Quarter 1

Trends, Networks and Critical Thinking in the 21st Century

TRENDS AND FADS

FAD
 Something that people are highly interested in for a relatively short period of time or has no
long-term implications.
 Comes and goes.
 Transitory and very limited in scope. They only affect a particular group or region and has no
long-term implications.
 Something that people are highly interested in for a relatively short period of time or has no
long-term implications.
 Spread quickly, but disappear equally quickly

TREND
 Is a sequential pattern of change in recorded date—a change evidenced by a rise or fall of
variables when measured between at least two points over time (Gordon, 2008)
 Trend must pass basic test of significance; a change that affects a wide range of people and
that has broad social, economic, cultural, spiritual, and political implications.
 Is a directed movement or behaviour
o Geared towards a certain direction.
o Implies change.
 Facilitates social change and development in societies.
 Operates as forces of social change.
 Operates as forces of social change.
 Every era offers a trend that seems to fade away as a new decade begins. Telephones and
beepers were once the communication trend, but were eventually replaced by cell phones,
tablets, and iPads.

Trend, as a pattern of change, can be categorized according to its sources as follows:

MEGATREND
 A trend in global scale.
 Large social, economic, or political changes
that are SLOW TO FORM; however, once in
place, their influence can last for decades (John
Naisbitt, 1982).
 Not always created by a majority, but are
typically followed by a majority of society.
 Adhere to the economic principle of
globalization as a primary force for change and
growth in the world today.
MICROTRENDS
 Are introduced as the most powerful forces in
our society (Penn, 2007)
Examples of Megatrend identified by
Naisbitt (1982) and Paticia Aburdene (1990)
The Original Megatrend (1982)
 From an industrial society to an
information society
 From forced technology to high tech
or high-touch technology
 From a national economy to a world
economy
 From short term to long term
Megatrend 2000 (1990) with P. Aburdene
 The booming global economy
 Renaissance in the art
 The emergence of free market
socialism
 Global lifestyles and cultural
Nationalism
 The rise of women in leadership
 The age of biology
 Religious revival
 Triumph of the individual
Quarter 1
Trends, Networks and Critical Thinking in the 21st Century
 These are small forces that can stir big changes
in communities, institutions, and societies
around the world.
 These forces are emergent and unexpected to
shape before us.
 Advocate localization as opposed to
globalization.

ELEMENTS AND CHARACTERISTICS OF TREND (Leander P. Marquez, 2018)

FAD TRENDS
Characteristics Element Characteristics
Attractive to the public because it APPEAL Attractive to the public because it
is easy to get, makes them degree of attraction causes on is easy to get, makes them
look/feel better or does not people look/feel better or does not
deviate much from the general deviate much from the general
norms/status quo norms/status quo

Hyped or advertised (Usually by RESULT Endures with or without publicity

Media), that is, if the hyped stops
then it also starts to disappear
This pertains to the impact of a
trend.
IMPACT refers to the ability of a
fad and trend to produce a
sustainable movement or change.

Caters to and accepted by a SCOPE Caters to and accepted by a wide

limited group of people Indicates the extent of the audience or a large group of
influence of a trend. consumers.

No clear established support SUPPORT Supported by a number of fads,

Means the structure that enables existing trends, and prevalent
a trend to be sustainable. socio-economic, political, and
religio-cultural factors.

Persists only for a short period of SUSTAINABILITY Can be sustained for a long
time (weeks to around few Refers to the length of time that a period
months) Trend can continue to exist.

Limited to the area it relates to.
(e.g. clothing fads in relation to
fashion; movies in relation to
entertainment industry)
VALUE
Refers to the utility or usefulness
that can be derived from a trend.
Extensive even as far as areas not
directly related to
(e.g. implication of market trends
affect, aside from business and
the economy, areas such as
education, health, environment,
government policy, and
technology, to name a few)
Quarter 1
Trends, Networks and Critical Thinking in the 21st Century
Other elements of Trends (according to Renato Dela Cruz and Ronel Dela Cruz, 2017)

1. A trend lasts much longer and has a greater impact on society.

2. Identifying a trend helps us to plan ahead effectively for the future
3. We can introduce successful initiatives based on these trends
4. Tends either overlap, support, run parallel, or outgrow each other through time
5. Spotting a trend is trying to see the future in the present
6. Predicting a trend is a valued skill for the global citizen
7. Identifying a trend begins with environmental scanning or engaging in the process of
gathering information
8. In spotting a trend, we seek out current opinion, look, and listen for new ideas and new
practices that can propel change
9. Scanning for a trend demands depth and breadth of analysis. It covers a wide spectrum of
sources in order to reveal events in the community of what ae commonly known and
thought important.
Other characteristics of Trends (according to Renato Dela Cruz and Ronel Dela Cruz, 2017)
1. Its capacity to make sudden surprises and reversals about the things that we can see around
us.
2. It overlaps and interlocks with other trends.
3. The pattern to determine a trend in any issue must pass the basic tests of significance
4. Trends are dynamic

TRENDSPOTTING
Trendspotting

 Is cognitive idea
 It is a product of a thorough and careful analysis of anybody who is sensitive to what os
happening in the society.
 Once a trend is identified, experts will soon categorize, interpret, and label it based on their
contexts and perspectives.
 Spotting a trend is looking at the future through the lens of the present moment. Being able
to predict a trend is a valued skill for the global citizen.
 It begins with the environmental scanning o engaging in the process of gathering
information.
 Spotting a trend is more than just being aware of what people say, but moe importantly on
what they do.

