social change.pdf

MODULE 4 - SOCIAL CHANGE
A. Meaning
B. Sources of Social change
Cultural Interaction
Planning
Legislation
Conflict & Protest
Education
Industrial- Urbanization
C. Consequences of Social Change
Dr. Sruti Kanungo, November 2020

‘Change’ – the unchangeable law of nature
■ What is change???
■ What is social change???

Definitions
■ Kingsley Davis: "By social change is meant only such alternations as occur in
social organization i.e. the structure & functions of society".
■ According to Maclver and Page, “Social change refers to a process responsive to
many types of changes; to changes in man-made conditions of living; 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”.

Features of social change
1. Social change is universal
2. It is continuous and an essential law
3. It can be planned or unplanned
4. It is temporal - bound by time factors -
Rate and tempo of social change is
uneven i.e. Social Change may be
Small-scale or Large-scale, Short-term
and Long-term
5. Definite prediction of social change is
impossible
6. Social Change takes place due to
Multi-Number of Factors
Factors of social change
1. Biological factors
Population, density…
2. Geographic factors
natural disasters, construction
3. Technological factors
Industrial revolution
4. Socio-cultural factors
diffusion

Theories of social change - five theories of
social change
1. Evolutionary Theory: Charles Darwin (1859), the British biologist, who
propounded the theory of biological evolution, showed that species of organisms
have evolved from simpler organisms to the more complicated organisms through
the processes of variations and natural selection.
2. Economic Theory of Social Change: Marxian base. Things come into being, exist
and cease to exist, not each independent of all other things but each in its
relationship with others….

Cyclical Theory: They argued that societies and civilizations change according to
cycles of rise, decline and fall just as
■ Oswald Spengler (Decline of the West, 1918): civilizations as biological organism -
are born, mature, grow old, and die.
■ Arnold J. Toynbee (A Study of History, 1956): challenges and responses
■ P.A. Sorokin (Social and Cultural Dynamics, 1941), which is known as ‘pendular
theory of social change’.
Religious, Faith…perceiving
through senses
Being practical,
materialistic…perceiving
through senses

4. Conflict Theory: Conflict theorists assert that conflict is a necessary condition for
change.
Marx emphasized economic conflict. Max Weber based his arguments on conflict about
power. Ralf Dahrendorf (1959), although critical of Marxist notions of class, tried to
reconcile the contrast between the functionalist and conflict approaches of society.
5. Technological Theory
Social change takes place due to the working of many factors. Technology is not only
one of them but an important factor of social change. When it is said that almost whole
of human civilization is the product of technological development, it only means that
any change in technology would initiate a corresponding change in the arrangement of
social relationships.

Sources of Social change:
• Cultural Interaction
• Planning & Legislation
• Law
• Conflict & Protest
• Education
• Industrialization
• Urbanization
How does change
happen?

Cultural change in society has two major aspects:
(a) Cultural change by discovery and invention, and
(b) Cultural change by diffusion and borrowing.
■ Diffusion: the process of the spread of culture from group to group - takes
place within societies and between societies through contact.

Assimilation: Process whereby person
or group acquire the culture of other
group in which they come to live,
adopt its attitude and values, patterns
of thinking and behaving, in short, way
of life…
Acculturation: process where one
cultural group come in contact with
another and borrows from it certain
cultural elements, incorporates them
into his own culture, thus modifies it…
Cultural Lag….
NON-MATERIAL CULTURE
Language, Values, Norms, Sanctions, Folkways,
Mores
MATERIAL CULTURE
Technology, Tools, weapons, utensils, machines,
clothing, and any other object that can be
produced or used
W.F.Ogburn

Planning & Legislation
■ The process by which policymakers - legislators, government agencies, planners,
and, often, funders - try to solve community problems or improve conditions in
the community by devising and implementing policies intended to have certain
results.
■ Policies, media campaigns, programs or services, information - a wide range of
possibilities.

Social change and Law
■ Law as an instrument of social change
According to MacIver and Page “Law is the body of rules which are recognized.
Interpreted and applied to particular situations by the Courts of the State.”
 Dowry Prohibition Act 1961
 Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 Legalize abortion
 Pre-conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Technique (Prohibition of Sex Selection)
Act, 2003
 Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act.2005 came into force on October
26, 2006
 The Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act was passed in 1956

Conflict & Protest
• What is conflict/protest?
– in the form of war, protest, strife, litigations
• Why does it happen?
– individual differences, cultural differences, clash of interests
• What it leads to?
– changes in behavior, attitudes, new consensus, alliances and
resolutions

Education
■ Transmitting a way of life… changing attitude and outlook
■ Improved social and economic positions…
■ Awareness about the society around us…

Industrialization
The process of moving from an agrarian based economy in which the primary product
is food to an industrial or post industrial economy in which the primary product is
goods, services and information
■ Lead to changes in:
■ a. Work – people work outside of the home/community, which lead to changes in
gender (value of, child care, value of labor).
■ b. Work became centered and organized around machines. Alienation.
■ c. Weapons production – guns, nuclear weapons.
■ d. Information Society. Information overload.

Urbanization
When large populations live in urban areas rather than rural areas
Usually results from economic opportunities: either people move to a city for jobs, or rural
areas become the sites of large businesses which leads to population growth.
Characteristics of urban populations:
· More diversity
· Independence
· Weaker social attachments – higher crime
· Secularization
· Mass communication systems

What can urbanization lead to?
■ Change in occupation
■ Growing migration
■ Breaking down of the joint families
■ Urban ways of living
■ Growth of slums

Consequences of Social Change
■ Technological changes
■ Effects on family life: breakdown on joint family, inter-caste marriages,
■ economic life: high standards of living, economic depression, unemployment,
industrial disputes, global capital,
■ Effects on social life – decline in community life, growth of individualism,
stratification on basis of wealth
■ Effects on state: secular, democracy
■ Religious life: scientific knowledge and decreasing superstition, religious toleration,
giving up orthodoxy

social change.pdf

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Similar to social change.pdf

Similar to social change.pdf (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

social change.pdf