Cultural Anthropology, Sociology and Psychology
Community Work Disciplines - A Community Workers Toolkit
Nov 3, 2009
Cultural anthropology; anthropological linguistics, archaeology and ethnology can be grouped together as they are all concerned with human culture. In much the same way other disciplines such as sociology and psychology can over lap when collecting and analysing empirical pieces of data from a study of different cultures and societies.
Interlinking Disciplines
Like cultural anthropology, a common aspect of sociology is that people or groups play a role when analyzing this discipline. Societies are for the most part stratified into groups and classes based on hierarchy. A simple example of this is the class structure of modern day United Kingdom in that there is an ever present working class, middle class, upper middle class and upper class, and the divisions that separate these groups adhere to their economic and financial standing, employment and education.
One of the key features of sociology is functionalism, a theory associated with Emile Durkheim (French sociologist born 1858 – 1917). Functionalism explains the structure of societies and how they work. The theory of functionalism defines society as being made up of inter-dependent sections that work together to fulfill the needs and ensure the progression and ultimately the survival of a society. Another key feature of sociology is ‘conflict theory’. Some sociologists saw societies as functioning under a ruling power or group that maintains control over others to keep order within society, and argued that participants (citizens) work to elevate their social status in order to gain power and in doing so bring about social change.
The study of cultural anthropology helps in understanding the customary thinking of a particular society. Sociology analyses society with its elements of stratification and social behaviour in a broader sense.
Psychology and it's Place within Cultural Studies
Psychology is concerned with the study of behaviour and its structure, mental processes such as cognition (reflex and reaction to stimuli), personality, emotion, perception and interpersonal relationships. Psychology also applies knowledge of various spheres of human activity for example, work, education and treatment of mental health problems.
Abraham Maslow (American psychologist born 1908 – 1970) worked on synthesising a large body of research in direct relation to human motivation and identified a hierarchy of needs within two groupings; deficiency needs and growth needs. Maslow’s identification of human needs is within the realm of an understanding that is useful to the professional community worker, whereby to efficiently work with and help communities one must first be aware of the needs of said community, for without this knowledge a worker cannot be effective.
Expectations of the Community Worker
It is important that a community worker understands the disciplines of cultural anthropology, psychology and sociology, and is able to interface this knowledge bank of information as a form of guidance when working with varying cultures, societies and individuals. A useful example would be in the form of community work outside of the workers own country and culture. Without prior knowledge and research of the community the worker intends to work with, then much of the simple cultural customs and beliefs will not be understood and this can result in a number of negative scenarios, but a point of concern will be that the worker will find it hard to integrate if only a little with the society he or she is visiting due to a distinct lack of knowledge. This could also be a very dangerous exercise in certain parts of the world.
The disciplines of cultural anthropology, sociology and psychology are the very foundations of anyone’s understanding of cultures, societies and individual human behaviour. But in fact the community worker has a responsibility to fulfill by fully comprehending each discipline and its relevance to community work however varying and modified it may become.
Societies undergo change and adapt to factors that affect the majority such as education, employment, finance and so on, and this has a knock on affect to how people behave. Whereas as societies and behaviour may be influenced to change in reaction to the social climate; culture will attempt and succeed in remaining constant as its very essence is something that is learned and repeated through generations, only ever experiencing minute variations over long periods of time.
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