Anthropology and Social Change Anthropologists regard CULTURES, the focus of their studies as constantly changing organisms

Anthropology: Example Questions Was a cultural change caused by a change in the society’s leadership? What ideas or explanations can we use to describe what causes cultures to change? Was it caused by a shift in the values and norms of the culture’s membership? Is the technological change a factor in an observed cultural change?

According to Anthropologists, Social Change happens because of… 1. Invention: new innovations that change the way cultures function 2. Discovery: finding information that changes a culture that was previously unknown 3. Diffusion: distribution of ideas and information between cultures 4. Acculturation: blending of certain beliefs and customs between 2 cultures after close interaction over time

Acculturation can occur in 3 ways: Incorporation:  It can be freely borrowed  Canoe is Canadian cultural borrowed from Natives Directed change:  It can be forced; when one culture overtakes another and suppresses its people  We speak English & French… colonization Cultural evolution:  View that cultures evolve according to common patterns in ways that are predictable  Hunter gatherers – industrialized – post industrialized

So Acculturation is adapting to your new society... (new immigrants...) Is adapting a bad thing (and the resulting cultural loss)? (2:24) ‘Thomas Sowell - Assimilation And Acculturation’