Pranay Swain

NISER, BBSR
 Only the wisest and stupidest of men never
change.
~Confucius
 Institutio
Culture n

Social
Change
 Change is inevitable - except from a vending
machine.
~ Robert C. Gallagher
-The transformation of culture and social institutions
over time.
Four major characteristics
1. Inevitable, only the rate of change varies
2. Sometimes intentional, but often unplanned
3. Controversial/conflicting
4. Some social change matters more than others
 If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll
change. If you're in a good situation, don't
worry it'll change.
~John A. Simone, Sr.
 Population
 Physical Environment
 Technology
 CULTURE
 Collective behaviour and
social movements
 Modernization and
westernization
 Civil Society Orgs
 Change is the only evidence of life.
~ Evelyn Waugh
 Conflict and social change
 Tensions and stress between individuals
and groups can bring about change
▪ Different groups gain and lose power and
privilege as they struggle for their own
positions
 Ideas and change
 Ideas can fuel social movements which
bring about social change
▪ The idea of equal rights for everyone
 Demographics and change
 Increases and decreases in numbers can
lead to social change as society may need
to expand and/or contract
▪ Need for jobs, housing, education, etc
 People don't resist change. They resist being
changed!
~Peter Senge
Evolution Perspective
 Law of Human Progress
 Unilinear Evolution
 Three Stages
 Social organisms are like
▪ Theological/Fictitious
▪ Metaphysical/Abstract biological ones
▪ Scientific/Positive  Passes through similar stages of
 Each Successive stage necessarily evolution/development
grew out of the preceding ones
 Birth
 The passage from one to the
other is never continuous or  Maturity
direct.  Decay
 There is always a transitional
stage lasting some generations

People change and forget to
tell each other.
~ Lillian Hellman

The curious paradox is that

when I accept myself just as I
am, then I can change.
~ Carl Rogers
Conflict perspective
 Every soc order is marked by continuous change
in the material forces of production
 New soc relationships develop within the old soc
structure
 Class Antagonism (major cause)

 Stages of evolution/development
▪ Primitive Communism: the Asiatic
▪ The Ancient
▪ The Feudal
▪ Modern capitalism
 Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies
down on the tracks of history to wait for the
train of the future to run over him.
~Dwight D. Eisenhower

All things must change To something new, to

something strange.
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Cultural Approach
 Cultural Lag
▪ Material Culture (great traditions)
▪ Non-material/adaptive Culture (little traditions)
 Changes in one part of society require
corresponding changes in other parts
 Obstacles to social changes
▪ Social habits and inertia
▪ Widely differing interests
 Functional Perspective
▪ System Maintenance
▪ Structural Differentiation
▪ Adaptive Upgrading
▪ Changes in Functions
 Structural perspective
▪ Change in social relationships and structures
▪ Slow paced
 Traditional forces
 Caste System (in Indian
context)
 Ignorance and Illiteracy
 Existing value System
 Power of elites
 POPULATION ( complex and
heterogeneous)
 Culture and Change
 Invention
▪ Production of new objects, ideas, and social patterns
 Discovery
▪ Taking note of existing elements of a culture
 Diffusion
▪ The spread of products, people and information from one
culture to another