1. Introduction:
Change is the internal law. It is said, “Today is not yesterday, we ourselves change. No change
is permanent, it is subject to change. This is observed in all spares of activity. Change indeed
is painful, yet needful”. Flowing water is wholesome, and stagnant water is poisonous. Only
when it flows through and alters with changes, it is able to refresh and recreate.
Change is an ever-present phenomenon. It is the law of nature. Society is not at all a static
phenomenon, but it is a dynamic entity. It is an ongoing process. The social structure is subject
to incessant changes. Individuals may strive for stability, yet the fact remains that society is
every changing phenomenon; growing, decaying, renewing and accommodating itself to
changing conditions.
Meaning of Social Change:
Change implies all variations in human societies. When changes occur in the modes of living
of individuals and social relation gets influenced, such changes are called social changes.
Social change refers to the modifications which take place in life pattern of people. It occurs
because all societies are in a constant state of disequilibrium.
The word ‘change’ denotes a difference in anything observed over some period of time. Hence,
social change would mean observable differences in any social phenomena over any period of
time.
Social change is the change in society and society is a web of social relationships. Hence, social
change is a change in social relationships. Social relationships are social processes, social
patterns and social interactions. These include the mutual activities and relations of the various
parts of the society. Thus, the term ‘social change’ is used to describe variations of any aspect
of social processes, social patterns, social interaction or social organization.
Social change may be defined as changes in the social organization, that is, the structure and
functions of the society.
Defining Change:
The question to what social change actually means is perhaps the most difficult one within the
scientific study of change. It involves the often-neglected query of what ‘kind’ and degree of
change in what is to be considered social change.
Most analysts of social change deal with this question implicitly somewhere in their theoretical
system or in the context of the latter’s application to some empirical case. For the present
purpose it should suffice to examine definitions that are frequently used to conceptualize
change.
According to Jones “Social change is a term used to describe variations in, or modifications of
any aspect of social processes, social patterns, social interaction or social organization”.
As Kingsley Davis says, “By Social change is meant only such alternations as occur in social
organization – that is, the structure and functions of society”.
2. According to Maclver and Page, “Social change refers to a process responsive to many types
of changes; to changes the man in made condition of life; to changes in the attitudes and beliefs
of men, and to the changes that go beyond the human control to the biological and the physical
nature of things”.
Morris Ginsberg defines, “By social change, I understand a change in social structure, e.g., the
size of the society, the composition or the balance of its parts or the type of its organization”.
P. Fairchild defines social change as “variations or modifications in any aspects of social
process, pattern or form.
B. Kuppuswamy says, “Social change may be defined as the process in which is discernible
significant alternation in the structure and functioning of a particular social system”.
H.M. Johnson says, “Social change is either change in the structure or quasi- structural aspects
of a system of change in the relative importance of coexisting structural pattern”.
According to Merrill and Eldredge, “Change means that large number of persons are engaging
in activities that differ from those which they or their immediate forefathers engaged in some
time before”.
Anderson and Parker define, “Social change involves alternations in the structure or
functioning of societal forms or processes themselves”.
According to M.D. Jenson, “Social change may be defined as modification in ways of doing
and thinking of people.
As H.T. Mazumdar says, “Social change may be defined as a new fashion or mode, either
modifying or replacing the old, in the life of people or in the operation of a society”.
According Gillin and Gillin, “Social changes are variations from the accepted modes of life;
whether due to alternation in geographical conditions, in cultural equipment, composition of
the population or ideologies and brought about by diffusion, or inventions within the group.
By analyzing all the definitions mentioned above, we reach at the conclusion that the two type
of changes should be treated as two facts of the same social phenomenon. Two type of changes
are e.g. (i) changes in the structure of society, (ii) changes in the values and social norms which
bind the people together and help to maintain social order. These two type of changes should
not, however, be treated separately because a change in one automatically induces changes in
the other.
For example, a change in the attitude of the people may bring about changes in the social
structure. Towards the close of the 19 century, there was a tendency in the countries of Western
Europe for families to grow smaller in size. There is a general agreement that this has been
brought about mainly by voluntary restriction of births”.
In this case, a change in the attitude of the people is mainly responsible for change in the social
structure. On the other hand, a change in the social structure may bring about attitudinal change
among the members of the society. Transformation of rural society into industrial society is not
3. simply a change in the structure of society. For example, industrialisation has destroyed
domestic system of production.
