Social change refers to changes in social structures and relationships within a society over time. It involves alterations in social organizations and the patterns of social interactions and relationships. Common causes of social change include changes in cultural beliefs, population composition, social institutions, and ideologies. Sociologists study social change through concepts like modernization, westernization, and universalization. In India, concepts like sanskritization and concepts developed by Mckim Marriot and Robert Redfield to study changes in Indian villages have been widely used. Social change is a complex process and it is difficult to predict its exact forms or pace, though it typically results in changes to the structure of society.

1. Process of Social Change Concept of Social Change Social change is a concept in sociology which talks
about a change in the established patterns of social relations, or change in social values or change
in structures and subsystems operating in the society. The term social change is used to indicate the
changes that take place in human interactions and interrelations. Society is a web of social
relationships and hence social change means change in the system of social relationships. These
are understood interms of social processes and social interactions and social organization. Auguste
Comte the father of Sociology has posed two problems-the question of social statics and the question of
social dynamics, what is and how it changes. The sociologists not only outline the structure of
the society but also seek to know its causes also. According to Morris Ginsberg social change is
a change in the social structure. Generally, social change can either be total or partial. Changeis
the basic nature of society and change is universal. Social change occupiesa dominant place in the
consciousness of humanity. Man and society have evolvedthrough the times immemorial. In this
course, both men and their social institutionshave undergone changes that generate contradictory
feelings of hope as well asanxiety. Even a casual student of history must admit that social change
occupies animportant place in the human chronicle. Whether this can be proved or not in the
caseof extinct societies is a matter for anthropological research, but what is evident to
thecurrentobserver is the reality of change in all living societies. The subject of socialchange in modern
India is vast and complex, and an understanding of it will requirethe collaboration of a number of
scholars insuch diverse fields as economics,history, law, politics, religion, demography and sociology. It
will have to take intoaccount also of regional, linguistic and other differences.Definition of Social
ChangeSocial change may be defined as the process which is discernible in the alteration ofthe
structure and functioning of a particular social system. It is a term used todescribe variation in,
modificationsof, any aspect of social processes, socialpatterns, and socialinteraction within a social
organisation. Social changes and variationsfrom the accepted modes of life, whether due to
geographical conditions, in culturalequipment, composition of the population or ideologies and
whether brought about bydiffusions or inventions within the group. By social change is meant only
suchalterations as occur in social organisations, that is, structure and functions of society.Usually
social change refers to a significant change in social behaviour or a change insocial system rather
than minor changes within a small group.
Social change means such alterations as they occur in social organisation that is the structure of
society.Any such ordered arrangement of social phenomena gives a structure to society.When
alterations take place in the form of relationships and the pattern of socialaction within such structure,
it is known as social change4. The nature and pace ofsocial change are not uniform in each age or
period in the same society. There is noinherent law in social change according to which it
assumesdefinite forms. It isdifficult to make any prediction about the exact forms of social change. Thus,
social change refers to a change in social structure. However, change in per capita income, if not
accompaniedby changes in socialrelationships, is not a part of social change. Sociologists have
developed several concepts to study social change in India: development, modernization,
Westenization, universalization, social development, great and little traditions are some of them. For a
long time sociologists and anthropologists in India used the concepts of parochialization and
universalization, and great and little traditions which were developed by McKim Marriot and Robert
Redfield in studies of Indian and Mexican villages. Among such concepts Sanskritization and

2. Westernization hold special significance. Ironically, despite our profession of socialistic pattern of
society, our policies in social and economic fields have been most detrimental to the prosperity
of theweaker sections of society, such asthe Dalits, thewomen, the scheduled castes, scheduled
tribes, and the minorities. It is reflected also in the failure of our educationpolicy. The mass illiteracy in
the forty per cent of the population still persists. It is higherstill in the case of women. There is a vicious
circular relationship between poverty, susceptibility to fall a victim to exploitation, proneness to
health morbidity, high fertility rate and illiteracy. Education is a single most effective factor which
breaks this process of vicious cumulative causation. We find that wherever
educationalachievements, whether within a region or a social group are higher, the indicators of
economic growth as also of the quality of life are higher.Our failure in the field of removal of
illiteracy,and universalization of education is indeed at the rootof themost facets of our “crisis of
failures”.