Cultural, Social and Political Change

Change is inevitable”

No society remains the same all throughout its history.

Social Change – refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may include changes in nature,
social institutions, social behaviors or social relations. ( cultural symbols, rules of behavior, social
organization or value system.)

Factors that attribute to SOCIAL CHANGE:

1. Spread of innovation from one social setting to another. It occurs when one group borrows something
from another group such as norms, values , clothing and other innovation.

2. Assimilation – process where some of the majority community ( dominant community) cultural
aspects are absorbed in such a manner that the home cultural aspects get mitigated or lost.

Acculturation – process in which the people of one culture adopts the culture of the other that is not
originally their own.

Enculturation – process by which an individual learns about his/her own culture.

Cultural Change - deals with the evolution of cultural components

- New technological platforms facilitating communication, self expression and interactions.

3. Political Change

 - modification of a society through innovation, invention, discovery or contact with other

societies refers to a subject matter that is in constant flux. It deals not only with the
major processes of growth, decay and breakdown but also with the ceaseless ferment of
adaptation and adjustment of political systems.

 Possessions and expressions of power

 highlights the magnitude and variety of the changes that occurred in the world’s political
system

List of agents of change cutting across cultural, social and political realities:

1. Innovation – invention of something new- an idea, process, a practice, device or tool.

( syntheses, refinements, new applications)

 significant in understanding and identifying social change because they alter the way people
think and relate to one another

“The rate of change is tied to the size of a cultural base, the number of preexisting invention”. ( Leslie
White)

“Are people in control of their inventions or do our inventions control us?

According to Leslie White, inventions control us.

1. “Necessity is the mother of invention .”

2. “The invention is the mother of necessity.”

3. “When the cultural base is capable of supporting an invention, that invention will come into
being whether people want it or not. ( telegraph, electric motor, microphone, telephone,
microscope, steamboat, airplane)