social change

1. Sociology
Unit 6: Social Change

2. Unit 6 Overview
Unit EQ 1: How do societies change over time?
Unit EQ 2: What factors are involved in changing social
norms?

3. You will need to be able to “Understand” the
following:
• The world’s population is constantly changing.
• Several models and theories have been created to explain the
structure of cities and city life.
• Collective behavior is divided into three broad categories: crowds,
collective preoccupations, and public opinion.
• Sociologists offer three explanations for collective behavior: contagion
theory, emergent-norm theory, and value-added theory.
• There are four stages in the life cycle of social movements: agitation,
legitimation, bureaucratization, and institutionalization.
• Functionalists have developed three theories on why social change
occurs: cyclical theory, evolutionary theory, equilibrium theory.
• Conflict theory focuses on conflict among groups as a source of
change.
• Modernization is the process by which a society’s social institutions
become more complex.
• Sociologists offer two explanations of modernization: modernization
theory and world-system theory.

4. Population
Vocabulary
• Population
• Demography
• Birthrate
• Life expectancy
EQ 1: What factors affect the growth or decline of a
region’s population?
EQ 2: What theories attempt to explain population
change?
• Migration
• Growth rate
• Malthusian theory
• Demographic transition
theory

5. Population Change
• Population
• Number of people living in
an area
• Demography
• Area of sociology devoted
to the study of human
population
• One area of focus is
population change

6. Birthrate
Live Births / Total Population X 1, 000

7. Death (Mortality) Rate
Deaths / Total Population X 1, 000
World Death Rate is 8.37 per 1,000 per year

8. Infant Mortality Rate
Infant Deaths / Total Live Births X 1, 000

9. Migration Rate
Individuals Moving into Area / Total
Population in the Area X 1, 000

10. Change: Malthusian Theory
• Predicted that the world population would
soon reach astronomical numbers.
• Problem
• Population increases geometrically
• 2, 4, 8, 16, 32
• Food Production increases arithmetically
• 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
• This would cause famine
• Two forces could slow population
• Preventative Check: Birth control and
Abstinence
• Positive Checks: War, Disease, and
Famine

11. Eugenics

12. Change: Demographic Transition Theory
• Population patterns are tied to technology level
• Three stages of development.

13. Urbanization
Vocabulary
• Urbanization
• Overurbanization
• Urban ecology
• Concentric zone model
• Sector model
EQ: How does sociology explain the structure of cities
and city life?
• Multiple nuclei model
• Urban sprawl
• Urban anomie theory
• Compositional theory
• Subcultural theory

14. Cities as micro-level living
environments
• Tonnies - two types of community extremes
• Gemeinschaft- small, traditional communities; characterized by
families and personal relationships and values
• Gesellschaft- large, impersonal urban areas; characterized by
formal relationships and contracts and a money economy;
isolation

15. Cities as micro-level living
environments
• Durkheim - two types of social bonds
• Mechanical solidarity- shared beliefs, values, and traditions;
homogeneity of thought; typical of rural areas and simple societies
• Order upheld by shared beliefs and values
• Organic solidarity- society held together by a specialized division of
labor; common in complex societies
• Order upheld by restitutive law in which individuals make amends for
wrong doing

16. Life in the city
• Urban residential patterns
• Neighborhoods- identifiable areas within the larger metropolitan
area
• Meet most of the needs of residents
• Residents are homogenous with respect to income, interests,
ethnicity or race, etc.
• High degree of social interaction among residents
• Symbolic commitment
• Suburbs- areas immediately adjacent to the city

17. ©Copyright2010AlanS.
Berger
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UrbanismasaWayofLife
Ferdinand Töennies: Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.
• Gemeinschaft is a type of social organization by which people are
bound closely together by kinship and traditio.
• Gesellschaft is a type of social organization by which people have
weak social ties and considerable self-interest.
• Töennies saw the development of modern urban society as a shift
from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft.
Emile Durkheim: Mechanical and organic solidarity.
• Durkheim described traditional, rural life as mechanical solidarity,
social bonds based on common sentiments and shared moral values.
• Organic solidarity refers to social bonds based on specialization and
interdependence.
• Durkheim optimistically pointed to a new kind of solidarity. Where
societies had been built on likeness, Durkheim now saw social life
based on differences.

