Sociology: Sixteenth Edition

Sociology
Sixteenth Edition
Chapter 24
Social Change: Traditional,
Modern, and Postmodern
Societies
Copyright © 2017, 2014, 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Learning Objectives (1 of 2)
24.1 State four defining characteristics of social change.
24.2 Explain how culture, conflict, ideas, and population
patterns direct social change.
24.3 Apply the ideas of Tönnies, Durkheim, Weber, and
Marx to our understanding of modernity.
Learning Objectives (2 of 2)
24.4 Contrast analysis of modernity as mass society and as
class society.
24.5 Discuss postmodernism as one type of social criticism.
24.6 Evaluate possible directions of future social change.
The Power of Society
• Doesn’t everyone
agree that science
is useful to
humanity?
Social Change: What Is…?
• Social change
– Transformation of culture and social institutions over
time
Social Change (1 of 2)
• Four major characteristics
– Social change happens all the time.
– Social change is sometimes intentional but often
unplanned.
– Social change is controversial.
– Some changes matter more than others.
Social Change (2 of 2)
• Responding to Change
– In response to the accelerating pace of change in the
nineteenth century, Paul Gauguin left his native
France for the South Pacific, where he was captivated
by a simpler and seemingly timeless way of life. He
romanticized this environment in many paintings,
including Nave Nave Moe
Causes of Social Change (1 of 4)
• Culture and change
– Invention: Production of new objects, ideas, and
social patterns
– Discovery: Noticing existing elements of a culture
– Diffusion: Spreading products, people and
information from one culture to another
• Conflict and change
– Social conflict arising from inequality forces changes
in every society (Marx)
• Ideas and change
– Ideas can fuel social
movements which bring
about social change
(Weber).
• These young men are
performing in a hip-hop dance
marathon in Hong Kong. Hip-
hop music, dress style, and
dancing have become popular
in Asia, a clear case of
cultural diffusion.
• Demographics and change
– Population patterns play a part in social change.
– Migration within and among societies promotes
change.
Who Stays Put? Residential Stability
Across the United States
Modernity: What Is…?
• Modernity
– Changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution
• Modernization
– Process of social change begun by industrialization
Modernity
• Four major dimensions of modernization
– Decline of small, traditional towns
– Expansion of personal choice
– Increasing social diversity
– Orientation toward the future and a growing
awareness of time
Table 24-1 The United States: A Century of
Change
Blank
1910 2010
National population 92 million 309 million
Share living in cities 46% 84%
Life expectancy 48 years (men), 76 years (men),
52 years (women) 81 years (women)
Median age 24.1 years 37.2 years
Median family income $8,000 (in 2010 dollars) $60,395 (in 2010 dollars)
Share of income spent on food 43% 13%
Share of homes with 10% 99.4%
flush toilets
Average number of cars 1 car for every 64 households 2.2 cars for every household
Divorce rate about 1 in 20 marriages about 6 in 20 marriages
Average gallons of petroleum 34 gallons per person per year 1,100 gallons per person per
products Consumed year
Tönnies: The Loss of Community (1 of 2)
• With modernization comes the
loss of Gemeinschaft (human
community).
• Modernity brings Gesellschaft
(impersonal relationships).
• George Tooker’s 1950 painting
The Subway depicts a common
problem of modern life:
Weakening social ties and
eroding traditions create a
generic humanity in which
everyone is alike yet each
person is an anxious stranger in
the midst of others.
Tönnies: The Loss of Community (2 of 2)
• Evaluation
– Gemeinschaft exists in modern society.
– No differentiation between cause and effect.
– Traditional societies are romanticized.
Tradition and Modernity: The History of
Jeans
• Jeans existed both “then” and “now,” all the
while taking on new and different meanings.
• This reveals the limitation of characterizing

cultural elements as either “traditional” or
“modern” as societies invent and reinvent
their way of life all the time.
• In art from the 1500s, we see poor people

wearing denim.
• In the 1800s, jeans became the uniform for

the western cowboy, and by the 1960s, they
were the clothing of choice on campus.
• More recently, corporate executives

