SOCIAL CHANGE

CHAPTER 4
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:

1.Discuss about social change variables.

2.Discuss about Social change theories

1. Evolutionary theory,
2. Cyclical theory,
3. Conflict theory,
4. Structural-Functional theory
INTRODUCTION
 SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIAL
CHANGE

Social development means a commitment that development processes need to benefit people,
particularly but not only the poor, but also a recognition that people, and the way they interact
in groups and society, and the norms that facilitates such interaction, shape development
processes (Gloria, 2004).

SO, to have social development, it requires social change.

People’s participation (societal change) and support towards the various development
programs of the government are crucial for the success of any development programs of the
government, and for the overall development and progress of the nation as a whole.
DEFINITIONS OF SOCIAL CHANGE

Mackenzie (1969)
“Social change is the change in attitude of a particular society in a country,
towards the various development programs of the government”

Steven Vago (1989)

“Social change is the change that occurs in the society, might it be planned
or unplanned, quantitative or qualitative”

Oxford Dictionary (2000)

“Social change is that change that occurs in a society, where the people
transit from one stage of living to the other”
CHARACTERISTICS OF
SOCIAL CHANGE
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL
CHANGE
Four (4) characteristics:

1. People’s awareness
• People should aware of the existence of such programs, then it will
be relevant to discuss further about the pros & cons and other
benefits outcome of the program.

2. People’s change of attitude

• E.g: from hostile and non-participation to supportive and
participative.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL
CHANGE
3. Social change as a continuous process
• E.g: the constant development and improvement of language,
culture, education

4. Social change can be positive or negative ( good or bad)

• Good: improve quality of education, improve quality of living
standard
• Bad: westernization, vandalism, black metal
ELEMENTS/COMPONENTS OF
CHANGE
ELEMENTS/ COMPONENTS OF SOCIAL
CHANGE
Steven Vago (2004) has outlined several elements which are :

1. Change in a specific identity (a norm, a relationship)

• Help people to understand the change process and where it leads. It will shape the result of the
change and would transform the identity of the society. Failure to specify the identity or what is
changing can easily lead to confusion

2. Level of change (individuals, organizations, social groups, institutions and the community)
1. Individual level: change in attitudes, beliefs, aspirations, and motivations
2. Group level: interaction patterns in communication, methods od conflict resolution, cohesion,
unity
3. Organization level: alteration in the structure, role relationship, productivity, recruitment
ELEMENTS/ COMPONENTS OF SOCIAL
CHANGE
3. Rate of change (short / long term)
• At what rate does a specific change take place?
• The rate of change can be measured by a specific set of time intervals such as days,
months, years, decades etc; or it can be designated slow and rapid.
• In the study of social change we use the words of short-term and long-term change

4. Change in magnitude
• Incremental change (change in stages),
• Revolutionary change (drastic/radical),
• Comprehensive change (involves the entire social structure)

5. Direction of change
• Change that occur leads to certain direction – higher, lower, backward or forward, or
it can be analysed through progress, improvement, decline or betterment
SOCIAL CHANGE VARIABLES
 SOCIAL CHANGE VARIABLES

Social change variables refer to the factors that cause changes to the society.
Hence, there are five variables that influence society to change for example:

1.Physical variables (environment)

• Natural surrounding that can affects the change in man and his society.
• E.g: Climate change, natural disaster such as Tsunami

2.Biological variables (ecological and demography)

• Ecology – relationship between mankind and other living things
• Demography – a science of human population
 SOCIAL CHANGE VARIABLES

3. Ideological variables (set of ideas or beliefs)

• Ideology can be political, economy, religious
• E.g. Neoliberal economic and development policy

4. Technological variables
• Set of variables that implied scientific knowledge / invention
• E.g. Flyingboard Man

5. Norms and values variables

• Norms – set of behavior that is usually expected of an individual or person in a community or
society.
• Values – belief of a particular society on what is right or wrong, and what is important in life.
SOCIAL CHANGE THEORIES
 SOCIAL CHANGE THEORIES

