Social change refers to any significant alteration over time in behavior patterns and cultural values and norms. By “significant” alteration, sociologists mean changes yielding profound social consequences. Examples of significant social changes having long-term effects include the industrial revolution, the abolition of slavery, and the feminist movement.

Today's sociologists readily acknowledge the vital role that social movements play in inspiring discontented members of a society to bring about social change. Efforts to understand the nature of long-term social change, including looking for patterns and causes, has led sociologists to propose the evolutionary, functionalist, and conflict theories of change (discussed in the next few sections). All theories of social change also admit the likelihood of resistance to change, especially when people with vested interests feel unsettled and threatened by potential changes.

Social Movements

While technology, population, environment factors, and racial inequality can prompt social change, only when members of a society organize into social movements does true social change occur. The phrase social movements refers to collective activities designed to bring about or resist primary changes in an existing society or group.

Wherever they occur, social movements can dramatically shape the direction of society. When individuals and groups of people—civil rights activists and other visionaries, for instance—transcend traditional bounds, they may bring about major shifts in social policy and structures. Even when they prove initially unsuccessful, social movements do affect public opinion. In her day, people considered Margaret Sanger's efforts to make birth control available extreme and even immoral, yet today in the United States, one can easily purchase contraceptive products.

Social scientists interest themselves in why social movements emerge. Do feelings of discontent, desires for a “change of pace,” or even yearnings for “change for the sake of change” cause these shifts? Sociologists use two theories to explain why people mobilize for change: relative deprivation and resource mobilization.


Relative deprivation

When members of a society become dissatisfied or frustrated with their social, economic, and political situation, they yearn for changes. Social scientists have long noted that the actual conditions that people live under may not be at fault, but people's perceptions of their conditions are. Relative deprivation refers to the negative perception that differences exist between wants and actualities. In other words, people may not actually be deprived when they believe they are. A relatively deprived group is disgruntled because they feel less entitled or privileged than a particular reference group. For example, a middle-class family may feel relatively deprived when they compare their house to that of their upper-class physician.

For social discontent to translate into social movement, members of the society must feel that they deserve, or have a right to, more wealth, power, or status than they have. The dissatisfied group must also conclude that it cannot attain its goals via conventional methods, whether or not this is the case. The group will organize into a social movement only if it feels that collective action will help its cause.

The relative-deprivation theory takes criticism from a couple of different angles. First, some sociologists note that feelings of deprivation do not necessarily prompt people into acting. Nor must people feel deprived before acting. Moreover, this theory does not address why perceptions of personal or group deprivation cause some people to reform society, and why other perceptions do not.


Resource mobilization

Resource mobilization deals with how social movements mobilize resources: political pull, mass media, personnel, money, and so forth. A particular movement's effectiveness and success largely depends on how well it uses its resources.

Members of a social movement normally follow a charismatic leader, who mobilizes people for a cause. Charisma can fade, and many social movements collapse when this happens. Other movements, such as bureaucratic ones, manage to last, however, usually because they are highly organized.

Norms of behavior develop as people become part of a social movement. The movement may require its members to dress in special ways, boycott certain products, pay dues, attend marches or rallies, recruit new members, and use new language. Concerning the latter, recent social movements have given rise to new terms like Hispanic American, African American, feminists, and psychiatrically disabled.

For a social movement to succeed, leaders must heighten their followers' awareness of oppression. To stimulate their social movement in the 1960s and 1970s, feminists convinced women that they were being discriminated against in various arenas, including work, school, and home.

Unlike the relative-deprivation theory, the resource-mobilization theory emphasizes the strategic problems faced by social movements. Specifically, any movement designed to stimulate fundamental changes will surely face resistance to its activities. Critics feel the theory does not adequately discuss the issue of how opposition influences the actions and direction of social movements.

Sociology: Social Movements - CliffsNotes

Models of Social Change

In their search to explain social change, sociologists sometimes examine historical data to better understand current changes and movements. They also rely on three basic theories of social change: evolutionary, functionalist, and conflict theories.