 TRENDSPOTTERS
o Do not content themselves with secondary sources. They immerse themselves
directly to people, places and events where significant events may be happening.
o They pride themselves on having the capacity to call a pattern before any other
individuals.
o Scanners particularly look at the periphery of media where new ideas are more likely
to make their first appearance. (Note: scanning comes first before spotting a trend)
PROJECTING TRENDS

 TREND-base projection is the main business of forecasting and the most common basis of
prediction among professional forecasters.
 Trend projection simply recognizes the movement of the trend into the future and neglect the
cause of these events.
Quarter 1
Trends, Networks and Critical Thinking in the 21st Century
DRIVERS, ENABLERS, FRICTION and BLOCKERS

Change DRIVERS—the forces of change behind a trend that make trends what they are.
ENABLER—is a catalyst that enhances a driver.
FRICTION—is the resistance to change that occurs naturally and inevitably due to learned habits of
seeing and doing things. People tend to judge innovations against the current way they do things as
they are socially and culturally invested in known, familiar patterns. Old habit tend to block this new
development and impede change.
BLOCKERS—may take the form of new law, politicking, street protests, and other factors. They occur
when people try to stop a change or delay it.
Categories of driving forces and blockers
1. TECHNOLOGY
a. It provides new capabilities that make change possible in products and services,
solutions and business models.
b. Better technologies allow us to do more for less and make changes on how we do things.
c. When technology fails to offer a solution to a problem or change that it creates, then it
becomes a blocker of change.
2. POWERFUL INDIVIDUALS AND POWERFUL ORGANIZATIONS
a. There are celebrated and charismatic figures in history like Jesus of Nazareth and Nelson
Mandela who significantly change the future.
b. When the force of individuals is combined with institutional power of government,
military or corporate power, the more it can expedite change or block them.
3. IDEAS AND IDEOLOGIES
a. Our ideas and ideologies compel and drive us to actions in the future whether these are
in the social, political, economic, and/or technological arena.
4. SOCIAL AND MORAL VALUES
a. Social values are the “last line defense” against the rush of technology capabilities that
may or may not lead us to questionable places.
b. Different social groups and different societies representing different values may take
different choices, so conflicts of values surface over whether we should block the future
or not.
c. Social values are institutionalized in the form or regulation, where the courts or
government enforces a position that may block the future.
Quarter 1
Trends, Networks and Critical Thinking in the 21st Century

UNDERSTANDING LOCAL NETWORK

What is a link?

 Linkages are those which connect each individual entity within a network.
What is a Network?

 Are a “set of nodes and ties” (Brass, 1999:42)

o NODES
 Things that are connected.
 Might be a person, a computer, or even a hyperlinked text.
 Connections are the links between the nodes.

Link Network

A B A B

C D
B
C D

 Is a relationship structure wherein the members of the network are able to share resources with
one another.
 Can be understood as a group of people interacting regularly like families, peers, neighbours,
teachers, and managers.
 Has a certain structure where members exchange and communicate information and
experiences for both social and professional purposes.
 Networks is analysed in terms of density, hierarchy, complexity, interdependence, and
embeddedness (Kilduff Tsai, 2003, pp. 30ff).
o DENSITY
 Is measured by the number of connection between actors.
 The higher the number of connection, the more dense the network.
 Describes the potential connection in a given network that could potentially exist
between nodes.
o HIERARCHY
 Actors in the network can pull their investments in social relations by establishing
relations with a diverse set of groups in the community, rather than establishing
all of their relationships with members of one group.
o COMPLEXITY
 Is the extent to which a link between actors serve a multiplicity of interest in the
community.
o INTERDEPENDENCE
 Facilitates cooperation and creates social capital necessary for the progress of
the community.
 Social Capital is the accumulated benefits as a result of the maintenance of a
positive relationship between different groups and associations in the
community.
o EMBEDDEDNESS
 The networks of relations within which each person is rooted include family,
friends and acquaintances.
Quarter 1
Trends, Networks and Critical Thinking in the 21st Century

