Department of Social Sciences, College of
Arts and Sciences
Ateneo de Naga University
SOC 001: Society and culture with family planning Consultation hours: TBA
First semester, SY 2014-2015 Menandro S. Abanes
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: The elemental Filipino family
by Yen Makabenta http://www.livinginthephilippines.com/philippine_articles/elemental_family.html
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: Fraternities and rape on campus
by Patricia Martin and Robert Hummer (pp. 353-362)
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
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 research paper due on the final examination
date
