Social Changes, Causes, Theories and characteristics

 

Outline

1.     Introduction

2.     Definition of social change

a.       Micro change

b.      Macro change

3.     Characteristics of social change

a.       Social change is uneven

b.      Social change creates conflicts

c.       Direction of social change is not random

d.      Social change cannot erase the past

4.     Theories of social change

a.       Functional theories

b.      Evolutionary theories

                                                               i.      Uni-dimensional evolutionary theories

                                                             ii.      Multidimensional evolutionary theories

c.       Conflict theories

d.      Cyclic theories

                                                               i.      First phase

                                                             ii.      Second phase

                                                           iii.      Third phase

e.       Global theories of social change

f.        Modernization theories

                                                               i.      Dependency theories

5.     Causes of social change

a.       Revolution

b.      Cultural diffusion

c.       War

d.      Mobilizing people for change

e.       Inequality

6.     Conclusion

 

Social Change

Social change is the alteration of social interactions, institutions, stratification systems, and elements of culture over time. Societies are in a constant state of flux.

·         Some changes are rapid while other changes are more gradual.

·         Sometimes people adapt quickly to change while sometimes people resist change or are slow to adapt to new possibilities.

·         The speed of social change varies from society to society and from time to time within the same society.

Microchanges are subtle alterations in the day-today interactions between people.

Macrochanges are gradual transformations that occur on a broad scale and affect many aspects of society.

Characteristics of Social Change

1.     Social change is uneven. The various parts of a society do not all change at the same rate; some parts lag behind others. This is the principle of culture lag, a term coined by sociological theorist William F. OgburnRecall that culture lag refers to the delay between when social conditions change and when cultural adjustments are made. Often the first change is a development in material culture (such as a technological change in computer hardware), which is followed by a change in nonmaterial culture (meaning the habits and mores of the culture). The onset and consequences of social change are often unforeseen

2.     Social change often creates conflict. Change often triggers conflicts along racial–ethnic lines, social class lines, and gender lines.

3.     The direction of social change is not random. Change has “direction” relative to a society’s history. A populace may want to make a good society better, or it may rebel against a status quo regarded as unendurable. Whether change is wanted or resisted, when it occurs it takes place within a specific social and cultural context.

4.     Social change cannot erase the past. As a society moves toward the future, it carries along its past, its traditions, and its institutions.

Theories of Social Change

Functionalist Theories

The early theorists Herbert Spencer and Emile Durkheim  both argued that as societies move through history, they become more complex. Spencer argued that societies moved from “homogeneity to heterogeneity.”

Durkheim similarly argued that societies moved from a state of mechanical solidarity, a cohesiveness based on the similarity among its members, to organic solidarity (also called contractual solidarity), a cohesiveness based on difference; a division of labor that exists among its members joins them together, because each depends on the others to perform specialized tasks

Through the creation of specialized roles, structures, and institutions, societies thus move from a condition of relative undifferentiating to higher social differentiation. According to functional theorists, societies that are structurally simple and homogeneous, such as foraging or pastoral societies, where all members engage in similar tasks, move to societies more structurally complex and heterogeneous, such as agricultural, industrial, and postindustrial societies, where great social differentiation exists in the division of labor among people who perform many specialized tasks.

The consequence (or function) of increased differentiation and division of labor is a higher degree of stability and cohesiveness in the society, brought about by mutual dependence.

Evolutionary theories

Evolutionary theories of social change are a branch of functionalist theory. One variety, called unidimensional evolutionary theory, argued that societies follow a single evolutionary path from simple, undifferentiated societies to more complex and highly differentiated societies. The more differentiated societies are then perceived as more “civilized.”

Early theorists such as Lewis Morgan  labeled the distinctions between societies as “primitive” and “civilized,” an antiquated notion that has been severely criticized; there is no reason to suppose that an undifferentiated society is necessarily more primitive than a more differentiated one.

Furthermore, these earlier theories offered no firm definitions for the terms primitive or civilized. Nevertheless, the notion that some societies are primitive continues to persist today.

Unidimensional theories of social change fell out of favor because social change occurs in several dimensions and affects a variety of institutions and cultural elements. Meeting the need for a theory that better matches what is actually observed, multidimensional evolutionary theory (also called neoevolutionary theory) argues that the structural, institutional, and cultural development of a society can simultaneously follow many evolutionary paths, with the different paths all emerging from the circumstances of the society in question.

One formulation of multidimensional evolutionary theory is that of Lenski. He gives a central role to technology, arguing that technological advances are significantly (though not wholly) responsible for other changes, such as alterations in religious preference, the nature of law, the form of government, and relations between races and genders.