18. Theories of City Life
• Simmel - the intensity and stimulation of city life and the
market effects on urban relations—causes city dwellers to
be insensitive and avoid intense relationships to protect
their privacy
• Urban Anomie Theory (Wirth) - urban dwellers develop
coping mechanisms for living in high-density,
heterogeneous areas, including becoming sophisticated and
depersonalizing from others. Normlessness.
• Subcultural Theory (Fischer) - urban life strengthens social
groups, promotes diverse subcultures, and encourages
intimate social circles among those who share similar
activities or traits

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Berger
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UrbanismasaWayofLife
• Georg Simmel: The blasé urbanite. To prevent being overwhelmed by all the
city stimulation, urbanites develop a blasé attitude, tuning out much of what
goes on around them.
• The Chicago School: Robert Park and Lewis Wirth.
• Robert Park was the founder of the Chicago School of urban sociology.
• Louis Wirth sees a large population, dense settlement, and social
diversity as the keys to understanding urban society. These traits tend to
make human relations impersonal, superficial and transitory, as well as
relatively tolerant.
• Census 2000: The Minority Majority in the Largest U.S. Cities. According
to the 2000 census, minorities—Hispanics, African Americans, and
Asians—are now a majority of the population of the 100 largest U.S. cities.

20. How did cities evolve?
• The Chicago School theory of urban development- cities grow
in a series of circles, moving out from the center. Each circle is
dominated by a particular type of activity and residential
pattern
• The Urban Question and Social Justice and the City theories of
urban development- urban space is both socially defined and
in scarce supply; therefore, political-economic conflict will
arise over how space gets allocated and by whom
• Conflict theories of urban development- city problems are a
result of domination by elites, creating poverty and
exploitation of the poor; urbanization and modernization are a
cause of poverty

21. Types of cities
• Urbanized nations- countries in which more than
half of the population live in urban areas
• Industrial cities- primarily commercial centers
motivated by competition
• Postindustrial cities- high percentage of employees
in the service sector; closely tied to capitalism,
global production, and instant exchanges of
information
• “New Towns”- cities built from scratch by urban
planners as economically self-sufficient entities
with all necessary amenities

22. • Gentrification- members of the middle and upper class,
mostly young white professionals, buying and
renovating rundown properties in central-city
neighborhoods
• Megacities- cities with over 10 million people
• Megalopolis- a spatial merging of two or more cities
along major transportation corridors
• Indigenous cities- traditional cities that usually predate
European ones; centers usually include a bazaar and
religious and government buildings
• Dual cities- modern westernized "colonial" central
cities located next to a traditional, indigenous cities

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Berger
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EcologicalIssues
Environment and Society.
Ecology is the study of the interaction of living
organisms and the natural environment.
Humans have transformed half of the world’s land
surface and use more than half of all the accessible
surface fresh water in the world.

24. ©Copyright2010AlanS.
Berger
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EcologicalIssues
• Urban ecology is the study of the link between the physical and
social dimensions of cities.
• This approach helps explain why cities are located where they
are.
• It also generates theories concerning the physical design of
cities
• Ernest Burgess’s concentric zone theory.
• Homer Hoyt’s wedge-shaped sector theory.
• Harris and Ullman’s focus on multiple nuclei cities.
• Social area analysis studies how neighborhoods differ in
terms of family patterns, social class, and race or ethnicity.
• Critique :This approach helps explain why many U.S. cities
are in crisis, but both urban ecology and urban political
economy are not easily applied to cities in other societies or in
different eras.

25. ©Copyright2010AlanS.
Berger
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EcologicalIssues
Urbanization in Poor Societies.
• A third urban revolution is taking place because many poor nations
have entered the high-growth Stage 2 of demographic transition
theory.
• Cities do offer more opportunities than rural areas, but they provide
no quick fix for the massive problems of escalating population and
grinding poverty.
Environmental racism is the pattern by which environmental hazards are
greatest in proximity to poor people, particularly poor minorities. In part,
it is a deliberate strategy by factory owners and powerful officials.

