Culture Change and Aspects of Culture Assignment

Culture Change and Aspects of Culture - Assignment Example In a very broad sense, culture is a cultivated behavior; that is the sum total of an individual's learned and accumulate experience which is hence socially transmitted, or behavior through the process of social learning. In light of the deeper aspect of culture, culture change can be defined as the gradual or sporadic modification of a society’s beliefs and values through the processes of innovation, discovery, or even external contact with other societies. Cultural change can hence be comprehensively defined as the dynamic phenomenon by which various cultures in the world are changing and modifying their usual and common code of conduct and behavior in order to adapt to the external or internal forces acting on the society (Steward, 1973). Culture change is a process that not only occurs at the basic societal level but also has been observed on a wider scope. It can be seen also in organizations such as businesses or educational institutions or any other group of people who may have developed and accumulated experiences and behavior patterns. As a result, culture change may require changes or a complete overhaul of organization practices, physical environments inter-personal relationships at all levels and even communication patterns. In analyzing the whole concept of culture, a question that rarely fails to come up is: what makes up culture? It is with answering this question that one can isolate the various aspects of culture, that is, the very basic elements that culture is comprised of. This hence gives rise to the concept of cultural awareness (Singh, 2009). Various numerous theories have been formulated on the elements that make up culture but similarities have been observed and it can be confidently put down that there are twelve main aspects of culture.