Although the role of technology is presented as central, other relationships among institutions continue to be important. For example, advances in computer hardware and software can produce changes in the legal system by creating a need for new laws to deal with computer crimes, such as identity theft.

In support of the overall argument that social change is in fact evolutionary—cumulative and not easily reversible—Lenski and his associates point out that many agricultural societies have transformed into industrial societies throughout history, but few have made the reverse trip from industrial to agricultural, although certain countercultural groups have tried, such as hippie communes.

Conflict theories

Karl Marx, the founder of conflict theory was influenced by the early functionalist and evolutionary theories of Herbert Spencer. Marx agreed that societies change and social change has direction, the central principle in Spencer’s social evolutionary theory, but Marx placed greater emphasis on the role of economics. He argued that societies could indeed “advance” and that advancement was to be measured by the movement from a class society to a society with no class structure.

Marx believed that, along the way, class conflict was inevitable.The central notion of conflict theory is that conflict is inherently built into social relations.  For Marx, social conflict, particularly between the two major social classes—working class versus upper class, proletariat versus bourgeoisie—was not only inherent in social relations but was indeed the driving force behind all social change.

Marx believed that the most important causes of social change were the tensions between social groups, especially those defined along social class lines. Different classes have different access to power, with the relatively lower class carrying less power. Although the groups Marx originally referred to were indeed social classes, subsequent interpretations include conflict between any socially distinct groups that receive unequal privileges and opportunities.

However, be aware that the distinction between class and other social variables is necessarily murky. For example, conflict between Whites and minorities is at least partly (but not wholly) class conflict, because minorities are disproportionately represented among the less well-off classes.

Racial and ethnic conflict in the United States involves far more than class differences alone: Many cultural differences exist between Whites and Native Americans, Latinos, Blacks, and Asians. Furthermore, cultural differences exist within broadly defined ethnic groups as well.

There are broad differences in norms and heritage among Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Vietnamese Americans, and so on —all often grouped rather coarsely as Asian Americans. The same error is often made with “Hispanic” groups—Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Panamanians, and others all lumped together  The central idea of conflicttheory is the notion that social groups will have competing interests regardless of how they are defined. Conflict is an inherent part of the social scene in any society

Cyclical Theories

Cyclical theories of social change invoke patterns of social structure and culture that are believed to recur at regular intervals. Cyclical theories build on the idea that societies have a life cycle, like seasonal plants, or at least a life span, like humans. Arnold J. Toynbee, a social historian and a principal theorist of cyclical social change, argues that societies are born, mature, decay, and sometimes die.  For at least part of his life,

Toynbee believed that Western society was fated to self-destruct as energetic social builders were replaced by entrenched elite minorities who ruled by force, and society would wither under the sterile regimes. Some believe that societies become more decrepit, only to be replaced by more youthful societies.

This belief is typified in Oswald Spengler’s famous work, Th e Decline of the West , which held that Western European culture was already deeply in decline, following a path Spengler believed was observable in all cultures

Sociological theorists Pitrim Sorokin and, more recently, Theodore Caplow, have argued that societies proceed through three phases or cycles.

In the first phase, the idealistic culture, the society wrestles with the tension between the ideal and the practical. An example would be the situation captured in Gunnar Myrdal’s classic work, An American Dilemma, in which our nation declared a belief in equality for all, despite intractable racial, class, and gender stratification.

The second phase, ideational culture, emphasizes faith and new forms of spirituality as a phase in social change. The current New Age spirituality movement stresses nontraditional techniques of meditation and the use of such things as crystals, yoga, and chanting in a journey toward self-fulfillment and spiritual peace.

The third phase is sensate culture, which stresses practical approaches to reality and involves the hedonistic and the sensual (for example “sex, drugs, and rock and roll”). Sorokin may have foreseen the hedonistic elements of popular culture as indicative of sensate culture.

According to the theory, when a society tires of the sensate, the cyclical process begins again with the society seeking refuge in idealistic culture. The emphasis beginning in the return to “family values,” meaning older and more traditional values, is an example of a return to idealistic culture, presumably as a response to a perceived sensate culture.

Global Theories of Social Change

Globalization is the increased interconnectedness and interdependence of numerous societies around the world. No longer can the nations of the world be viewed as separate and independent societies.

The irresistible current trend has been for societies to develop deep dependencies on each other, with interlocking economies and social customs. In Europe, this trend proceeded as far as developing a common currency, the euro, for all nations participating in the newly constructed common economy.

As the world becomes increasingly interconnected, does this mean we are moving toward a single, homogeneous culture? In such a culture, electronic communications, computers, and other developments would erase the geographic distances between cultures and, eventually, the cultural differences.

The African and Middle Eastern youth antidictator rebellions in several countries (among them Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and others;) was no doubt greatly aided by electronic communication across international borders via email, Facebook, and other such electronic media, understood and used by the younger generations but in little use by their elders in these countries.

