Social and Cultural Change


Cultural change:

Cultural change means change occurring in any branch of culture including art, science,technology,philosophy etc as well as changes in the forms and rules of social organization.

First there is cultural change which becomes social change in social life.


There are three important sources of cultural change:

Invention:
Inventions produce new objects, ideas, and social patterns.
Invention of ideas, objects and social patterns bring social change.

Discovery
occurs when people take note of existing elements of the world.
Medical advances, for example, offer a growing understanding of the human body.
Human body has been there but perhaps in the olden times humans did not know much about its functioning and dis-functioning.

Diffusion
is the transference of cultural traits from place and/or group to another.
Diffusion creates change as products, people, and information spread from one culture to another.
Presently mass media of communication has demolished the physical boundaries for contacting other cultures.
Now perhaps you have to have a control over the “mouse” and reach anywhere in the world, know about its culture, understand it, and if like may borrow its cultural traits.
Inventions, discoveries, and diffusion, all bring change in culture which in turn bring change in the social structure and the relationships of people.



SOCIAL CHANGE


Social change is the deviation from the past in the structure , organization and composition of social systems and
the change in the structure and functions of the society which the social system are a part.

More generally, social change may include changes in nature, social institutions, social behaviours or social relations , values and norms over time.


Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society.


Causes of Social Change:

1.Technological and Economic Changes: (Agriculture advancement, industrialization)
2.Cultural
3.Religious
4.Economic
5.EDUCATION
6.MASS MEDIA
7.Modernization: standardizing as towards modern tools (Life Style, Technology)

8.Urbanization: Moving population from ruler areas to urban (Cities) areas.

9.Conflict and Competition: War: due to religion, ethnic tensions, competition for resources. Gender and Women’s

10.Political and Legal Power: Elected Official (Government) & Unelected Officials (Corporative Force)

11.Ideology: Religious Belief, Political or Regional Conviction.

12.Diffusion: Spreading the ones cultural to another culture.

13.Acculturation: the process in which a minority is absorbed into the majority and entirely loses its distinctiveness.


Social change means the changes in the social structure and social relationships.

1.age structure of the population like 43 percent of the population of Pakistan is that of children, about 4 percent is that of old people and the rest may be adults.

2.rural and urban distribution of people.

3.Educational distribution of people is another angle of population structure;

4.there is lot of shifting from rural to urban areas.

5.changing birth rate as an aspect of social change.

6.changes taking place in the structure of families in terms of size, authority structure, age at marriage, number of children per woman.

7.change in the relationships of people. decline in the neighborliness, changes in the employer and employee relationships, change in the men and women relationships (women empowerment), and so on.



Models of Social Change


Evolutionary theory

According to evolutionary theory, society moves in specific directions.
Therefore, early social evolutionists saw society as progressing to higher and higher levels.

As a result, they concluded that their own cultural attitudes and behaviors were more advanced than those of earlier societies.

Auguste Comte subscribed to social evolution. He saw human societies as progressing into using scientific methods.

Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of functionalism, saw societies as moving from simple to complex social structures.

Herbert Spencer compared society to a living organism with interrelated parts moving toward a common end.

Unilinear evolutionary theories, which maintain that all societies pass through the same sequence of stages of evolution to reach the same destiny.


Multilinear evolutionary theory holds that change can occur in several ways and does not inevitably lead in the same direction.

Multilinear theorists observe that human societies have evolved along differing lines.


Functionalist theory
Functionalist sociologists emphasize what maintains society, not what changes it.

Although functionalists may at first appear to have little to say about social change, sociologist Talcott Parsons holds otherwise.
Parsons (1902–1979), a leading functionalist, saw society in its natural state as being stable and balanced. That is, society naturally moves toward a state of homeostasis.

To Parsons, significant social problems, such as union strikes, represent nothing but temporary rifts in the social order.

According to his equilibrium theory, changes in one aspect of society require adjustments in other aspects.

When these adjustments do not occur, equilibrium disappears, threatening social order.

Parsons' equilibrium theory incorporates the evolutionary concept of continuing progress, but the predominant theme is stability and balance.


Critics argue that functionalists minimize the effects of change because all aspects of society contribute in some way to society's overall health.

They also argue that functionalists ignore the use of force by society's powerful to maintain an illusion of stability and integration.