Evolutionary theory

Sociologists in the 19th century applied Charles Darwin's (1809–1882) work in biological evolution to theories of social change. 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.

Identified as the “father of sociology,” Auguste Comte subscribed to social evolution. He saw human societies as progressing into using scientific methods. Likewise, 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. In short, Comte, Durkheim, and Spencer proposed unilinear evolutionary theories, which maintain that all societies pass through the same sequence of stages of evolution to reach the same destiny.

Contemporary social evolutionists like Gerhard Lenski, Jr., however, view social change as multilinear rather than unilinear. 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. Slaves in ancient Rome and the working classes of today share the same basic exploitation. Only by socialist revolution led by the proletariat (working class), explained Marx in his 1867 Das Kapital, will any society move into its final stage of development: a free, classless, and communist society.

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.

Critics of Marx note that conflict theorists do not always realize that social upheaval does not inevitably lead to positive or expected outcomes.

SOCIAL CHANGE THEORIES


1) FUNCTIONALISM (relates to Linear development models of social change, see Lenski)


Theory of order and stability or Equilibrium theory: concept of stability is a defining characteristic of structure, defines activities that are necessary for the survival of the system, i.e. society has functional requisites or imperatives where different functional requisites produce differentiated structures that specialize in accomplishing the requisites.

Parson’s Evolutionary Theory - types of change:



* System maintenance – most common: restoring a previous pattern of equilibrium

*Structural differentiation- very common: increasing differentiation of subsystem units into patterns of functional specialization and interdependence

* Adaptave upgrading: new mechanisms of integration, coordination and control are developed to incorporate the integrative problems by having structural differentiation

* Structural change – least common change: when key features of the system, e.g. basic cultural values, goals, distribution


Key evolutionary universals that were evident in transition from pre-modern to modern societies (describes modernism but does not explain it):

1:- social stratification

2:- bureaucratic organization

3:- cultural legitimation of existing structural arrangements

4:- money economy and markets

5:- generalized or universalistic social norms

6:- democratic associations


Neo-functionalism



Tension-management system (society is not an equilibrium system): if there are strains or tensions, organization will initiate compensatory, adjustive or counterbalancing actions to counter disruptions change will be confined to internal features, if these strains are so severe or prolonged that such actions cannot compensate, organizational features will be altered or destroyed and entire organization changes

Criticisms


* deals mainly with gradual evolutionary change, less able to deal with revolutionary, fundamental, rapid transformations, or emergence of new values

* sources of strains ambiguous unless exogenous in origin

* see change as good - views modernism as a benevolent trend. Societal growth produces differentiation, and problems with increased complexity stimulate adaptive change with new coordination and control mechanism. Increased bureaucratic specialization and complex division of labour in mass societies provide rationality, efficiency, high levels of mass consumption, decline in cultural parochialism and forms of intolerance and superstition


Mass society theory - Functionalist critique of modernity


* along with modernity have erosion of traditional life and culture

* replacement of local community with bureaucratic depersonalization and anonymity

* weaker and impersonal ties of functional interdependency

*argued that mass developed societies are in a process of demassification




2) CONFLICT THEORIES (relates to Dialectical models of social change)


Strains are inherent in social structures. Source of strains/contradictions is the inherent scarcity of certain goods and values. Thus inequality is source of conflict.

Marxism (see other course notes - if you are a sociology major/minor, you should know this already)


Neo-Marxism - differs from Marxism in the following ways:


* Sources of conflict - traditional Marxism too narrow an understanding of structural basis of conflict, doesn’t always derive from struggles in control of the means of production; other conflicts based on politics, religion, ethnic or ideological differences, e.g. class, status and power

*Role of culture: symbolic realm of ideas, values and ideologies are semi-autonomous and not merely derivative of material base (Critical theorists analyze cultural and cultural ideologies in modern society as manifested in popular literature and mass media); culture is viewed as symbolic formations and ideologies that become tools in social struggles between various groups and classes, i.e. ideas and values produce solidarity and unity (as functionalists agree) but also social control associated with interests of particular groups; same as Marxism, i.e. dominant culture stems from dominant groups in society; production of culture is one way that existing system reproduces itself; when there is widespread disillusion, disbelief or cynicism about dominant symbols in society, a legitimacy crisis - change occurs