1.The Evolutionary Theory

2.The Cyclical Theory

3.The Conflict Theory

4.The Structural-functional Theory

EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
 1. THE EVOLUTIONARY THEORY
• The concept of evolution was used to explain all forms of human development in both the social and
biological sciences (Charles Darwin)

• This theory believe that human society change through a fixed set of stages e.g. from
savagery/cruelty through barbarism to civilization

• The idea of evolution was tied with the ideas of progress, development, and advancement; each stage
represented a ‘higher’ stage than the one before it, with the final stage in the series almost societal
perfection

• The early sociologists all believed in social evolution and among them:

1. Auguste Comte (1798-1857)

2. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
3. Ferdinand Tonnies (1855-1936)
 AUGUSTE COMTE (FRENCH)
• Comte’s thinking centred on the search for ‘a law of progress’ – how society progress. He
believed in progress toward a perfect society

• He was known as the ‘founder of sociology’ when he insisted that society progress would
come about not by political revolution, but by the proper application of a new moral science
known as ‘sociology’

• There were several methods used by Comte to understand a new moral science
e.g. the ‘positivist’ scientific method of observation, experimentation, and comparison to understand order and promote
progress

• The main argument on his ‘road to perfect society’ was that: the human passing through
three historical phases of sophistication or stage to become perfect society: The
theological, the metaphysical and the positive. These three assumptions of the progress of
knowledge were inevitable and irreversible.
 THE THEOLOGICAL STAGE

People think inanimate objects are alive e.g. stones/trees/wood. This general
view itself goes through three phases:

1.Animism or fetishism – society view each object as having its own will

2.Polythesism/many gods – society believed that many divine wills impose

themselves on objects

3.Monotheism/one god – society believed that the will of one god as imposing
itself on objects
THE THEOLOGICAL STAGE
 THE METAPHYSICAL STAGE

• Ideas are focused on the essences of phenomena and rejections of appeals

to supernatural

• Its general character is that of possessing no well-defined characteristics. It

forms a link and is mongrel/mixed and transitional.

• The central idea at this stage was that, humanity is invested with certain
rights that must be respected. At this stage, for example, democracies and
dictators rose and fell in attempts to maintain the rights of humanity
(humanity - the main reason for the existence of democratic and
communist government)
 THE POSITIVE STAGE

• This is a stage of scientific period when people develop explanations in

terms of natural processes and scientific laws e.g. experimentation,
observation and logic reason

• Comte contended that Western civilisation had already reached the positive
stage in control of the physical environment – industry has become
predominant. All the specials relations have gradually established
themselves on industrial bases. Society for instance, taken collectively,
tends to organize itself in the same manner, by making production its only
and constant aim.
HERBERT SPENCER
 HERBERT SPENCER
(ENGLISH RAILROAD ENGINEER)
• Spencer saw evolution as an unilinear development which means, human society had followed a course of
natural development
• e.g. from relatively simple patterns of organisation to more complex structures, characterised by an
increasing specialisation of parts

• He believed that the process of societal evolution followed ‘laws of nature’ where it led toward progress, toward
the development of increasingly desirable forms of society

• He also believed on the theory of ‘survival of the fittest’- those individuals who are best able to adapt to the new
conditions will manage to survive.

• He suggested that an increase in mass or size (e.g. population and food supply) corresponds to an ‘increase in
structure from a few like parts to numerous interrelated parts’ (Applebaum, 19070, p.30)

• Spencer also argued that although a particular stage of societal evolution might seem oppressive or undesirable, it
was ridiculous to believe that society could be improved by legislation. That means, the state should play
minimal role in regulation of society.