26. ©Copyright2010AlanS.
Berger
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EcologicalIssues
• Humanity’s use of the environment has had a variety of debilitating
effects on the natural environment. Humans have the capability to
overexploit natural resources, but they can also restore and protect them.
• Functionalist theorists see the ecosystem as exhibiting a tendency
toward equilibrium in which its components maintain a delicately
balanced relationship.
• Some conflict theorists emphasize the reality of certain individuals and
groups securing a disproportionate share of what is available.
• Symbolic interactionists focus on “people behavior” related to
environmental issues.
• If a sustainable global society is to be created, some critics think that
humans will need to check increases in population and energy use.
Other observers believe that the free market will result in life improving
indefinitely.

27. ©Copyright2010AlanS.
Berger
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EcologicalIssues
The natural environment consists of the earth’s surface and atmosphere,
including various living organisms and the air, water, soil, and other
resources necessary to sustain life.
The global dimension.
• Any study of the natural environment must necessarily be global in
scope because the planet constitutes a single ecosystem, the system
composed of the interaction of all living organisms and their natural
environment.
• Technology and the environmental deficit.
• Complex technologies generally pose more threats to the global
environment than did the simple technology of preindustrial societies.

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Berger
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EcologicalIssues
The world is now facing an environmental deficit,
profound and negative harm to the natural
environment caused by humanity's focus on short-
term material affluence. This concept implies three
important ideas:
• The state of the environment is a social issue.
• Environmental damage is often unintended.
• Much environmental harm is reversible.

29. ©Copyright2010AlanS.
Berger
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EcologicalIssues
Culture: Growth and limits.
• The logic of growth thesis is a widely accepted cultural value
which suggests that growth is inherently good and that we can
solve any problems that might arise as a result of unrestrained
expansion.
• The limits to growth thesis holds that humanity must implement
policies to control the growth of population, material production,
and the use of resources in order to avoid environmental collapse.
• Solid waste: The disposable society.
1. Why Grandmother Had No Trash.
2. Landfills pose several threats to the natural environment.
3. Recycling, reusing resources we would otherwise discard, is one solution.

30. ©Copyright2010AlanS.
Berger
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EcologicalIssues
• Water and air.
• Water supply is problematic in many parts of the world.
• A special problem is acid rain, rain that is made acidic by air
pollution and destroys plant and animal life.
• Water Consumption in Global Perspective. Some countries do
not have an adequate supply of water.
• Polluted water is an increasingly serious concern as well.
• A deterioration of air quality was one of the unanticipated
consequences of the development of industrial technology.

31. ©Copyright2010AlanS.
Berger
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EcologicalIssues
• Rain forests are regions of dense forestation, most of which circle the globe
close to the equator.
• Global warming is apparently occurring as a result of the greenhouse effect, a
rise in the earth’s average temperature due to increasing concentration of carbon
dioxide in the atmosphere resulting in part from the decline of the rain forests.
• The shrinking of the rain forests reduces the earth’s biodiversity.

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Berger
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EcologicalIssues
• Looking Ahead: Toward a Sustainable World.
• We need to develop an ecologically sustainable culture, a way of
life that meets the needs of the present generation without
threatening the environmental legacy of future generations.
• This calls for three basic strategies:
• We must bring world population growth under control.
• We must conserve finite resources.
• We must reduce waste.
• Will People Overwhelm the Earth?

33. Urban problems, the environment,
and social policy: Macro-level
perspectives
• Rural migrants and overcrowding
• Environment, infrastructure, and urban ecosystems
• Poverty
• Crime and delinquency

34. Global trends that will affect
urban planning
• Urbanization will continue
• Information and transportation technologies allow for
global contact and reduce commitment to certain
geographical areas
• International boundaries will diminish in importance
• Economies will rely on brainwork rather than physical
labor
• Conflicts between cultural and political groups will
continue to affect urban life
• McDonaldization- creation of a consumer world
dominated by major Western food, music, fashion, and
entertainment-- will continue