LOCAL NETWORKS
1. FAMILY
a. The basic unit of the society and the foundation of the nation, which the state cherishes
and protects.
b. The 1987 Philippine Constitution describes the family as “a basic autonomous social
institution” (Art II, Sec. 12) and recognizes the family “as the foundation of the nation”
(Art XV, Sec. 1).
c. The family code of the Philippines stipulates that the “the family, being the foundation
of the nation, is a basic social institution which public policy cherishes and protects”.
d. Further, the family code also specifies the members of the family by stipulating that
“family relations include those: a. between husband and wife; b. between parents and
children; c. among other ascendants and descendants; and d. among brothers and
sisters, whether of the full or half-blood” (Art. 150)
e. In her annotations to the family code, Sempio-Diy (2006) elaborated on the rules on
family relations stated in the abovementioned Art. 150. She wrote:
 Family relations exist among the relatives aforementioned even if they are not
living together.
 Other relatives like cousins, nephews and nieces, and domestic helpers, who
grew-up or are living with the family, are members of the household but not of
the family.
 Illegitimate children are not included in the family relations under the above
Article because they have their families. Adopted children, being part of the
family, are included
 Nephews and nieces, uncles and aunts, are not included because they have their
own families
 The relatives mentioned in this Article include those of the husband as well as
those of the wife.
2. COMMUNITY
a. in the Philippines the Local Community consists of the BARANGAY, the BAYAN, either a
municipalidad o lungsod, and the PROBINSYA
b. BARANGAY
 Came from balangay (pronounced as ba-lang-gay).
 The first use of the term barangay that refers to a political unit of society as we
know today was recorded by the Spaniards to be found in the tagalogs of Luzon.
 The modern day barangay is usually made up of hundreds of families.
 As of December 31, 2013, there is a total of 42, 028 barangays in the Philippines.
c. BAYAN
 Is comprised of multiple barangays and can either be municipalidad or lungsod.
As of December 31, 2013, there is a total of 1, 490 municipalities and 144 cities in
the Philippines.
d. PROBINSYA
 Is composed of different towns.
 As of December 31, 2013, there is a total of 81 provinces in the Philippines.
3. COUNTRY
a. Is comprised by different local communities.
b. However, it will be helpful to understand from the beginning that there is a basic
difference between a country, a nation, and a state.
 A STATE is a community of persons more or less numerous, permanently
occupying a definite portion of territory, independent of external control, and
possessing an organized government to which the great body of inhabitants
render habitual obedience.
Quarter 1
Trends, Networks and Critical Thinking in the 21st Century
 FOUR Elements of State are: 1. People, 2. Territory, 3. Sovereignty, 4.
Government.
 NATION is a group of people who share the same language, culture, traditions,
customs, practices, beliefs, and the like, but does not have sovereignty. However,
through the collective declaration of the members of the nation of their
sovereignty, they can establish a state.
 COUNTRY is often used synonymously with the term STATE. However, a country
refers more to an area of land that forms part of the national territory of a state
over which it exercises its own sovereignty.

UNDERSTANDING GLOBAL NETWORKS

GLOBALIZATION

 Help ensure survival on a global scale.

 According to the study made by Gross and Alcidi (2013), the world will be richer by 2030.
 Globalization is for the world to become more independent.
 Globalization entails the movement of capital, free flow of goods and services, increased
mobility of individuals, and expansion of multinational corporations and transnational
organizations.
 Globalization has integrated the product and financial markets of economies around the world
through the driving forces of trade and capital flows across borders.
MIGRATION

 According to the international organization for migration (IOM)

o Migration is the movement of a person or groups from one territory to another for the
purpose of seeking temporary or permanent residence.
o Such movement can be considered as voluntary or involuntary, long-term or short-term.
o Migration—whether emigration or return—at the micro level, is an individual choice,
and government (both at the centre and the states) only to facilitate the decision of the
individual.
 Why do people migrate?
o People migrate for various reasons. These reasons may fall under FOUR CATEGORIES:
environmental, political, cultural, and economic. Within these migration categories are
the so-called “push” and “pull” factors as categorized by the International Organization
on Migration.
o The PUSH factors are those that motivate people to leave their place because of
difficulty such as food shortage, war, flood, among others, while the PULL FACTORS are
those that attract them to their place of destination.

 TYPES OF MIGRATION
o INTERNAL MIGRATION
 This includes persons or groups moving to a new place within one’s own country.
Filipino Muslims migrate to Visayas Region to avoid the heavy militarization in
the area.
o EXTERNAL MIGRATION
 This is moving to a new residence in a different country, state, or continent.
Some Asians migrate to Europe because of its pleasant climate.
o EMIGRATION
 This consists of persons or groups departing from one country in view of settling
to another. For instance, John’s Family emigrated from Thailand.
Quarter 1
Trends, Networks and Critical Thinking in the 21st Century
o IMMIGRATION
 This is a process where individuals or groups move in to another country for
settlement. For instance, after getting married, Ronel and Liza immigrated to
Hawaii.