The destruction of domestic system of production has brought women from home to factory
and office. The employment of women gave them a new independent outlook. The attitude of
independence instead of dependence upon men has become the trait of women’s personally.
Hence, these two type of changes should not be treated separately but both of them should be
studied together.
The problem of social change is one of the central foci of sociological inquiry. It is so complex
and so significant in the life of individual and of society that we have to explore the ‘why’ and
‘how’ of social change in all its ramifications.
Nature/ characteristics of Social Change:
The fact of social change has fascinated the keenest minds and still poses some of the great
unsolved problems in social sciences. The phenomenon of social change is not simple but
complex. It is difficult to understand this in its entirety. The unsolved problems are always
pressurizing us to find an appropriate answer. To understand social change well, we have to
analyses the nature of social change which are as follows:
Social Change is Social:
Society is a “web of social relationships” and hence social change obviously means a change
in the system of social relationships. Social relationships are understood in terms of social
processes and social interactions and social organizations.
Thus, the term social change is used to describe variation in social interactions, processes and
social organizations. Only that change can be called social change whose influence can be felt
in a community form. The changes that have significance for all or considerable segment of
population can be considered as social change.
Social Change is Universal:
Change is the universal law of nature. The social structure, social organization and social
institutions are all dynamic. Social change occurs in all societies and at all times. No society
remains completely static.
Each society, no matter how traditional and conservative, is constantly undergoing change. Just
as man’s life cannot remain static, so does society of all places and times. Here adjustment take
place and here conflict breaks down adjustment. Here there is revolution and here consent.
Here men desire for achieving new goals, and here they return to old ones.
Social Change occurs as an Essential law:
Change is the law of nature. Social change is also natural. Change is an unavoidable and
unchangeable law of nature. By nature we desire change. Our needs keep on changing to satisfy
our desire for change and to satisfy these needs, social change becomes a necessity. The truth
is that we are anxiously waiting for a change. According to Green, “The enthusiastic response
of change has become almost way of life.
4. Social Change is Continuous:
Society is an ever-changing phenomenon. It is undergoing endless changes. It is an “ongoing
process”. These changes cannot be stopped. Society is subject to continuous change. Here it
grows and decays, there it finds renewal, accommodates itself to various changing conditions.
Society is a system of social relationship. But these social relationships are never permanent.
They are subject to change. Society cannot be preserved in a museum to save it from the ravages
of time. From the dawn of history, down to this day, society has been in flux.
Social change manifests itself in different stages of human history. In ancient times when life
was confined to caves (Stone Age), the social system was different from that of the computer
age today. There is no fixity in human relationships. Circumstances bring about many a change
in the behavior patterns.
Social Change Involves No-Value Judgement:
Social change does not attach any value judgement. It is neither moral nor immoral, it is amoral.
The question of “what ought to be” is beyond the nature of social change. The study of social
change involves no-value judgement. It is ethically neutral. A correct decision on what is
empirically true is not the same as correct decision on what ought to be.
Social Change is Bound by Time Factors:
Social change is temporal. It happens through time, because society exists only as a time-
sequences. We know its meaning fully only by understanding it through time factors. For
example, the caste system which was a pillar of stability in traditional Indian society, is now
undergoing considerable changes in the modern India.
There was less industrialisation in India during 50s. But in 90s, India has become more
industrialized. Thus, the speed of social change differs from age to age. The reason is that the
factors which cause social change do not remain uniform with the changes in time.
Rate and Tempo of Social Change is Uneven:
Though social change is a must for each and every society, the rate, tempo, speed and extent
of change is not uniform. It differs from society to society. In some societies, its speed is rapid;
in another it may be slow. And in some other societies it occurs so slowly that it may not be
noticed by those who live in them. For example, in the modern, industrial urban society the
speed and extent of change is faster than traditional, agricultural and rural society.
Definite Prediction of Social Change is Impossible:
It is very much difficult to make out any prediction on the exact forms of social change. A
thousand years ago in Asia, Europe and Latin America the face of society was vastly different
from that what exists today. But what the society will be in thousand years from now, no one
can tell.
But a change there will be. For example, industrialisation and urbanization has brought about
a series of interrelated changes in our family and marriage system. But we cannot predict the
5. exact forms which social relationships will assume in future. Similarly, what shall be our ideas,
attitudes and value in future, it is unpredictable.