• His ideas was accepted widely by whites in practicing discrimination and racism towards blacks in the society.
FERDINAND TONNIES
 FERDINAND TONNIES (GERMAN)

Famous for his concept of:

a. Gemeinschaft – traditional society

b. Gesselschaft – Modern society

•Tonnies explained social change involves the changes from gemeinschaft

(primitive, traditional, homogenous and close knitted relationship) to the
gesselschaft stage (modern, urbanise, individualistic).
 GEMEINSCHAFT

• Gemeinschaft is characterised by the social will as having a close interpersonal ties

that bind lifelong friends and neighbours in a rural village.

• The community concerned with each other’s well-being, they do things for each
other without consideration of repayment or personal gain.

• It is also characterised as:

• Family life: concord/harmony and man participates with all his sentiments.
• Rural village life: folkways /traditional behaviour. Man enters with all his mind
and heart
• Town life: religion. The human being takes part with his entire conscience.
 GESSELSCHAFT

• Gesselschaft is characterised by the social will as convention, legislation and public

opinion. It explained that society have transformed into a larger group living in the
urban area, industrialization has taken over traditional occupation, human
relationship is based on formal contracts, and people are widely materialistic and
focused.

• Those changes was due to rapid urbanization that was taking place in Germany.

• It is also characterised as:

• City life: convention. This is determined by man’s intentins.
• National life: legislation. This is determined by man’s calculations. The
controlling agent is the state
• Cosmopolitan life: public opinion. This is evolved by man’s consciousness.
CYCLICAL THEORY
 2. CYCLICAL THEORY

•Oswald Spengler (1880-1936)

•Pitirim Sorokin (1889-1968)

Both of them believe that social change is a natural phenomenon and

cannot be avoided and also give positive and negative effects. They
argued that societies and civilisations change according to cycles of
rise, decline and fall just as individual persons are born, mature, grow
old, and die.

It was an outcome of the limitation of an evolution theory

OSWALD SPENGLER
 OSWALD SPENGLER
• He defined man and society as having a CYCLE.

• Development of Man: this cycle start from birth until death, which is birth, childhood, adulthood,
old-age and death.

• Development of Society: the cycle of society also start from birth (early formation of the society),
childhood (development of society), adulthood (maturity of the society), old-age (decline of the
society) and death (demise of a society or civilization).

• The Cyclical Theory help in explaining the ups (bloom, prosperity, and development) and downs
(crisis, problems, disasters, recessions, inflations, and misfortune) of man and his society.

• E.g.: On the basis of his analysis of Egyptian, Greek Roman and many other civilisations, he
concluded that the Western civilisation is now on its decline
PITIRIM SOROKIN
 PITIRIM SOROKIN
He considers the course of history to be continuous, though irregular, fluctuating between two basic kinds of cultures: the
‘sensate’ and the ‘ideational’ through the ‘idealistic’. According to him, culture oscil­lates like the pendulum of a clock
between two points.

He believed that the development of man and society are based on 3 stages:

i.Ideational - religious belief of man, every action should be in accordance with religious underpinning e.g. this
worldview holds that true reality is immaterial.

ii.Sensate - logical belief of man, man is using his senses to feel each and every event and use his thinking ability to give
reason why certain things happen e.g. material world is considered the ultimate and seen as the foundation of all
happiness

iii.Idealistic - logic and reason, using equal contribution of science and religion (Knowledge+Sense) e.g. every society
tends to alternate between materialistic and spiritual periods, sometimes with transitional, mixed periods, in a regular and
predictable way.

E.g.: In his view, culture may proceed in a given direction for a time and thus appear to conform to a linear formula. But,
eventually, as a result of forces that are inherent in the culture itself, there will be shift of direction and a new period of
development will be ushered in.
CONFLICT THEORY
 3. CONFLICT THEORY
• Conflict theory assumes that a social behavior can only be clearly understood if it is observed
through clashes and conflicts between groups and individuals.

• It suggests that society is an arena in which struggles over scarce commodities take place.

• Conflict theorists consider change, rather than order (as opposed to evolution and cyclical
theories), as the essential element of social life.