(especially in tech companies) have made
jeans acceptable in the workplace.
Durkheim: Division of Labor (1 of 2)
• Divisions of labor become more pronounced with
modernization.
– Mechanical solidarity is virtually the same as
Tönnies’s Gemeinschaft.
– Organic solidarity corresponds to Tönnies’s concept
of Gesellschaft.
Durkheim: Division of Labor (2 of 2)
• Evaluation
– Societies’ norms and values strong enough to avoid
anomie.
– People value the personal freedom of modern society
despite the risks.
Max Weber and Rational Society (1 of 2)
• Modernity meant replacing a traditional worldview with a
rational way of thinking.
– Modern society is “disenchanted.”
– New social patterns that allow goal achievement
adopted.
– Efficiency is valued with little reverence for the past.
– “Truth” is the result of rational calculation.
Max Weber and Rational Society (2 of 2)
• Evaluation
– Weber feared that rationalization, especially in
bureaucracies, would erode the human spirit with
endless rules and regulations.
– He worried that science was turning away from more
basic questions about the meaning and purpose of
human existence.
Karl Marx: Capitalism (1 of 2)
• Capitalism
– Industrial revolution was a capitalist revolution.
– Modernity weakened small communities, increased
labor division, and encouraged a rational world view.
– Social conflict in capitalist societies would incite
revolutionary change-leading to egalitarian socialism.
Karl Marx: Capitalism (2 of 2)
• Evaluation
– Complex theory underestimates the dominance of
bureaucracy.
– Stifling socialist bureaucracies are as bad or worse
than dehumanizing capitalism.
Summing Up (1 of 6)
Blank Blank
Traditional and Modern

Societies: The Big Picture
Elements of Society Traditional Societies Modern Societies
Cultural Patterns Blank Blank
Values Homogeneous; sacred Heterogeneous; secular
character; few subcultures and character; many subcultures
countercultures and
countercultures
Norms Great moral significance; little Variable moral significance; high
tolerance of diversity tolerance of diversity
Time orientation Present linked to past Present linked to future
Technology Preindustrial; human and animal Industrial; advanced energy
energy sources
Summing Up (2 of 6)
Blank Blank

Social Structure Blank Blank
Status and role Few statuses, most ascribed; Many statuses, some ascribed
few specialized roles and some achieved; many
specialized roles
Relationships Typically primary; little Typically secondary; much
anonymity or privacy anonymity and privacy
Communication Face to face Face-to-face communication
supplemented by mass media
Social control Informal gossip Formal police and legal system
Summing Up (3 of 6)
Blank Blank

Social Structure Blank Blank
Social stratification Rigid patterns of social Fluid patterns of social
inequality; little mobility inequality; high mobility
Gender patterns Pronounced patriarchy; Declining patriarchy; increasing
women’s lives centered on the number of women in the paid
home labor force
Settlement patterns Small-scale; population typically Large-scale; population typically
small and widely dispersed in large and concentrated in
rural villages and small towns cities
Summing Up (4 of 6)
Blank Blank

Blank Blank
Social Institutions
Economy Based on agriculture; much Based on industrial mass
manufacturing in the home; little production; factories become
white-collar work centers of production; increasing
white-collar work
State Small-scale government; little Large-scale government; much
state intervention in society state intervention in society
Family Extended family as the primary Nuclear family retains some
means of socialization and socialization functions but is
economic production more a unit of consumption than
of production
Summing Up (5 of 6)
Blank Blank

