Culture change

Culture change is a term used in public policy making that emphasizes the influence of cultural capital on individual and community behavior. It has been sometimes called repositioning of culture, which means the reconstruction of the cultural concept of a society.^[1] It places stress on the social and cultural capital determinants of decision making and the manner in which these interact with other factors like the availability of information or the financial incentives facing individuals to drive behavior.

Model of culture change

These cultural capital influences include the role of parenting, families and close associates; organizations such as schools and workplaces; communities and neighborhoods; and wider social influences such as the media. It is argued that this cultural capital manifests into specific values, attitudes or social norms which in turn guide the behavioral intentions that individuals adopt in regard to particular decisions or courses of action. These behavioral intentions interact with other factors driving behavior such as financial incentives, regulation and legislation, or levels of information, to drive actual behavior and ultimately feed back into underlying cultural capital.

In general, cultural stereotypes present great resistance to change and to their own redefinition. Culture, often appears fixed to the observer at any one point in time because cultural mutations occur incrementally.^[2] The cultural change is a long-lasting process. Policymakers need to make a great effort to improve some basics aspects of a society’s cultural traits. However, the improvement of economic and political institutions may help this procedure.^[3]

Achieving culture change

The term is used by Knott et al. of the Prime Minister's Strategy Unit in the publication: Achieving Culture Change: A Policy Framework (Knott et al., 2008). The paper sets out how public policy can achieve social and cultural change through 'downstream' interventions including fiscal incentives, legislation, regulation and information provision and also 'upstream' interventions such as parenting, peer and mentoring programs, or development of social and community networks.

The key concepts the paper is based on include:

Cultural capital - such as the attitudes, values, aspirations and sense of self-efficacy which influence behavior. Cultural capital is itself influenced by behavior over time
The shifting social zeitgeist - whereby social norms and values that predominate within the cultural capital in society evolve in over time
The process by which political narrative and new ideas and innovations shift the social zeitgeist over time within the constraint of the 'elastic band' of public opinion
The process of behavioral normalization - whereby behavior and actions pass through into social and cultural norms (for example, Knott et al. argue that the UK experience of seat belt enforcement established and reinforced this as a social norm)
The use of customer insight
The importance of tailoring policy programmes around an ecological model of human behavior to account for how policy will interact with cultural capital and affect it over time

Knott et al. use examples from a range of policy areas to demonstrate how the culture change framework can be applied to policymaking. For example:

To encourage educational aspiration they recommend more use of early years and parenting interventions, an improved childhood offer, and development of positive narratives on education as well as integrated advisory systems, financial assistance and targeted social marketing approaches.
To promote healthy living and personal responsibility they recommend building healthy living into community infrastructure, building partnerships with schools and employers, more one-to-one support for wellbeing alongside use of regulation and legislation on unhealthy products, provision of robust health information and health marketing to promote adaptive forms of behaviour.
To develop environmentally sustainable norms they recommend reinforcing sustainability throughout policy narratives, using schools and the voluntary sector to promote environmental messages, development of infrastructure that make sustainable choices easy, together with a wider package of measures on fiscal incentives, regulation, advisory services and coalition movements.

Notes

↑ Chigbu, Uchendu Eugene (2015). "Repositioning culture for development: women and development in a Nigerian rural community". Community, Work & Family. 18 (3): 334–350. doi:10.1080/13668803.2014.981506.
↑ P.E. Petrakis, P.C. Kostis (2013) “Economic Growth and Cultural Change”, Journal of Socio-Economics, Issue C, Vol. 47, pp. 147-157, DOI 10.1016/j.socec.2013.02.011.
↑ P. Petrakis, D. Valsamis (2013) “Entrepreneurship, Transaction Costs and Cultural Background”, International Business Research, Vol. 6, No. 5.