As societies become more interconnected, cultural diffusion between them creates common ground, while cultural differences may become more important as the relationships among nations becomes more intimate. The different perspectives on globalization are represented by three main theories that we will review: modernization theory, world systems theory, and dependency theory,

Modernization Theory

Modernization theory states that global development is a worldwide process including nearly all societies affected by technological change. As a result, societies are more homogeneous in terms of differentiation and complexity.

Modernization theory traces the beginnings of globalization to technological advances in Western Europe and the United States that propelled them ahead of the less-developed nations of the world, which were left to adopt the new technologies years later. Homogenization resulted, with developing nations being shaped in the mold of the Western nations that had modernized first.

Proponents of modernization theory, such as William McCord and Arline McCord, reject the assumption that only Western European countries and the United States have led the technological globalization.

The McCords argue that nonWestern societies, most notably Japan, have also been leaders in modernization. As a result, Japanese culture has profoundly influenced other countries and cultures with its emphasis on the importance of small friendship groups in the workplace and a traditional work ethic.

According to the McCords, Japan and other technological leaders, such as Taiwan and South Korea, have added to the impetus of global economic growth.

Dependency Theory

Dependency theory maintains that highly industrialized nations tend to imprison developing nations in dependent relationships rather than spurring their upward mobility with transfers of technology and business acumen.

Dependency theory sees the highly industrialized core nations as transferring only those narrow capabilities that it serves them to deliver. Once these unequal relationships are forged, core nations seek to preserve the status quo because they benefit from the cheap raw materials and cheap labor from the noncore nations.

In this sense the core nations actively prevent upward mobility within the developing noncore nations. In the meantime, the developing nations remain dependent on the core nations for markets and support in maintaining what industry they have acquired, while they experience minimal social development, limited economic growth, and increased income stratification among their own population.

Rodney has argued that this pattern of dependency is to blame for the exceptional underdevelopment of a number of African countries. Borrowing dependency is a form of a dependent relationship. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has noted that core nations have been willing to lend money to noncore nations, but often at high interest rates that put severe economic strain on these nations, sometimes requiring interventions such as wage and price freezes in the developing societies to maintain solvency. The hardship produced falls disproportionately on the lower social classes; the upper classes are less affected, and occasionally they benefit extravagantly.

MODERNIZATION

As societies grow and change, in a general sense they become more modern. As already noted, sociologists use the term modernization in a specific sense:

“Modernization is a process of social and cultural change initiated by industrialization and followed by increased social differentiation and division of labor. “

Societies can, of course, experience social change without industrialization. Modernization is a specific type of social change that industrialization tends to bring about. The change toward an industrialized society can have positive consequences, such as improved transportation and a higher gross national product, or negative consequences, such as pollution, elevated stress, and increases in certain job discrimination. Modernization has three general characteristics

First, modernization is typified by the decline of small, traditional communities.The individuals in foraging or agrarian societies live in small-scale settlements with their extended families and neighbors. The primary group is prominent in social interaction. Industrialization causes an overall decline in the importance of primary group interactions and an increase in the importance of secondary groups, such as colleagues at work.

Second, with increasing modernization, a society becomes more bureaucratized: Interactions come to be shaped by formal organizations. Traditional ties of kinship and neighborhood feeling decrease, and members of the society tend to experience feelings of uncertainty and powerlessness.

Third, there is a decline in the importance of religious institutions, and with the mechanization of daily life, people begin to feel that they have lost control of their own lives: People may respond by building new religious groups and communities

THE CAUSES OF SOCIAL CHANGE

The causes of social change are many and varied but fall into several broad areas, including cultural diffusion, inequality, changes in population, war, technological innovation, and the mobilization of people through collective behavior and social movements.

1.     Revolution

A revolution is the overthrow of state or the total transformation of central state institutions. A revolution thus results in far-reaching social change.

·         Revolutions can sometimes break down a state and various disenfranchised groups. An array of groups in a society may be dissatisfied with the status quo and organize to replace established institutions.

·         Revolutions can result when structured opportunities are created, such as through war or an economic crisis or mobilization through a social movement,

·         Social structural conditions that often lead to revolution can include a highly repressive state—so repressed that a strong political culture develops out of resistance to state oppression.

·         A major economic crisis can also produce revolution—as can the development of a new economic system, such as capitalism—that transforms the world economy.

2.     Cultural Diffusion

Cultural diffusion is the transmission of cultural elements from one society or cultural group to another.

·         Cultural diffusion can occur by trade, migration, mass communications media, and social interaction.