* Inevitability of revolutionary change: neo-Marxists less deterministic about outcomes, not simply total system transformation or revolution, nor inevitable; one result of contradictions could be reaffirming of dominance, or ongoing stalemate, or gradual reform and piecemeal changes




Conflict can be:

* unregulated: e.g. terrorism, sabotage, disorder

*regulated by social norms: e.g. economic boycotts, parliamentary debate, marketplace competitions

*intense conflict: high degree of mobilization, commitment, emotional involvement

*violent conflict: random, unorganized

* pluralized conflict: many conflicts but not necessarily related and thus not much change, gradual

* superimposed conflict: dyadic conflicts, large cleavage between us and them, dramatic/intense change, not necessarily




Conflict can result in:

*stability as ongoing stalemate OR

*defeat of established or insurgent groups OR

*total or partial system change




Any settlement of conflict is only temporary; each restructured system carries within itself the seeds of its own transformation – thus a dialectical theory. Unlike Marxism which sees a utopian society with no conflict in the end, neo-Marxists are antiutopian. Conflict is engine of change - has both destructive and creative consequences, destroy old orders, create new ones.

Ralf Dahrendorf



Saw combination of functionalism and conflict theory, human societies are stable and long lasting yet they also experience serious conflict. Social control in general is broadest basis of conflict in society. All social systems have association of roles and statuses which embody power relationships, some cluster of roles have power to extract conformity; power relationships tend to be institutionalized as authority – normative rights to dominate; i.e. some have authority to give orders, others obliged to obey.

Criticisms



What about change not rooted in conflict? E.g. cultural or technological change

Sees only dichotomous authority relations rather than continuous gradations of relationships

What of non-institutionalized power relationships – deals with authority, only one form of power; what of violence, or age/gender/race and associated conflicts not based on economics






3) INTERPRETIVE THEORIES


Derived from Weber whose focus was not solely on overt behaviour and events but also on how these are interpreted, defined and shaped by cultural meanings that people give to them, i.e. interpretive understanding of social action – verstehen. All types of interpretive theories focus on way actors define their social situations and the effect of these definitions on ensuing action and interaction; human society is an ongoing process rather than an entity or structure, as humans interact they negotiate order, structure and cultural meanings. Reality is an ongoing social symbolic construction put together by human interaction.



For Functionalists and Conflict theorists, the starting point of sociological analysis of change is structure.

BUT…

For Interpretivists, change itself (interaction, process, negotiation) is the starting point, and structure is a by-product and temporary. Social change is the constant creation, negotiation and re-creation of social order. Social change can be understood by looking at change in meanings and definitions. Groups, societies, organizations become real only insofar that the actors believe they are to be real, thus a negotiated consensus about what is real emerges; i.e. society is literally a social construction, an outcome of historical process of symbolic interaction and negotiation. In complex societies, there is only a partial consensus on what constitutes objective social reality, instead there is a virtual tapestry of contending realities.



When external factors change, this does not automatically produce social change. Rather when people redefine situations regarding those factors and thus act upon revised meanings, i.e. alter social behaviour, then there is social change.



Symbolic interactionism : see Mead, Blumer





Social phenomenology: see Schutz, Berger and Luckman





Criticisms



* Not much said about structural sources of redefinitions,

* Argue humans are less constrained by external factors, thus these theories are less deterministic

* Doesn’t say whether actors seek to reconstruct reality by engaging in cooperative joint action or conflict with others so consistent with either functionalism or conflict theory.




4) Multiple perspectives and change: Reconciling agency and structure


Structures have potential to operate, agents (individuals) have potential to act; combination of agents working within, creating and being limited by structures is referred to as human agency. Praxis is the interface between operating structures and purposely acting agents, i.e. the combination of actions of people and operation of structures in the actual outcomes of social interaction or in praxis.


