Fundamental Course Concepts

Question 1

Persons

Answer 1

Every person is a unique individual who develops in a social and environmental setting in which he or she is influenced by and interacts with other persons or groups.
Communication, the sharing of values and beliefs, and cooperation are major interactions.
The identity achieved by each individual is the result of interactions at the micro, meso, and macro levels of society.

Question 2

Society

Answer 2

It is made up of people, groups, networks, institutions, organisations, and systems.
These aspects may include local, national, regional and international patterns of relationships and organisations.
People belong to informal and formal groups, and within and between these groups, there are patterns of interactions that contribute to unique cultures.
E.g. Family, friends, sporting teams, workplaces

Question 3

Culture

Answer 3

Culture refers to the shared knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours that give each society its coherence, identity and distinctive way of life.
It is demonstrated by the beliefs, customs, values, norms, rules, laws, governance, arts, technologies, and artifacts that people generate and use to interpret meaning from their world and solve present and future problems.
Culture is dynamic and undergoes change and is therefore not static.

Question 4

Environment

Answer 4

Every society is in a particular physical setting and interacts with its environment.
The attitudes and values that people have regarding their environment greatly affect interactions between persons, society, culture, and its environment.
Unique culture is generated from interactions with the immediate environment.
Different locations and environments—including urban, rural, coastal, inland, and isolated—present societies and their cultures with both opportunities and constraints.

Question 5

Time

Answer 5

Every person, society, culture, and environment is located in a period of time and changes with time.
Time can be examined as past, present and future.
Our perceptions of time are drawn from past events, influencing our ideas about the present.
These perceptions need not, however, determine possible ideas of a future.
Time is best studied in context – last century, this century, and pre-and post-events – or as a particular decade. ‘
Time is studied in relation to continuity and change.