Social Change Shows Chain-Reaction Sequences:
Society is a dynamic system of interrelated parts. Changes in one aspect of life may induce a
series of changes in other aspects. For example, with the emancipation of women, educated
young women find the traditional type of family and marriage not quite fit to their liking.
They find it difficult to live with their parents-in-law, obeying the mother-in-law at every point.
They desire separate homes. The stability of marriages can no longer be taken for granted. The
changing values of women force men to change their values also. Therefore, society is a system
of interrelated parts. Change in its one aspect may lead to a series of changes in other aspects
of the society.
Social Change takes place due to Multi-Number of Factors:
Social change is the consequence of a number of factors. A special factor may trigger a change
but it is always associated with other factors that make the triggering possible. Social change
cannot be explained in terms of one or two factors only and that various factors actually
combine and become the cause’ of the change. M. Ginsberg observes: “A cause is an
assemblage of factors which, in interaction with each other, undergo a change”. There is no
single master key by which we can unlock all the doors leading to social change. As a matter
of fact, social change is the consequence of a number of factors.
Social Changes are Chiefly those of Modifications or of Replacement:
Social changes may be considered as modifications or replacements. It may be modification of
physical goods or social relationships. For example, the form of our breakfast food has
changed. Though we eat the same basic materials such as meats, eggs corn etc. which we ate
earlier, their form has been changed.
Ready-to-eat cornflakes, breads, omelets are substituted for the form in which these same
materials were consumed in earlier years. Further, there may be modifications of social
relationships. For example, the old authoritarian family has become the small equalitarian
family. Our attitudes towards women’s status and rights, religion, co-education etc. stand
modified today.
Short-term and Long-term Change:
The conceptualization of the magnitude of change involves the next attribute of change, the
time span. That is to say, a change that may be classified as ‘small-scale from a short-term
perspective may turn out to have large-scale consequences when viewed over a long period of
time, as the decreasing death rate since the 1960 in India exemplifies.
Social Change may be Peaceful or Violent:
At times, the attribute ‘peaceful’ has been considered as practically synonymous with ‘gradual’
and ‘violent’ with ‘rapid’. The term ‘violence’ frequently refers to the threat or use of physical
6. force involved in attaining a given change. In certain sense, rapid change may ‘violently’ affect
the emotions, values and expectations of those involved.
According to W.E. Moore, “A ‘true’ revolution, a rapid and fundamental alternation in the
institutions or normative codes of society and of its power distribution, is rapid and continuous
by definition and is likely to be violent, but may well be orderly as opposed to erratic”.
‘Peaceful’ has to do with the changes that take place by consent, acceptance or acquisition and
that are enforced by the normative restraints of society.
Social Change may be Planned or Unplanned:
Social change may occur in the natural course or it is done by man deliberately. Unplanned
change refers to change resulting from natural calamities, such as famines and floods,
earthquakes and volcanic eruption etc. So social change is called as the unchangeable law of
nature. The nature is never at rest.
Planned social change occurs when social changes are conditioned by human engineering.
Plans, programmers and projects are made by man in order to determine and control the
direction of social change.
Besides that by nature human beings desire change. The curiosity of a man never rests; nothing
checks his desire to know. There is always a curiosity about unknown. The needs of human
beings are changing day by day. So to satisfy these needs they desire change.
Sources of Social change:
Population Growth and Composition
Much of the discussion so far has talked about population growth as a major source of social
change as societies evolved from older to modern times. Yet even in modern societies, changes
in the size and composition of the population can have important effects for other aspects of a
society, as emphasized. As just one example, the number of school-aged children reached a
high point in the late 1990s as the children of the post–World War II baby boom entered their
school years. This swelling of the school-aged population had at least three important
consequences. First, new schools had to be built, modular classrooms and other structures had
to be added to existing schools, and more teachers and other school personnel had to be hired
(Leonard, 1998). Second, school boards and municipalities had to borrow dollars and/or raise
taxes to pay for all of these expenses. Third, the construction industry, building supply centers,
and other businesses profited from the building of new schools and related activities. The
growth of this segment of our population thus had profound implications for many aspects of
U.S. society even though it was unplanned and “natural.”