* Buckley’s morphogenesis: unique capacity of social systems to elaborate or change their form, structure or state, emphasizing the active, constructive side of social functioning

* Archers’ double morphogenesis: both structure and agency are cojoint products of interaction, agency is shaped by and reshapes structure where structure is reshaped in the process.

* Etzioni’s active society: society is a macroscopic and permanent social movement engaged in intensive and perpetual self-transformation

*Touraine: making of society and history is carried out by collective action, through the agency of social movements

*Gidden’s Structuration theory: replaced static concept of structure with dynamic notion of structuration - more later (see my thesis information).

SOCIAL CHANGE THEORIES

__________________
GEO to aise k sab tumhara ha,MARO to aisa jaise tmhara kuch bhi nhi.

Maza deti han zindagi ki thokerin unko,jinhen NAAM-E-KHUDA le kar sanbhal janey ki adat ho.

CAUSES OF SOCIAL CHANGE


1) Materialistic perspectives (materialistic factors are usually economic production and technology)
Marxist perspective: economic production, economic classes form the basic anatomy of society, and everything else arises in relationship to them
Other materialistic perspectives: Cultural lag theory (W. Ogburn) technological causes of change, material culture (technology) changes more quickly than nonmaterial culture (values, ideas, norms, ideologies), i.e. there is a period of maladjustment (a lag time) during which nonmaterial culture is still adapting to new material conditions

Technology causes change in 3 ways:

- increases alternatives available to society, creates new opportunities

- alters interaction patterns among people, changes structures of human groups

- creates new problems



2) Idealistic perspectives (idealistic factors/ideational aspects are values, beliefs and ideologies)


Weber’s perspective: in essence, values and beliefs, both religious and secular, have decisive impact on shaping social change, as well as other factors such as those outlined by Marx:


Protestanism: He argued that values of Protestanism, esp. Calvinism and related, produced a cultural ethic which sanctified work and worldly achievement, encouraged frugality and discouraged consumption. Unintended consequences of this religious worldview, this-worldly asceticism, encouraged development of large pools of capital through encouraging work, savings and non-frivolous consumption, and encouraged rational reinvestment and economic growth. Work was a religiously sanctioned calling. Each man is a moral free agent, accountable only to God. Suspicious of material consumption beyond bare necessities believing it led to moral corruption.

In Catholicism, work is merely mundane activity to keep one alive, encouraging other-worldly asceticism where highest form of activity was devotion to God, men were accountable to the Church which sought to regulate the operation of the economy and other secular aspects of society in terms of religious values. No reason in values to ban consumption.

Discussed China and India, whose faiths, Confucianism & Taoism and Hinduism respectively, also weren’t favorable to the development of capitalism.


Other ideational perspectives: Lewy focused on role of religion in social change citing examples of Puritan revolt in England, Islamic renaissance in Sudan in 1800s, Taiping & Boxer Rebellion in China, Islamic fundamentalism in Iran.




*Cultural ideas, values, and ideologies that have broadly shaped directions of social change in modern world:


*freedom and self-determination

*material growth and security

* nationalism, e.g. French & English Canadians, English & Irish, Germans & French, Palestinians, Kurdish, Basque separatists and Spanish

*capitalism: not only type of economic system but also ideology, connected set of values and ideas emphasizing positive benefits of pursuing one’s private economic interests, competition and free marketS

Marxism

Ideas and values can cause change or be barriers to change, can be barriers at one time or promote change at another time. Ideational culture can cause change by:

* legitimizing a desired direction of change, e.g. promoting further equality and democracy

*providing a basis for social solidarity necessary to promote change, i.e. integrative mechanisms, neutralizing the conflicting strains found in society, e.g. mobilizing force during war

*highlighting contradictions and problems, e.g. US cultural value of equality of opportunity have highlighted racism and sexism

__________________
GEO to aise k sab tumhara ha,MARO to aisa jaise tmhara kuch bhi nhi.

Maza deti han zindagi ki thokerin unko,jinhen NAAM-E-KHUDA le kar sanbhal janey ki adat ho.