Social Institutions Blank Blank
Religion Religion guides worldview; little Religion weakens with the rise
religious pluralism of science; extensive religious
pluralism
Education Formal schooling limited to Basic schooling becomes
elites universal, with growing
proportion receiving advanced
education
Health High birth and death rates; short Low birth and death rates;
life expectancy because of low longer life expectancy because
standard of living and simple of higher standard of living and
medical technology sophisticated medical
technology
Social Change Slow; change evident over many Rapid; change evident within a
generations single generation
Theoretical Analysis of Modernity (1 of 2)
• Structural-functional theory: Modernity as mass society
– Draws upon the ideas of Tönnies, Durkheim, and
Weber
– Proposes modernization as the emergence of mass
society
Structural-functional theory: Modernity as
Mass Society (1 of 3)
• Mass-society theory
– Scale of modern life has greatly increased.
– Geographic mobility, mass communication, and
exposure to diverse ways of life all weaken traditional
values.
– Population becomes a generic mass.
• The ever-expanding state
– Power resides in large bureaucracies; local
communities have reduced control.
– Regulations may protect and advance social equality,
but they also undermine autonomy of families and
local communities.
• Evaluation
– Positive aspects of growing modern life is matched
with loss of some cultural heritage.
– Modern societies may create reduced family values
and patterns and increased sense of individual
feelings of isolation, powerless, and materialism.
– Theory romanticizes past.
Theoretical Analysis of Modernity (2 of 2)
• Social-conflict theory
– Draws upon the ideas of Marx
– Views the heart of modernization as an expanding
capitalist economy, marked by inequality or class
society
Social-Conflict Theory: Modernity as Class
Society (1 of 3)
• Capitalism
– Suggests increasing scale of social life in modern
society results from the growth and greed unleashed
by capitalism (Marx)
– Supports science as ideology that justifies status quo
Society (2 of 3)
• Persistent inequality
– Contends elite class still exists as people are still born
to wealth and power
– Suggests state can only accomplish minor forms
become of capitalist control of economy
– Posits gains of working people and minorities are
result of political struggle and not government
goodwill
Society (3 of 3)
• Evaluation
– Contends people suffer from alienation and
powerlessness, not anomie
– Overlooks long-term increasing prosperity of modern
societies
– Class society overlooks the way equality in modern
society has increased
Summing Up (6 of 6)
Two Interpretations of
Blank Blank
Modernity
Mass Society Class Society
Blank
Process of modernization Industrialization; growth of Rise of capitalism

bureaucracy
Effects of modernization Increasing scale of life; rise Expansion of the capitalist
of the state and other formal economy; persistence of
organizations social inequality
Modernity and the Individual (1 of 4)
• Mass society: Problems of identity
– Personal identity can be a problem since society
changes so rapidly
▪ Social character: Personality patterns common to
members of a particular society
▪ Tradition-directedness: Rigid conformity to time-
honored ways of living
▪ Other-directedness: Openness to latest trends
and fashions, expressed by imitating others
• Class society: Problems of powerlessness
– Persistent social inequality undermines modern
society’s promise of freedom.
– Problems of relative disadvantage exist for racial and
ethnic minorities.
– Power of multinational corporations is vast.
– Does technology solve the world’s problems, or
cause the world’s problems?
• In modern societies, most people expect and desire
social change.
– Modernity is linked to progress.
– Social change is too complex to equate with progress.
– New technology sparks controversy.
• “We realize that social change comes faster all the time,
but we may disagree about whether a particular change
is good or bad for society.”
Postmodernity: Postindustrial societies (1 of
2)
• All variants of postmodern thinking share the following

themes.
– In important respects, modernity has failed.
– The bright light of “progress” is fading.
– Science no longer holds the answers.
– Cultural debates are intensifying.
– Social institutions are changing.
Postmodernity: Postindustrial societies (2 of
2)
• Evaluation
– Critics suggest modernity fails to meet human needs.
– However, there have been increases in longevity and
living standards.
• What are the alternatives?
Modernization and Our Global Future (1 of 2)
• Modernization theory
– In the past, the entire world was poor.
– Technological change, enhanced human productivity
and raised living standards in many nations.
– U.S. is no longer separate from change in the rest of
the world.
Modernization and Our Global Future (2 of 2)
• Dependence theory
– Modernization is achieved at the expense of the poor.
– World’s poorest countries remain locked in a
disadvantageous economic relationship with rich
nations.
– This perpetuates current patterns of global inequality.
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Sociology

• This reveals the limitation of characterizing

• In art from the 1500s, we see poor people

• In the 1800s, jeans became the uniform for

• More recently, corporate executives

Traditional and Modern

Traditional and Modern

Societies: The Big Picture

Societies: The Big Picture

Societies: The Big Picture

Process of modernization Industrialization; growth of Rise of capitalism

• All variants of postmodern thinking share the following

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