Cultural Change
Cultural change refers to the transformation of a society's beliefs, values, customs, and traditions over time. It can be driven by various factors such as technological advancements, globalization, migration, and social movements. Cultural change is a dynamic process that shapes the way people interact, communicate, and express themselves within a society.
6 Key excerpts on "Cultural Change"
eBook - ePubThe Sociology of Education
An Introduction
- Ivor Morrish(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 4 Social Change and Education A. Some Facts and Theories of Social Change In the popular mind everything that changes within society constitutes 'social change', from variations in the patterns of fashion to movements in population and general scientific advance. Some thinkers would distinguish, ab initio, at least three types of change, thereby giving to 'social change' itself a greater degree of speciality. There is, for example, civilizational change which involves the more physical elements in society, such as its inventions, its technology and science, and its improved forms of communication. There is Cultural Change which is concerned with the changes in knowledge, in ritual and religion, in artefacts and in art forms such as painting, architecture, dancing, drama and literature. Social change is then limited to social relationships and their balance or equilibrium. This analysis of change undoubtedly has certain advantages: it gives a seemingly clear-cut reference to a specific type of change, and this makes the investigation of its 'properties' a little more scientific. But, admirable as such an idea may seem at first sight, the more one considers social change, the relationships between people, their equilibrium and disequilibrium, the more one becomes involved in the change and vicissitudes of civilization and culture. The web of social relationships which we call society is reticulated and intersected by every technical invention, every vagary in fashion or art form, every new technique of birth control, and every increase of efficiency in the means of production or social control. Life is one, and the change experienced in social relationships is both cause and effect. Max Weber recognized this complex nature of social relationships, and the concomitance of social, civilizational and Cultural Change (1)...
eBook - ePubLeading Cultural Change
The Theory and Practice of Successful Organizational Transformation
- James McCalman, David Potter(Authors)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Kogan Page(Publisher)
...Cultural Change is a sociological task that relies on theories and bodies of knowledge from multiple scientific disciplines such as anthropology, social science, political science, philosophy, psychology and the arts. Managers, if they are to work with wicked problems, must be able to relate to ideas that do not sit within the domain of management. They have to be able to enrich their conceptual frameworks and welcome the rich and specialized nature of Cultural Change as a body of knowledge and practice. InChapter 2we seek to extend this by examining the concept and history of organization development.02Organization developmentBringing a human side to enterpriseIntroductionThe most significant impact on Cultural Change work over the last 70 years has been the organizational development (OD) movement. This chapter looks at how the movement has developed, its key models and processes and how these contrast with other perspectives of managing culture in organizations. The chapter is divided into three main areas:1A history of unitarism and pluralism as management dogmas and the rise of the OD movement after World War II.2A working definition of OD.3An analysis of the OD process through the relationship between the consultant and the client organization.Management needs to be considered as a dynamic art form (Hatch and Schultz, 2002). At its best, it has the potential to be a highly creative but inherently subjective cultural process. This view may be unfamiliar to some and many will scoff at the idea of management as both a craft and a creative process that can privilege humanistic over economic values. Certainly, there is a widely held view that the purpose of management is to control expression, maintain order, render the environment predictable, and treat people as passive resources. This philosophy was made explicit when McGregor (1960) described Theory X and theory Y...
eBook - ePub- Gary P. Ferraro, Elizabeth K. Briody(Authors)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 7 Cultural transformation Chapter objectives: 1 Describe the usefulness of comparing “official” organizational values to behavior patterns observed in the organization. 2 Identify the four mechanisms used by anthropologists to account for change. 3 Contrast Edgar Schein’s definition of culture with Ferraro and Briody’s: “everything that people have, think, and do.” 4 Discuss why anthropologists have focused on the four mechanisms by which change does occur and have been less interested in how cultural transformation should occur. Definition of cultural transformation A quick search of recent publications on Google scholar shows that the phrases “organizational-culture change” and “cultural transformation” are associated with a variety of cultural contexts. Notable among them are health care, nonprofit organizations, long-term care, the media, climate, and travel. Many writers designate a societal issue or domain as their area of focus. Anthropologist Sandy Ervin (2015), for example, is interested in cultural transformations in relation to globalization. He examines sociocultural theories of change and gauges their usefulness in explaining global processes such as development, communication, social movements, and innovation. Our focus is on cultural transformation in relation to organizations, rather than a particular societal phenomenon. Organizations can and do change through such means as careful planning, laissez-faire policies, unanticipated innovations, thoughtful experiments, and growth (or loss) of resources. Our definition of cultural transformation is synonymous with organizational-culture change : “A process of Cultural Change that produces a cohesive pattern of change in an organizational culture” (Briody et al. 2010: 8). We use these two phrases interchangeably. Companies struggle with the process of change as well as the outcomes of the change process...