• Structural differentiation is the source of conflict, and social change occurs only through this
conflict.

• Among the leading proponents were:

1. Karl Marx (1818-1883)
2. Ralf Dahrendorf (1959)
3. Oliver Cox (1948)
4. Robert Blauner (1972)
5. Herbert M.Hunter (2000)
KARL MARX (1818-1883)
 KARL MARX (1818-1883)
• According to Marx ‘without conflict, no progress: this is the law which civilization has followed to the present day’ (Dahrendorf,
1959, p.27)

• Karl Marx believed that the history of mankind is the history of class struggle and conflict is a normal condition of social life.

• He believed that every society, whatever its stage of historical development, rests in an economic foundation - ‘mode of
production’ of commodities

• Mode of production has two elements:

• The forces of production or the physical or technological arrangement of economic activity
• The social relations of production or the indispensable human attachment that people must form with one another in
carrying out this economic activity.

• He believed that the determinant of social change is the mode of production

e.g. changes in this produce changes in the relations of production, that is, changes in the way in which groups of people are
attached to this production technology.

• In a capitalist society, social change begun with the collective efforts from the workers (proletariats) to win power over their
employers (bourgeois).
 KARL MARX (1818-1883)

•Marx belief that nobody can stop or prevent revolution from taking
place which at the end, the proletariats/ workers will win the struggle
through stages of social change in a country that propagates the
capitalist system.

•Among the cause of Marx’s theory were the Russian Revolution 1917
and the emergence of the Communist System of USSR in 1917 headed
by Lenin (1917-1924), Joseph Stalin (1924-1953) and a few more till
the fall of Communism in 1991.
RALF DAHRENDORF
 RALF DAHRENDORF (1959)

•Another influential conflict theorist was Ralf Dahrendorf. He divided

the society into those who are well of and those who are deprived. The
group in position of power or authority is interested in preserving the
status quo, whereas the subordinated group such as workers is
interested in change.

•To him, conflict cannot be wholly referred to the struggle to gain

control over the fundamentals of production in the economy, but
caused by efforts to gain legitimacy and power source as well.

•Meaning to say, the powerless, after gaining some power source

will compete to win legitimacy.
 RALF DAHRENDORF (1959)

• Dahrendorf claimed that conflict which originated from the transformed

relationship between the well of and the deprived, would contribute to the change
in the structure of societies.
• E.g. he suggests that the more the interest groups become organised, the more
likely they will be in conflict with the dominant group (conflict between
workers and management, the unionisation process)

• Marx claimed that the conflict will end with the victory of the workers but
Dahrendorf claimed that conflict within a society is almost unresolved, but could be
controlled through compromise.
STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL
THEORY
4.STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL THEORY

• This theory view society as a BIG SYSTEM whereby it

consists of many sub-systems ( such as sub-system: religion,
politics, culture, education, economy, family and so on) that
assisted and contributed to the smooth function of the society
as a whole.

• However not all the sub-systems will contributed to the

stability and well function of the society all the time. The
dysfunction such as gangsterism, vandalism, and sabotage,
will give impact and lead to a decrease in the stability
TALCOTT PARSONS
 4.STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL THEORY

• Talcott Parsons was a leading structural-functional theorist.

• Parsons believed that:

1. Stability is very important element in any society.

2. An ideal structure should have equilibrium state of the society.
3. A structure is said to be stable when its relationship with the other units within itself and its
environment is in harmony.
4. It is very crucial for any society to endure efforts to maintain a state of full equilibrium and
stability.

E.g.: Change may come from three main sources

a)Adjustment to external disturbances such as a recession in world trade.
b)Structural differentiation in response to problems within the system, e.g., electoral reforms in
response to political unrest.
c)Creative innovations within the system, e.g., scientific discov­eries or technological advances.
 SUMMARY

The concept of social development and social change can be

said that requires and need for people’s participation and
involvement, people’s awareness in the existing programs, and
support towards the various development programs.