Culture and Technology
Culture and technology are other sources of social change. Changes in culture can change
technology; changes in technology can transform culture; and changes in both can alter other
aspects of society (Crowley & Heyer, 2011).
7. Two examples from either end of the 20th century illustrate the complex relationship among
culture, technology, and society. At the beginning of the century, the car was still a new
invention, and automobiles slowly but surely grew in number, diversity, speed, and power. The
car altered the social and physical landscape of the United States and other industrial nations
as few other inventions have. Roads and highways were built; pollution increased; families
began living farther from each other and from their workplaces; tens of thousands of people
started dying annually in car accidents. These are just a few of the effects the invention of the
car had, but they illustrate how changes in technology can affect so many other aspects of
society.
At the end of the 20th century came the personal computer, whose development has also had
an enormous impact that will not be fully understood for some years to come. Anyone old
enough, such as many of your oldest professors, to remember having to type long manuscripts
on a manual typewriter will easily attest to the difference computers have made for many
aspects of our work lives. E-mail, the Internet, and smartphones have enabled instant
communication and make the world a very small place, and tens of millions of people now use
Facebook and other social media. A generation ago, students studying abroad or people
working in the Peace Corps overseas would send a letter back home, and it would take up to 2
weeks or more to arrive. It would take another week or 2 for them to hear back from their
parents. Now even in poor parts of the world, access to computers and smartphones lets us
communicate instantly with people across the planet.
As the world becomes a smaller place, it becomes possible for different cultures to have more
contact with each other. This contact, too, leads to social change to the extent that one culture
adopts some of the norms, values, and other aspects of another culture. Anyone visiting a poor
nation and seeing Coke, Pepsi, and other popular U.S. products in vending machines and stores
in various cities will have a culture shock that reminds us instantly of the influence of one
culture on another. For better or worse, this impact means that the world’s diverse cultures are
increasingly giving way to a more uniform global culture.
This process has been happening for more than a century. The rise of newspapers, the
development of trains and railroads, and the invention of the telegraph, telephone, and, later,
radio and television allowed cultures in different parts of the world to communicate with each
other in ways not previously possible. Affordable jet transportation, cell phones, the Internet,
and other modern technology have taken such communication a gigantic step further.
As mentioned earlier, many observers fear that the world is becoming Westernized as Coke,
Pepsi, McDonald’s, and other products and companies invade other cultures. Others say that
Westernization is a good thing, because these products, but especially more important ones like
refrigerators and computers, do make people’s lives easier and therefore better. Still other
observers say the impact of Westernization has been exaggerated. Both within the United States
and across the world, these observers say, many cultures continue to thrive, and people continue
to hold on to their ethnic identities.
Cultural Lag
An important aspect of social change is cultural lag, a term popularized by sociologist William
F. Ogburn (1922/1966). When there is a change in one aspect of society or culture, this change
often leads to and even forces a change in another aspect of society or culture. However, often
some time lapses before the latter change occurs. Cultural lag refers to this delay between the
initial social change and the resulting social change.
8. Discussions of examples of cultural lag often feature a technological change as the initial
change. Ogburn (1922/1966) cited one such example from the decades after the American Civil
War: the rise of the machine age. The development of factories during the Industrial Revolution
meant that work became much more dangerous than before. More industrial accidents
occurred, but injured workers were unable to receive adequate financial compensation because
the existing law of negligence allowed them to sue only the person—a fellow worker—whose
negligence caused the injury. However, negligent workers were typically very poor themselves
and thus unable to provide meaningful compensation if they were sued. This meant that injured
workers in effect could receive no money for their injuries.
Over time, the sheer number of industrial accidents and rising labor protest movement
pressured lawmakers to help injured workers receive financial assistance. Some states began
to allow workers to sue the companies whose dangerous workplaces were responsible for their
injuries, and juries awarded these workers huge sums of money. Fearing these jury awards, in
the early 1900s the manufacturing industry finally developed the process now called workers’
compensation, which involves fairly automatic payments for workplace injuries without the
necessity of lawsuits (Barkan, 2009). The delay of several decades between the rise of factories
and industrial accidents and the eventual establishment of workers’ compensation is a fine
example of cultural lag.