References

Knott, David; Muers, Stephen; Aldridge, Stephen (2008).
GSR Behaviour Change Knowledge Review (2008). Reference Report: An overview of behaviour change models and their uses

External links

Baconbutty on Culture Change
Cut crime with drink tax, Gordon Brown told, Daily Telegraph
The naughty nation, New Statesman
Winning Hearts and Minds
Transformer une culture : un cadre d’action pour les politiques publiques (in French)
Leading Teams on Culture Change

Culture

Outline

Sciences	Cultural anthropology Cultural astronomy Cultural ecology Cultural geography Cultural neuroscience Cultural studies Culturology Culture theory Neuroculture

Subfields	Bioculture Cross-cultural studies Cross-cultural communication Cross-cultural leadership Cross-cultural psychiatry Cross-cultural psychology Cultural analytics Cultural economics Cultural entomology Cultural health Cultural history Cultural mapping Cultural mediation Cultural psychology Culturomics Intercultural learning Intercultural relations Philosophy of culture Popular culture studies Semiotics of culture Sociology of culture Sound culture Theology of culture Transcultural nursing

Types	Constructed culture Dominant culture Folk culture High culture Individualistic culture Legal culture Low culture Microculture Official culture Political culture Civic Popular culture Urban Primitive culture Subculture Alternative culture list Super culture Vernacular culture Culture by location

Aspects	Acculturation Cultural appropriation Cultural area Cultural artifact Cultural baggage Cultural behavior Cultural bias Cultural capital Cross-cultural Cultural communication Cultural conflict Cultural cringe Cultural dissonance Cultural emphasis Cultural framework Cultural heritage Cultural icon Cultural identity Cultural industry Cultural invention Cultural landscape Cultural learning Cultural leveling Cultural memory Cultural pluralism Cultural practice Cultural property Cultural reproduction Cultural system Cultural technology Cultural universal Cultureme Enculturation High- and low-context cultures Interculturality Manuscript culture Material culture Non-material culture Organizational culture Print culture Protoculture Safety culture Technoculture Trans-cultural diffusion Transculturation Visual culture

Politics	Colonial mentality Consumer capitalism Cross cultural sensitivity Cultural assimilation Cultural attaché Cultural backwardness Cultural Bolshevism Cultural conservatism Cultural contracts Cultural deprivation Cultural diplomacy Cultural environmentalism Cultural exception Cultural feminism Cultural genocide Cultural globalization Cultural hegemony Cultural imperialism Cultural intelligence Cultural liberalism Cultural nationalism Cultural pessimism Cultural policy Cultural racism Cultural radicalism Cultural retention Cultural Revolution Cultural rights Cultural safety Cultural silence Cultural subsidy Cultural Zionism Culture change Culture minister Culture of fear Culture war Deculturalization Dominator culture Interculturalism Intraculturalism Monoculturalism Multiculturalism Biculturalism Pluriculturalism Security culture Transculturism

Related	Animal culture Archaeological culture Bennett scale Bullying culture Cannabis culture Circuit of culture Coffee culture Cross-cultural Cultural center Cultural Christian Cultural Mormon Cultural competence Cultural critic Cultural Detective Cultural determinism Cultural diversity Cultural encoding Cultural evolutionism Cultural homogenization Cultural institution Cultural jet lag Cultural Judaism Cultural lag Cultural literacy Cultural mosaic Cultural movement Cultural mulatto Cultural Muslim Cultural probe Cultural relativism Culture speculation Cultural tourism Pop-culture Cultural translation Cultural turn Cultural sensibility Culture and positive psychology Culture and social cognition Culture gap Culture hero Culture industry Culture shock Culturgen Children's culture Culturalism Cyberculture Death and culture Disability culture Deaf culture Emotions and culture Intercultural communication Intercultural competence Languaculture Living things in culture Media culture Oppositional culture Participatory culture Permission culture Rape culture Remix culture Tea culture Transformation of culture Urban culture Welfare culture

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Culture change

Achieving culture change

See also

Notes

References

External links