eBook - ePubCultural Anthropology
Global Forces, Local Lives
- Jack David Eller(Author)
- 2020(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Multiple scholars including James Clifford and George Marcus (1986), George Marcus and Michael Fischer (1986), Vincent Crapanzano (1992), and most scathingly Roger Sandall (2001) in his The Culture Cult have questioned the objectivity, the scientific-ness, and the motivations of anthropologists and others who use “traditional culture” for various purposes. Clifford and Marcus in particular pointed to the “literary” and even poetic quality of anthropological works, which are “fictions” or “narratives” instead of or in addition to factual accounts, and Sandall savagely criticized the romantic and destructive “designer tribalism” that he perceived in much professional and popular thinking about culture. CULTURAL DYNAMICS: THE PROCESSES OF Cultural Change As a consequence of this professional self-critique, anthropologists have become “less likely to think of ‘culture’ in terms of bounded, fully integrated, and static systems, and they are more inclined to ponder cultural processes, dynamics, and conflicts grounded in uneven fields of power that cross the contested boundaries of nation-states and peoples” (Harrison 2008: 7). This is why it is unprofitable to speak of “culture change” as if it is foreign, almost unnatural or hostile, to “traditional culture.” In fact, Cultural Change is a constant and natural quality of culture, an effect of intrinsic creativity and inventiveness, not something that only appeared in recent years or centuries with colonialism and globalization to disrupt tradition. This is why we will talk about the processes of culture change under the more general heading of cultural dynamics – dynamics meaning action, practice, movement, growth, and generation. Culture never stands still but continuously moves and develops...
eBook - ePubCommunication and Social Change
A Citizen Perspective
- Thomas Tufte(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Polity(Publisher)
...2 Changing Contexts and Conceptual Stepping Stones Societal Processes Influencing Communication for Social Change The prospects for citizen engagement in social change processes have radically changed in recent years. When examining contemporary challenges for communication for social change, a myriad of new contexts, stakeholders and societal dynamics can be identified. These are observable and concrete societal processes that can be broadly structured around four meta-processes in society: the emergence of a new generation of social movements; the substantial growth and expansion of civil society organizations across the globe; the increasing critique of Western development paradigms and the substantiation and circulation of significant alternatives; and, finally, new media developments, especially in digital media. This section discusses the way in which these societal processes constitute ‘game-changers’ for research in and the practice of communication for social change. Informed and affected by these meta-processes, but also influenced by the significant limitations of previous communication for social change outcomes, a growing critique and self-critique have emerged within research in and the practice of communication for social change. The following section outlines this growing awareness of the complexities tied to the practice of communicating for social change. This awareness has gathered around three challenges that it is important to make explicit in our pursuit of conceptual ground on which to position citizens’ needs, rights and responsibilities at the heart of communication for social change. These challenges are linked to reclaiming the political, cultural and ‘mediatic’ in communication for social change. The third section provides a deeper analysis of the theoretical perspectives and challenges associated with a so-called pro-poor approach to communication for social change...
eBook - ePubRelational Sociology
A New Paradigm for the Social Sciences
- Pierpaolo Donati(Author)
- 2010(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Similarities and differences are modalities, similar or different, of using the registers of time. In short, social change occurs when the proper relations specific to a social entity are formed with their distinctive qualities, ones that are different from the preceding characteristics because they follow a different time register, or even a different relation with all three registers of time. 9 In Parsons’ theory of understanding and explaining on the basis of AGIL, social change is possible from any point in the system, but – in his opinion – L (latency) constitutes the control centre of the cybernetic system (i.e. maintenance of the latent value scheme). For a Parsonian, therefore, understanding means applying AGIL to AGIL itself (as Parsons himself suggested). 10 The perspective advanced by Martin Buber (1934) can clarify what is meant here. To Buber, if one contemplates man with man, one will see the essence of man. In the dynamics of the interpersonal relationship, are the giving and receiving, the aggressive and defensive moves, the qualities of searching and answering, always complementing one another in reciprocal action, together demonstrating that which is man. If one switches to a single individual, it is possible to recognize him/her as a human person because of his/her capacity to enter into relations. If one observes the whole social context, again one can find what a human person means thanks to the abundance of his/her relations. Examples could be given for all phenomena insofar as they are social: marriage, family, citizenship, social and geographical mobility, networks, public administration, the organization of labour, cities, armies, nations etc. It follows that social change no longer means a passage from traditional (or pre-modern) society to a modern society, or a state of ‘evolution’ or of social ‘progress’. More simply, it is a different way of relationally organizing the elements and the relations between them over time...
