How culture and change interact and how change process is influenced by the cultural norms, values and traditions.

1. Culture and Change
Ashfaq Sadiq
Drammen 15.04.07
ashfaq.sadiq@hotmail.com

2. What is Culture?
 Accumulated habits
 Learned attitudes
 Beliefs of people that define for them
their general behavior
 Way of life
 Total set of learned activities of people
 Language(s)
 Geographic location

3. Culture: Typology
 General Human Culture
 Specific Culture
 Constituent Culture
 Cultural Scenes
 World Culture Scenes

4. Culture: Forms
 Ideal Culture
 Real Culture
 Construct Culture

5. Culture Forms
IDEAL CULTURE: What people believe, think and say they do.
REAL CULTURE: What people really think and do.
CONSTRUCT CULTURE: Combines what people think and
say they do with waht they reall do.

6. CHANGE

7. Change a Continuous Process
Favours New Responses
Environmental
Pressures
Results in Culture
Change

8. Elements of Change
GROUPS
(Need)
(Motivation)
Solution
(Innovation)
(Borrowing)
(Communication)
(Change Agent)
(Perceived
Solution)
Cultural Change

9. Why Change?
 Survival
 Problem Solving

10. Where Change Leads to?
 Alteration
 Modification
 Addition
 Substitution

11. Some Characteristics
 Small or big, it impacts social
structure and organization of culture
 It has implications for political,
economic, social and world views

12. Explaining Change
 Unilineal Model
All cultures go through basic stages of
development: Simple to complex
 Ecological Model

13. Change Mechanisms
 Evolutionary
 Interaction

14. Evolution
Involves:
 Adaptation
 Innovation

15. Adaptation: End Result
 Natural and Socio-cultural are the
source of all change
 A result of humans accomodating to
their environments
 An interaction between environment
and groups of people

16. Innovation
 Innovation:
1. Discovery or Primary Innovation
2. Invention or Secondary Innovation
 Diffusion

17. Innovation
Internal
change
Borrowing Culture Culture
Discovery
Changed
Environ-ments
Invention
(Diffuses)
Voluntary
OR
Directed

18. Interactional
 Two levels of interaction:
1. Local: Where change is associated
with internal forces
2. External: Where change is associated
with external forces

19. Interaction
 People come up with the response to
challenge themselves (Innovation)
 People get it from someone else who
already has solved the problem
satisfactorily (Acculturation and
Diffusion)

20. Acculturation
 A process involving more than one culture
 Often non-voluntary or directed in character
 Borrowing/Exporting the solution in its totality
 Close and continuous contact between or among the
cultures
 More concerned to assimilation, partial or total.

21. Diffusion
 Change brought about through
borrowing, with or without cultural
contact
 Selectivity
 Reinterpretation
 Reciprocal borrowing (if there is a
cultural contact)

22. Change Settings
 Singular and Internal
 Multi-cultural and External

23. Change Processes
 Voluntary Change
 Directed Change

24. Volunteer Change
 Non directional
 Informal interaction between individuals
and innovators
 People choose to change
 Unplanned
 Both in singular cultural settings and
multicultural settings

25. Volunteer Change…
 Motivation
 Voulntary Interaction

26. Directed Change
 Planned and Designed
 Interaction between ‘Change agent’
and group members
 External process involving contacts
with others
 Meant for collective problems of
society
 Interventionist character

27. Directed Change…
 Change Agent
 Focal Group
 Plan characteristics
 Nature of interaction

28. Change Agent
Individuals who through their actions
and using some form of coercion,
attempt to induce people to change
some aspect of their lives.

29. Change Agents (Internal)
 People from same group (Communication).
 Know the cultural codes
 Could be same person as innovator and
disseminator
 They are from the group but set
themselves aside from the group.
 Role of change agent is assumed

30. Change Agent (Internal)…
 May not know all.
 May face severe limitations than
external ones
 May be considered as a threat.

31. Change Agents (External)
 Representatives of another culture
 Roles are assigned
 They have technical expertise
 They have a clear purpose to
intervene
 Are part of a big organization/state

32. Communication
 Change process and communication
 Clear communication
 Bad communication

33. Motivation
 Varies according to need
 Varies according to gravity of the
problem
 Age
 Social norms
 Religious norms
 Perceptions

34. We can see that:

35. Resistance to Change
 When change agent is not able to
communicate appropriately.
 When people don’t understand/are
not well aware about the
need/problem
 Problem/need is not severe enough
 Relevance of proposed change to
problem/need of every day life.

36. Resistance to Change…
 People don’t understand as to how
implement proposed change in their
lives
 Indirect communication/interaction
 Change that focuses upon core
systems of culture naturally faces
resistance
 Change that threatens existing
power/social structure

37. Resistance to Change…
 When change agents’ performance is
poor in focal group as compared to in
homeland.
 When change agent takes position
 Conflicting perceptions about key role
in change process
 Culture shock leading to withdrawl or
rejection

38. Resistance to Change…
 Living habits of change agent
 Vested interests of leaders (political,
social, religious etc.) are at stake
 Costs involved.

39. Thank You