Bataan Peninsula State University

Balanga City
Graduate School

Culture Change

Prepared by:
YOLANDA D. REYES
 Culture is the set of values,
guiding beliefs, understanding
ways of thinking and norms shared
by members of an organization.
Culture Change
 • C – critical
• C – continuously • H – hopeful
changing • A – adaptive
• U – unique • N- ew
• L – link to • G –grateful
progress/history • E - empowered
• T – trademark
• U – unquestionable
• R – risk
• E – endless/eternal
 Functions of Culture

Internal integration External adaptation

• Determines how members • shapes expectation
relate to one another of others
• Shared by most members of • guides & controls
the organization behavior w/
• Constitute collective outsiders
perspective • influences
• Provides sense of identity for perceptions of the
members organization by
• Guides and control behavior outsiders
• Allows anticipation of action
of others
• Enhances commitment
 Societies continually experience
cultural change both material
and non material level
• Material culture – computers and electronic
coding have made it possible to create a
unique health identifier for each person in
Canada. This would enable us to make a data
base that included everyone’s individual
medical records from birth to death-it could
be used by health providers and insurance
companies to transfer medical records
anywhere quickly BUT
 Societies continually experience
cultural change both material
and non material level
• The available tech does not mean that it
will be accepted by the people who
believe (non-material culture) that such a
national data bank would be an invasion
of privacy that could be abused by other.
 Culture change is a
process
• Cultures change in 3 ways:
• Discovery – the process of learning
about something previously unknown or
recognized

• Invention – the process of reshaping

existing cultural items into a new form
• Diffusion – the transmission of cultural
items or social practices from one group
or society to another.
• How does diffusion occur?
• exploration
• Media
• Tourism
• immigration
Items of material culture are more likely candidates
for diffusion than ideas or behavior patterns.
 Other causes of cultural
change
• Pressure arising from:
• Political ideas
• Environmental concerns
• Health concerns
• Social issues
 Cultural lag – a gap between the
technical development of a
society and its moral and legal
institution.
• This happens when material culture
changes faster than non material culture,
and it creates a lag (space) between the
2 cultural components.
 Cultural lag is present
when:
• One generation of the culture may
adapt to change quickly while another
does not.
• Computers, ipod, e mail, chatting etc,
most young people have mastered this
technology while parents/grandparents
are unable to operate or understand
this technology.
 Cultural diffusion or
cultural confusion?
• Kentucky Fried Chicken
• “Finger lickin’ good”
• In China: “Eat your fingers off”

• Pepsi
• “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation”
• Translated into Tawainese as:
• “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the
dead”
 Cultural Elements
• Hidden elements • Visible elements
• Values about what is • Symbol – things that
important stand for something
• Norms about else
appropriate and • Material object that
inappropriate behavior hold cultural meaning
• Assumptions and beliefs • Heroes – company role
about what is true models, highlight the
• Attitudes toward others values and norms a
and issues company wishes to
reinforce
 Tools for change
• Information
• Support
• resources

"Unless you are prepared to give up

something valuable you will never be able
to truly change at all, because you'll be
forever in the control of things you can't
give up."
— Andy Law
 What do we mean by innovation?

the successful exploitation of new ideas

…at least two types of innovation

• Entirely new ideas

• Re-working of an old idea or the transferring and embedding of

existing ideas in to a new setting

From presentation by Valerie Hannon, Innovations Unit

 the nature of innovation ….?

Incremental Radical
Innovation Innovation
•Minor modifications to •Significant breakthrough
existing product representing major shift in
design

•Swims with the tide •Swims against the tide

•Starts with the present •Starts with the future and

and works forward works backwards

School Transformation ?
improvement ?

From presentation by Valerie Hannon, Innovations Unit

• Social change is the transformation of
culture and social organisation/structure
over time.
 Characteristics of social change

• * It happens everywhere, but the rate of change

varies from place to place.
• Social change is sometimes intentional but often
unplanned.
• Social change often generates controversy.
• Some changes matter more than others do.
 What causes social change?
• 1. culture
• 2. conflict
• 3. idealistic power
• 4.The need for adaptation
• 5. environmental factor
• 6. economic and political advantage
• 7.demographic factor
• 8.social movement and change
 Teacher as a culture
broker
• Culture broking – act of bridging, linking or
mediating between groups or persons of
differing cultural backgrounds on the
purpose of reducing conflicts or producing
change .
• In teaching, emphasis is on the teacher
becoming the culture broker between
themselves and their students at a
personal level but also as facilitating
 Cultural broker – person who facilitates
the border crossing of another person or
group of people from one culture to
another culture. (Jezewski,2001)

• Skills necessary for teachers to become

culture brokers:
• 1. acquiring cultural knowledge
• 2. becoming change agents
• 3. translating knowledge into practice
 Roles of Teachers
• 1. cultural organizers – who facilitate
strategic ways of accomplishing tasks
so that the learning process involves
varied ways of knowing, experiencing,
thinking and behaving.
• 2. cultural mediators – who create
opportunities for critical dialogues and
behaving.
• 3. orchestrators of social contexts –
who provide several learning
configurations including interpersonal
and intrapersonal opportunities for
seeking, accessing and evaluating
knowledge
As managers,principals, and soon to
be principals we need to be a culture
broker and as a culture broker we
need to be sensitive to look for
symbols that we can use to bridge the
gap. It’s not difficult to be a culture
broker only if we know how.
Culture is the result of messages that are
received about what is really valued. People
align their behaviour to these messages in
order to fit in. Changing culture requires a
systematic and planned change to these
messages, whose sources are behaviour,
symbols and systems.
Taylor, 2004

© Blood and Thorsborne, 2005