The Natural Environment
Changes in the natural environment can also lead to changes in a society itself. We see the
clearest evidence of this when a major hurricane, an earthquake, or another natural disaster
strikes. Three recent disasters illustrate this phenomenon. In April 2010, an oil rig operated by
BP, an international oil and energy company, exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, creating what
many observers called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history; its effects on the ocean,
marine animals, and the economies of states and cities affected by the oil spill will be felt for
decades to come. In January 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti and killed more than
250,000 people, or about 2.5% of that nation’s population. A month later, an even stronger
earthquake hit Chile. Although this earthquake killed only hundreds (it was relatively far from
Chile’s large cities and the Chilean buildings were sturdily built), it still caused massive
damage to the nation’s infrastructure. The effects of these natural disasters on the economy and
society of each of these two countries will certainly also be felt for many years to come.
Social Conflict: War and Protest
Change also results from social conflict, including wars, ethnic conflict, efforts by social
movements to change society, and efforts by their opponents to maintain the status quo. The
immediate impact that wars have on societies is obvious, as the deaths of countless numbers of
soldiers and civilians over the ages have affected not only the lives of their loved ones but also
the course of whole nations. To take just one of many examples, the defeat of Germany in
World War I led to a worsening economy during the next decade that in turn helped fuel the
rise of Hitler.
One of the many sad truisms of war is that its impact on a society is greatest when the war takes
place within the society’s boundaries. For example, the Iraq war that began in 2003 involved
two countries more than any others, the United States and Iraq. Because it took place in Iraq,
many more Iraqis than Americans died or were wounded, and the war certainly affected Iraqi
9. society—its infrastructure, economy, natural resources, and so forth—far more than it affected
American society. Most Americans continued to live their normal lives, whereas most Iraqis
had to struggle to survive the many ravages of war.
Historians and political scientists have studied the effect of war on politics and the economy.
War can change a nation’s political and economic structures in obvious ways, as when the
winning nation forces a new political system and leadership on the losing nation. Other political
and economic changes brought by war are subtler. World War I provides an interesting example
of such changes. Before the war, violent labor strikes were common in Britain and other
European nations. When the war began, a sort of truce developed between management and
labor, as workers wanted to appear patriotic by supporting the war effort and hoped that they
would win important labor rights for doing so. However, the truce soon dissolved after prices
began to rise and wages did not. Labor-management conflict resumed and became very intense
by the end of the war.
This conflict in turn forced European political and business leaders to grant several concessions
to labor, which thus achieved gains, however limited, in political and economic power. Labor’s
participation in the war effort helped it win these concessions. As a historian summarized this
connection,
Process of Social change:
An American Sociologist William Fielding Ogburn suggests that social change occurs in
culture and cultural evolution is the result of the following is the process of social
change which includes:
1.Invention
2.Accumulation
3.Diffusion
4.Adjustment
1. Invention
Linton says that “an invention is a new application of knowledge”. When a thing which is
already exists in a culture comes to front and appear before the masses, is invention in social
change. Invention occurs due to the following three factors.
Mental Ability. An invention required mental ability of an individual in a society. Larger the
population, greater would be the number of talented people. So, mental ability is a source for
social change in society.
Demand. A demand of the people for anything which is in scarcity results in an invention,
which leads to social change. Greater the demand of people for material object, faster would
be the process of invention.
Existence of Cultural Elements. If compare small culture to large, small culture change
slowly. When there are more cultural elements the invention will be faster. Cultural elements
and resources are very important for an invention and social change.
2. Accumulation
In the result of innovation more new elements are added to a culture. These cultural elements
combined with the old elements which results in the process of accumulation. When there is
the invention of new elements combined to the already existing elements, the accumulation
will be greater.
10. Figure: Change process
3. Diffusion
Cultural diffusion is an important source of social change. The process of diffusion starts
when an invention or cultural element spread from one culture to another. Quick means of
communication and transportation made possible an invention or to diffuse a cultural element
to another culture.
4. Adjustment
Last but not the least adjustment is the last factor in the process of social change. After
invention, accumulation and diffusion of cultural elements the adjustment of an individual
takes place in that culture. All the cultural elements are interrelated with one another but when
a material change occurs in a culture it brings slow change in material culture. But with the
passage of time the space fills and the adjustment of new elements takes place in that culture.
So, the invention of new element becomes a part of the culture as a result of adjustment process
of social change
Social
Change
Invention
Accumulatio
n
Diffusion
Adjustment
