Department of Social Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences
Ateneo de Naga University
SOC 001: Society and culture with family planning Consultation hours: Monday-Friday (1-2PM)
Summer Term, SY 2014-2015 Menandro S. Abanes <mensab2004@yahoo.com>
Course description and outline
How do we see the world? How do we make sense of it? This course will introduce two
disciplines, sociology and anthropology, which will help us in trying to understand humans who inhabit this world and their societies that structure it. We will learn sociological and anthropological perspectives which will locate our experiences of this world within the larger scale of society characterized by social structure and system. Through this
course, we will be able to view familiar things in a new light, find new meanings in the old and new ways of doing things, and gain understanding and insight of the rapidly
globalizing and changing world.
I. The discipline of sociology
A. Introduction
Ø Key concepts: sociological imagination, history and biography
Ø Readings: The promise of sociology by C. Wright Mills (pp. 19-26) and Invitation to sociology by Peter Berger (pp. 3-7) in Down to earth sociology (9th Ed.) by James Henslin
B. Theoretical perspectives in sociology
Ø Key concepts: functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism
Ø Readings: Doing sociological research (pp. 27-30); The presentation of self by Erving Goffman (pp. 106-115) and The uses of poverty: The poor pay all by Herbert Gans (pp. 314-320) in Down to earth sociology (9th Ed.) by James Henslin
Ø Requirement: Newspaper clipping that shows any of the perspectives
II. The discipline of anthropology
A. Culture: Why we do what we do
Ø Key concepts: culture as learned and shared, material and non-material culture, components of culture (gestures, languages, values, etc.)
Ø Reading: The cultural context of social life (pp. 69-71) and Body ritual among the Nacirema by Horace Miner (pp. 73-77) in Down to earth sociology (9th Ed.) by James Henslin
B. How culture is studied: Participant observation
Ø Key concepts: fieldwork, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism
Ø Reading: Street corner society by William Foote Whyte (pp. 59-67) in in Down to earth sociology (9th Ed.) by James Henslin
III. Research process and methods
A. Human inquiry and research model
Ø Key concepts: research model, surveys, experiments, data-gathering
Ø Reading: How sociologists do research by James Henslin (pp. 31-42) in Down to earth sociology (9th Ed.) by James Henslin
B. Practice of research
Ø Key concepts: theory, inductive, deductive, quantitative, qualitative
Ø Reading: The role of theory in sociology by Janet Saltzman Chafetz (pp. 15-20) in Readings for introducing sociology (Ed.) Richard Larson and
Ronald Knapp
Ø Requirement: Participant observation on your own social group/
neighborhood
IV. Enculturation/socialization
A. Social interaction and structure
Ø Key concepts: agents of socialization, institutions, self-emergence
Ø Reading: Town fiesta: An anthropologist’s view by Frank Lynch (pp. 219-236) in Philippine society and the individual
Ø Requirement: A sociological paper written in one’s native language
B. Family and kinship
Ø Key concepts: family planning, marriage, kinship
Ø Reading: Housing authority by Filomeno Aguilar (pp. 100-125) in Maalwang Buhay, Ateneo de Manila University Press.
C. Deviance and control
Ø Key concepts: breaching, norms, rules, labeling, anomie
Ø Reading: Suicide by Emile Durkheim (pp. 125-131) in Readings for introducing sociology (Ed.) Richard Larson and
Ronald Knapp
V. Stratification
A. Sex and gender
Ø Key concepts: identity, roles, social construction of gender
Ø Reading: Society and sex roles by Ernestine Friedl (pp. 128-133) in Anthropology 00/01
B. Class and inequality
Ø Key concepts: status, power, social mobility, prestige, patron-client relations
Ø Reading: Big and little people: Social class in the rural Philippines by Frank Lynch (pp. 104-111) in Philippine society and the individual
C. Categorical differences (ethnicity and religion)
Ø Key concepts: ethnicity, religion, social distance, trust, identification
Ø Reading: Ethno-religious groups, identification, trust and social distance in the ethno-religiously stratified Philippines by Menandro Abanes et al. in Research in Social Stratification and Mobility (http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2014.02.001)
VI. Social change
Ø Key concepts: modernization, globalization, trends
Ø Readings: The Mcdonaldization of society by George Ritzer (pp. 494-504) in Down to earth sociology (9th Ed.) by James Henslin
Ø Requirement: A sociological paper due on the final examination date