·         By a similar token, popular culture in the United States has diff used into many other countries and cultures: Witness the adoption of American clothing styles, rock, rap, hip hop, and Big Macs in countries such as Japan, Germany, Russia, and China. In grocery shops worldwide, from the rain forests of Brazil to the ice floes of Norway, can be found the Coca-Cola logo.

3.     Inequality and Change

Inequalities between people on the basis of class, ethnicity, gender, or other social structural characteristics can be a powerful spur toward social change.

·         Social movements may blossom into full-blown revolution if the underlying tension is great enough.

·         An example of the mechanism of change can be seen when inequalities between the middle class and the urban underclass produce governmental initiatives, such as increased education for the poor, which are designed to reduce this inequality.

·         Culture itself can sometimes contribute to the persistence of social inequality and thus becomes a source of discontent among the individuals in the society. Inequalities within the education system often have a cultural basis. For example, a poor child in the United States, who adopts a language useful in the ghetto, is at a disadvantage in the classroom where Standard English is used.

·         Culturally specific linguistic systems such as urban Black English, or “Ebonics,” which is not merely a different dialect (as many people assume) but a distinct linguistic system with its own grammar and syntax; Harrison and Trabasso  Dillard, are generally not adopted by schools. As a result, this may serve to strengthen the inequalities between the poor and the privileged—unless the child is bicultural and can speak both Standard English and Ebonics, which many African Americans can do.

·         Compounding the problem, a female student may shrink from studying mathematics because she has received the cultural message that to be adept at mathematics is not feminine.

·         The perpetuation of the inequalities of class, race, and gender can stoke the desire for social change on the part of the disadvantaged groups.

4.     War and Social Change

War and severe political conflict result in large and far-reaching changes for both the conquering society, and a region within a society (as in civil war), and for the conquered. The conquerors can impose their will on the conquered and restructure many of their institutions, or the conquerors can exercise only minimal changes.

Example:The U.S. victory over Japan and Germany in the Second World War resulted in societal changes in each country. The war transformed the United States into a mass-production economy and affected family structure (father’s absence increasing and women not previously employed joining the labor force) and education (men of college age went off to war in large numbers). Many in the armed forces who returned from the war were educated under a scholarship plan called the GI Bill.

The war also transformed Germany in countless ways, given the vast physical destruction brought on by U.S. bombs and the worldwide attention brought to anti-Semitism and the Nazi Holocaust. The cultural and structural changes in Japan were extensive, as well. The decimation of the Jewish population in Germany and other nations throughout Europe resulted in the massive migration of Jews to the United States.

The Vietnam War also resulted in many social changes, including the migration of Vietnamese to the United States.

If this history of war is any indication, we might shortly expect a wave of migration of Iraqis and Afghanis to the United States. Technological Innovation and the Cyberspace Revolution Technological innovations can be strong catalysts of social change.

The historical movement from agrarian societies to industrialized societies has been tightly linked to the emergence of technological innovations and inventions.  Inventions often come about because they answer a need in the society that promises great rewards. The waterwheel promised agrarian societies greater power to raise crops despite dry weather, while also saving large amounts of time and labor.

In today’s world, the most obvious technological change transforming society is the rise of the computer and the subsequent development of desktop computing. The invention and development of the Internet and the resulting communication is now called cyberspace, which includes the use of computers for communication between persons and communication between persons and computers: email, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, and MySpace, are examples.

Unique in its vastness and lack of a required central location, the Internet has very rapidly become so much a part of human communication and social reality that it pervades and has transformed literally every social institution—educational, economic, political, familial, and religious.

The cyberspace revolution began with vacuum tube mainframe computers followed by the transistorized computer and the integrated circuit computers, and was accelerated by the advent of the PC (personal computer) and the invention of the microchip. What can now be stored in a microchip memory the size of a wristwatch, in the late 19^TH Century would have required a transistorized computer the size of a small auditorium.

The path by which technology is introduced into society often reflects the predominant cultural values in that society. Some cultural values may prevent a technological innovation from changing a society. For example, anthropologists have noted that new technologies introduced into an agrarian society very often meet with resistance even though the new technology might greatly benefit the society.

5.     Mobilizing People for Change

Social change does not develop in the abstract. Change comes from the actions of human beings. Collective behavior and social movements are ways that people organize to promote, or in some cases, to resist change.

Collective behavior occurs when normal conventions cease to guide people’s behavior, and people establish new patterns of interaction and social structure. Social movements are organized and persistent forms of collective behavior. The purpose of a social movement is often to initiate or vigorously resist social change. Examples abound: the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the environmental movement, the militia movement, and very probably the previously mentioned recent youth rebellions in African and Middle Eastern countries, just to name a few. So significant are the changes that result from collective behavior and social movements that we examine them in detail now.