the looking
glass self.

20. three main components of the looking glass self:
We imagine how we must appear to
others
We imagine the judgment of that
appearance
We develop our self through the
judgments of others

21. The looking glass self
“the mind is
mental”
because “the
human mind
is social.”

24. THEORETICAL
PERSPECTIVES

25. THEORETICAL Perspective
used to analyze and explain
objects of social study, and
facilitate organizing sociological
knowledge

26. MACROSOCIOLO
GIST
focus on the big picture, which usually
means such things as social structure, social
institutions, and social, political, and
economic change.

27. MACROSOCIOLO
GIST
They look at the large-scale social forces that
change the course of human society and the
lives of individuals.

28. MICROSOCIOLOGI
ST
study social interaction.

29. MICROSOCIOLOGI
ST
They look at how families, coworkers, and other small
groups of people interact; why they interact the way they
do; and how they interpret the meanings of their own
interactions and of the social settings in which they find
themselves..

31. FUNCTIONALISM
Social stability is necessary to have a strong society,
and adequate socialization and social integration are
necessary to achieve social stability. Society’s social
institutions perform important functions to help
ensure social stability. Slow social change is
desirable, but rapid social change threatens social
order.

32. Symbolic interactionism
People construct their roles as they interact; they do not
merely learn the roles that society has set out for them. As
this interaction occurs, individuals negotiate their
definitions of the situations in which they find themselves
and socially construct the reality of these situations. In so
doing, they rely heavily on symbols such as words and
gestures to reach a shared understanding of their
interaction.

33. CONFLICT THEORY
Society is characterized by pervasive
inequality based on social class, gender,
and other factors. Far-reaching social
change is needed to reduce or eliminate
social inequality and to create an egalitarian
society.

34. POLITICAL SCIENCE
PERSPECTIVE

35. Studies the tendencies and
actions of people which
cannot be easily quantified
or examined.

36. Political science is more focused than
most social sciences. It sticks to the
political arena and to the realm of
politics, either dealing with situations
with two competing sides or the
lateral decisions that affect the group
as a whole.