Conflict theory

Conflict theorists maintain that, because a society's wealthy and powerful ensure the status quo in which social practices and institutions favorable to them continue, change plays a vital role in remedying social inequalities and injustices.


Although Karl Marx accepted the evolutionary argument that societies develop along a specific direction, he did not agree that each successive stage presents an improvement over the previous stage.

Marx noted that history proceeds in stages in which the rich always exploit the poor and weak as a class of people.

Marx's view of social change is proactive; it does not rely on people remaining passive in response to exploitation or other problems in material culture.

Instead, it presents tools for individuals wishing to take control and regain their freedom.

Unlike functionalism and its emphasis on stability, Marx holds that conflict is desirable and needed to initiate social change and rid society of inequality.


Social change has following major characteristics.

1.Change is Social:
Social change means a change in the system of social relationship. Social relationship is understood in terms of social process, social interactions and social organizations. So in any variation of social process, social interactions and social organizations social change-takes place.

2.Universal:
Social change is universal. Because it is present in all societies and at all times. No society remains completely static. The rate or the degree of change may vary from society to society from time to time but every society keeps on changing. A changeless society is an unreality.

3.Continuous:
Social change is a continuous process but not an intermittent process. Because the changes are neither stopped nor the societies are kept in museum to save them from change. It is an on-going process without any break. In the process of change every society grows and decays.

4.Inevitable:
Change is inevitable. It is the human nature that desires change and also it is his tendency to bring change . Human wants are unlimited which always keep on changing. To satisfy these wants social change has become a necessity not only to him but also to the society.

5.Temporal:
Social change is temporal. Change in anything or any object or in a situation takes place through time. Time is the most important factor and social change denotes time-sequence. Innovation of new things, modification and renovations of the existing behaviour take time.
So a social change is temporary or permanent on the basis of time. Sometimes some social changes may bring about immediate results while some others may take years to produce results. Similarly, some social changes spread rapidly and also disappear rapidly.

6.Degree or rate of change is not uniform:
Its degree or rate or what we call the speed is not uniform. It varies from society to society and even in the same society from time to time.
Degree of change is high and low depending upon the nature of society like open and close, rural and urban and traditional,modern etc.
For example, in the rural social structure the rate of change is slower, whereas it is quick in the urban societies.

7.Social Change may be planned or unplanned:
Social change takes place sometimes with planning and sometimes without planning.
Social change which occurs in the natural course is called the unplanned change.
The unplanned changes are spontaneous, accidental or the product of sudden decision.
Usually the change resulting from natural calamities like flood; drought, famines, volcanic eruption, etc. are the instances of unplanned changes.
It is the inborn tendency of human beings that they desire change.
So sometimes plans, programmes and projects are made effective by them to bring change in the society.
This is called planned change. As it is consciously and deliberately made, there is every possibility to have control on the speed and direction of change. For example, the five years plan made by the government.

8.Some changes matter more than others.
Some changes (such as clothing fads) have only passing significance, whereas others (like computers) last a long time and may change the entire world.
Information technology may revolutionize the whole world just like the industrial revolution

9.Social change creates chain-reactions:
Social change produces not a single reaction but chain-reactions as all the parts of the society are inter-related and interdependent. For example, the economic independence of women has brought changes not only in their status but also a series of changes in home, family relationship and marriages etc.

10.Social change is controversial.
Social change brings both good and bad consequences.
Capitalists welcomed the industrial revolution because new technology increased productivity and increased profits.
However, the workers feared that the machines would make their skills outdated and resisted the push for progress.


Determining role of culture effecting social change. Some of the important effects are given below. They are:

(i) Culture gives speed and direction to social change:
If the culture is too much conservative, then its rate of change becomes too low and vice versa. People whether accept change or not depends upon their attitudes and values which are the products of the culture.

(ii) Culture influences the direction and character of technological change:
It is the culture that decides the purpose to which a technical invention must be put.

(iii) Culture shapes economy and is effective towards economic growth:
Culture not only gives direction to technology but it shapes the economy which is too much effective towards economic growth.

(iv) It keeps the social relationship intact:
It makes people think not of their own but also of the others.
By regulating the behavior of the people and satisfying their primary drives pertaining to hunger, shelter and sex, it has been able to maintain group life.