35. Collective Behavior
EQ 1: How do sociologists explain collective behavior?
EQ 2: What are Herbert Blumer’s four stages of the
Acting Crowd?
• Crowd
• Mob
• Riot
• Panic
• Mass hysteria
• Collective behavior
Vocabulary
• The Acting Crowd
• Collective preoccupations
• Public opinions
• Contagion theory
• Emergent-Norm theory
• Value-Added theory

36. Collective Behavior
• Definition: the relatively spontaneous social
behavior that occurs when people try to develop
common solutions to unclear situations.
*difficult to study because its short lived

37. Types of Collective Behavior
•Crowds
•Collective
Preoccupations
•Public Opinion

38. Crowds
• Four Classifications
• Casual Crowd
• Conventional Crowd
• Expressive Crowd
• Acting Crowd
• *Protesting Crowd
Definition: temporary gathering of people who are
in close enough proximity to interact.

39. Casual Crowd
• Forms spontaneously because some event
captures people’s attention
• Least organized and most temporary type of
crowd
• Example: people waiting in line to buy movie
tickets

40. Conventional Crowd
• More structured
• Not much interaction, but people act according
to a set of rules
• Example: people gathered for a public lecture

41. Expressive Crowd
• No apparent goal or purpose
• Forms around emotionally charged events
• Example: audiences at rock concerts

42. Acting Crowd
• A violent group of people formed because of
hostile and destructive emotions
• Example: looters after a natural disaster

45. Protesting Crowd
• Exhibits characteristics of acting crowds
• Better organized and longer lasting
• Example: people protesting a political convention

46. Mobs
• Emotionally charged
collectivities whose
members are united by
a specific destructive
or violent goal
• Usually have leaders
who urge the group
towards common
action

47. Riot
• Collections of people who erupt into
destructive behavior
• Less unified than mobs

48. Panic
• Spontaneous and
uncoordinated group
actions to escape
some perceived threat
• Mutual cooperation
breaks down
• Often occur in
situations outside the
realm of everyday
experience

49. Mass Hysteria
• Unfounded anxiety shared by people who can
be scattered over a wide geographic area
• Involves irrational beliefs
• Usually short lived

50. Collective Preoccupations
• Fads
• Fashions
• Rumors
• Urban Legends

51. Fads and Fashions

52. Rumors and Urban Legends

53. Public Opinion
Definition: Collection of attitudes that members of
a public have about a particular issue
• Techniques
• Testimonial
• Bandwagon
• Name-calling
• Plain-folk appeal
• Glittering generalities
• Card stacking

54. Contagion Theory
• The hypnotic power of a crowd encourages people to give
up their individuality to the stronger pull of the group.
• A crowd offers anonymity, overtakes members with
emotions, and makes members suggestible.

55. Emergent-Norm Theory
• Symbolic-interaction paradigm
• Not irrational (contagion) or deliberate (convergence)
• People are often faced with a situation in which traditional
norms of behavior do not apply.
• As a result, new norms gradually emerge.

56. Convergence Theory
• Focuses on shared emotions, goals, and beliefs.
• Events draw people together with similar values and
viewpoints.

57. Value-Added Theory
• Six conditions result in collective behavior:
• Structural conduciveness
• Structural strain
• Growth and spread of a generalized belief of
what is wrong and what can be done
• Precipitating factors (Triggering Mechanism)
• Mobilization for action
• Social control
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58. Social Movements
Vocabulary
• Social change
• Social movement
• Reactionary movement
• Conservative movement
EQ: What types of social movements exists, and how
do they differ??
• Revisionary movement
• Revolutionary movement
• Resource mobilization

59. Social Change
Vocabulary
• Ideology
• Cyclical theory
• Principle of immanent
change
EQ 1: What are the main sources and causes for
resistance of social change?
EQ 2: How do functionalists and conflict theorists
explain social change?
• Evolutionary theory
• Equilibrium theory
• Class conflict

60. Activator
• What efforts are you familiar with that have
attempted to promote or prevent change? (TPS)

61. Activity: Social Movement Pictorial
• Students will use computers to create collages
representing the various social movements.
• Collage will include images and words that
encapsulate the movement.
• As a class we will classify the movements.

62. Study for the
Social Inequality Exam

63. Lesson Activator
Any questions prior to the social inequality exam?