Theories of Social Change

• Social change involves significant alterations over time in behavior patterns along with cultural values and norms
• Significant alterations lead to changes with great social consequences
• Alterations include changes in cultural symbols, rules of behavior, social organizations, or value systems

Evolutionary Perspective

• In the late 19th century the concept of social change adopted an evolutionary perspective which remains an underlying principle

Structural Functionalism

• In the mid-20th century, anthropologists used structural functionalism to approach social change using linguistic theory of structuralism
• Existence of basic institutions like kinship and division of labor determine social behavior
• A change in one institution will have broader affects on the rest due to their interrelated structure

Approaches

• Marxist theory suggests alterations in modes of production leads to changes in class systems which can result in class conflict
• Conflict theory operates on a broad institutional base, focusing on conflict and disagreement while also promoting social integration
• Structural-functional theory emphasizes how integrating forces in society minimize instability

Sources of Social Change

• Social change evolves for all different societal sources
• Contact with other societies, also known as diffusion, is a source for social change
• Changes in the ecosystem, such as the loss of natural resources or widespread disease, can lead to social change
• Technological changes, like the Industrial Revolution that created the urban proletariat (working class), facilitate societal shifts
• Population growth and other demographic variables contribute to social change
• Ideological, economic, and political movements can spur social transformations

Changing Social Order

• Social order can be defines in two ways
• Social order refers to a system of linked structures, institutions, relations, customs, values, and practices that maintain patterns of relating and behaving
• Examples include ancient, feudal, and capitalist social orders
• Social order is contrasted to social chaos or disorder, and refers to a stable state where the existing social structure is accepted and maintained by its members
• Social change is an ever-present phenomenon in society
• A distinction exists between processes of change within the social structure to maintain it, and processes that modify it (societal change)
• The meaning of social change depends on the social entity considered
• Changes in a small group may register different to that of an entire society
• Observation of social change depends on the time span studied. Short-term changes are negligible in the long run
• Small-scale and short-term changes happen because customs and norms change, new techniques and technologies are invented, environmental changes encourage adaptions,and conflicts redistribute power
• The potential for social change is rooted in the flexibility and adaptability of humans

Ideas and Perspectives of Social Change

• Three basic ideas of social change developed in various cultures and historical periods include:
• Decline or degeneration, often in religious terms as a fall from grace
• Cyclic change, with patterns of growth and decline
• Continuous progress
• These ideas were present in Greek and Roman antiquity and have characterized Western social thought
• Auguste Comte advanced the "law of three stages" in societies
• Theological stage dominated by religion
• Metaphysical stage dominated by abstract speculative thinking
• Positivist stage dominated by empirical scientific theories
• Herbert Spencer linked social evolution to biological evolution
• Biological organisms and human societies follow a universal evolutionary law: "a change from a state of relatively indefinite, incoherent, homogeneity to a state of relatively definite, coherent, heterogeneity."
• Societies grow in size and complexity; their parts differentiate, and specialize, becoming interdependent
• Sir Edward Burnett Tylor and Lewis Henry Morgan classified contemporary societies on an evolutionary scale
• Tylor theorized an evolution of religious ideas from animism to polytheism to monotheism
• Morgan ranked societies from "savage" to "civilized", linking them to technology, subsistence, and kinship systems
• Morgan assumed monogamy was preceded by polygamy, and patrilineal descent via matrilineal descent
• Karl Marx distinguished between:
• Community (Gesellschaft), with common traditions, affection, and solidarity
• Society (Gesellschaft), where social relations are contractual, rational, and non-emotional