Social Change Handout PDF

**Topic 8: SOCIAL CHANGE** **Handout** **SOCIAL CHANGE** - The transformation of culture and social institutions over time. - The alteration or modification of social institution and societies over time, it implied three fundamental parts: 1. The amount of change 2. The direction of...

**Topic 8: SOCIAL CHANGE** **Handout** **SOCIAL CHANGE** - The transformation of culture and social institutions over time. - The alteration or modification of social institution and societies over time, it implied three fundamental parts: 1. The amount of change 2. The direction of change 3. The nature of change **CULTURAL CHANGE** - The alteration of the normative, cognitive or material culture. - Change can be large or small, gradual or rapid, violent or peaceful. **THEORETICAL EXPLANATIONS OF SOCIAL CHANGE** 1. **Evolutionary theory** - Likened to Darwin's notion of biological evolution - Social change is most often regarded as progress and when society changes; the assumption is that it is getting better. - Implies that society evolved from simple to complex and advance form. - Herbert Spencer believed that a society grows, the function of its members become more specialized and better coordinated into the bigger system. He compared society as an organism and suggested that there should be a close interrelationship of institutions of any society to function harmoniously as a whole. 2. **The conflict theory** - It suggests that society's progress as oppressed groups struggle to improve their lot. - Karl Marx believed that conflict as a stage of development and that the human society is evolving toward a more perfect state in which everyone would be equal and where the capitalist economic system would be overthrown. 3. **The cyclical theory** (Oswald Spengler 1918) - Believed that decay is inevitable, it suggests that every society is born, matures and decays, and eventually dies (Eshleman, Ross J. 1988) - This theory hinges on the political experiences of the Roman Empire that rose to the crest of power and then gradually collapsed. - Spengler contended that in a certain period of time, the social change may take the form of progress or decay but no society lives forever. - Sorokin observe that societies go through a series of different stages by emphasizing religious beliefs, scientific beliefs or the pleasure of art and the beauty of nature by shifting from one cycle to another, as it moves first in one direction then to another as society demands. 4. **Equilibrium theory** - Concept of Homeostasis - Social change occurs as societies become more and more complex. - The increasing complexity demands greater specialization of social structures and societal members. - Parsons likened society to human body that must adjust its functioning to adapt to certain changes. **Four Major Characteristics of Social Change** 1. **Social change happens all the time** - Nothing is constant except the death and taxes - Some societies change faster than others Ex. Hunting gathering societies change quietly slow than high-income societies experiences a significant change wit in a single lifetime. 2. **Social change is sometimes intentional but often it is unplanned** - When people relied on horses for transportation, many people looked ahead to motorized vehicles that would carry them in a single day distances that used to take weeks or months. - But no one could see how much the mobility provided by automobiles would alter everyday life, scattering family members threatening the environment, reshaping cities and suburbs and death through accident. - Technology were intentionally made to make life comfortable, vehicles -- many people were displaced for road widening, and many families lost their member because of accident. - Gadgets instead pray before we eat, now first we take picture, and sometimes family will not eat at the same time for some members were busy in their online games - Technological surveillance. - Medicine and health care -- dumami ng dumami ang mga tao -- need more houses -- need to cut more trees, (need more transportation = pollution = global warming - Fast food -- instant food -- delicious -- different type of illnesses -- instant death 3. **Social change is controversial** - New technology increased productivity and swelled profits, however workers feared their skills obsolete and resisted to push toward progress. Ex. Contraceptives welcomed by other and some rejected. - Same sex marriage welcome by other society but other not. - Oplan tukhang - Mechanical harvester / planting machine 4. **Some changes matter more than other** - Some changes such as clothing have only passing significance, others like computer may change the world -- providing new kinds of job while eliminating old ones, isolating people in offices while linking people together in global electronics network, offering a vast of information while threatening personal privacy. - Electricity, refrigerator, computers **CAUSES OF SOCIAL CHANGE** 1. Culture 3 important sources of cultural change 1. Invention -- produces new objects, ideas and social pattern. 2. Discovery -- occurs when people take note of the existing elements of the world. Ex. Medical advances offer a growing understanding of human body, medical discoveries has direct effect on human health that stretch life expectancy. 3. Diffusion -- creates changes as products, people and information spread from one society to another Ex. Clothing was developing in Asia; clock was invented in Europe. 2. Conflict - Inequality and conflict in a society also produce change as Karl Marx saw social conflict as the engine that drives societies from one era to another. The struggle of the capitalist and the workers pushes society toward a socialist system of production. 3. Ideas - Max Weber traced the roots of most social change to ideas. The protestant leads to the spread of industrial capitalism. Protestant Reformist a Christian Religious movement founded by John Calvin who teach his most important idea was "predestination" -- the belief that all-knowing and all-powerful God had predestined some people for salvation and some for damnation. Believing that everyone's fate was set before birth. 4. Demography -- population pattern also plays an important part in social change. Ex. Many women were having fewer children, and more people are living alone. - Migration within and among societies -- is another demographic factor that promotes change. - The movement of people into and out of a specified territory. - Immigration -- movement into a territory. - Emigration -- movement out of a territory. MODERNITY -- is the central concept in the study of social change. - Social pattern resulting from industrialization - Refers to the present in relation to the past. - Ex cars MODERNIZATION -- is the process of social change begun by industrialization INDUSTRIALIZATION -- present of industry INDUSTRY -- the process by making products by using machineries and factories.