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Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Sustained at a larger scale, it may lead to social transformation or societal transformation. [1]
Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic structure, for instance the transition from feudalism to capitalism, or hypothetical future transition to some form of post-capitalism.
Social development is the people that develop social and emotional skills across the lifespan, with particular attention to childhood and adolescence. Healthy social development allows us to form positive relationships with family, friends, teachers, and other people in our lives. [2]
Accordingly, it may also refer to social revolution, such as the Socialist revolution presented in Marxism, or to other social movements, such as women's suffrage or the civil rights movement. Social change may be driven through cultural, religious, economic, environmental, scientific or technological forces.
Change arises from two primary sources: unique factors, such as climate, weather, or the presence of specific groups of people, and systematic factors. For example, successful development generally has the same requirements, such as a stable and flexible government, enough free and available resources, and a diverse social organization of society. On the whole, social change is usually a combination of systematic factors along with some random or unique factors. [3]
Many theories attempt to explain social change. One view suggests that a theory of change should include elements such as structural aspects of change (like population shifts), processes and mechanisms of social change, and directions of change. [4]
Social changes can vary according to speed and scope and impetus. [7] Some research on the various types of social change focuses on social organizations such as corporations.
Different manifestations of change include:
One of the most obvious changes currently occurring is the change in the relative global population distribution between countries. In recent decades, developing countries have become a larger proportion of the world population, increasing from 68% in 1950 to 82% in 2010, and the population of the developed countries has declined from 32% of the total world population in 1950 to 18% in 2010. China and India continue to be the largest countries, followed by the US as a distant third.
However, population growth throughout the world is slowing. Population growth among developed countries has been slowing since the 1950s and is now at 0.3% annual growth. Population growth among the less developed countries excluding the least developed ones has also been slowing since 1960 and is now at 1.3% annually. Population growth among the least developed countries has slowed relatively little; as of 2022, the annual growth rate is 2.33%. [17]
In much of the developed world, changes from distinct men's work and women's work to more gender equal patterns have been economically important since the mid-20th century. Both men and women are considered to be great contributors [18] to social change worldwide. [19]
A paradigm shift is a fundamental change in the basic concepts and experimental practices of a scientific discipline. It is a concept in the philosophy of science that was introduced and brought into the common lexicon by the American physicist and philosopher Thomas Kuhn. Even though Kuhn restricted the use of the term to the natural sciences, the concept of a paradigm shift has also been used in numerous non-scientific contexts to describe a profound change in a fundamental model or perception of events.
An information society is a society or subculture where the usage, creation, distribution, manipulation and integration of information is a significant activity. Its main drivers are information and communication technologies, which have resulted in rapid growth of a variety of forms of information. Proponents of this theory posit that these technologies are impacting most important forms of social organization, including education, economy, health, government, warfare, and levels of democracy. The people who are able to partake in this form of society are sometimes called either computer users or even digital citizens, defined by K. Mossberger as “Those who use the Internet regularly and effectively”. This is one of many dozen internet terms that have been identified to suggest that humans are entering a new and different phase of society.
A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and may involve individuals, organizations, or both. Social movements have been described as "organizational structures and strategies that may empower oppressed populations to mount effective challenges and resist the more powerful and advantaged elites". They represent a method of social change from the bottom within nations. On the other hand, some social movements do not aim to make society more egalitarian, but to maintain or amplify existing power relationships. For example, scholars have described fascism as a social movement.
An institution is a humanly devised structure of rules and norms that shape and constrain social behavior. All definitions of institutions generally entail that there is a level of persistence and continuity. Laws, rules, social conventions and norms are all examples of institutions. Institutions vary in their level of formality and informality.
Political sociology is an interdisciplinary field of study concerned with exploring how governance and society interact and influence one another at the micro to macro levels of analysis. Interested in the social causes and consequences of how power is distributed and changes throughout and amongst societies, political sociology's focus ranges across individual families to the state as sites of social and political conflict and power contestation.
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens is an English sociologist who is known for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern sociologists and is the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29 languages, issuing on average more than one book every year. In 2007, Giddens was listed as the fifth most cited author of books in the humanities. He has academic appointments in approximately twenty different universities throughout the world and has received numerous honorary degrees.
In sociology, secularization is a multilayered concept that generally denotes "a transition from a religious to a more worldly level." There are many types of secularization and most do not lead to atheism, irreligion, nor are they automatically antithetical to religion. Secularization has different connotations such as implying differentiation of secular from religious domains, the marginalization of religion in those domains, or it may also entail the transformation of religion as a result of its recharacterization.
Environmental sociology is the study of interactions between societies and their natural environment. The field emphasizes the social factors that influence environmental resource management and cause environmental issues, the processes by which these environmental problems are socially constructed and define as social issues, and societal responses to these problems.
Modernization theory or modernisation theory holds that as societies become more economically modernized, wealthier and more educated, their political institutions become increasingly liberal democratic and rationalist. The "classical" theories of modernization of the 1950s and 1960s, most influentially articulated by Seymour Lipset, drew on sociological analyses of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and Talcott Parsons. Modernization theory was a dominant paradigm in the social sciences in the 1950s and 1960s, and saw a resurgence after 1991, when Francis Fukuyama wrote about the end of the Cold War as confirmation of modernization theory.
Malthusianism is a theory that population growth is potentially exponential, according to the Malthusian growth model, while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population decline. This event, called a Malthusian catastrophe has been predicted to occur if population growth outpaces agricultural production, thereby causing famine or war. According to this theory, poverty and inequality will increase as the price of assets and scarce commodities goes up due to fierce competition for these dwindling resources. This increased level of poverty eventually causes depopulation by decreasing birth rates. If asset prices keep increasing, social unrest would occur, which would likely cause a major war, revolution, or a famine. Societal collapse is an extreme but possible outcome from this process. The theory posits that such a catastrophe would force the population to "correct" back to a lower, more easily sustainable level. Malthusianism has been linked to a variety of political and social movements, but almost always refers to advocates of population control.
Sociocultural evolution, sociocultural evolutionism or social evolution are theories of sociobiology and cultural evolution that describe how societies and culture change over time. Whereas sociocultural development traces processes that tend to increase the complexity of a society or culture, sociocultural evolution also considers process that can lead to decreases in complexity (degeneration) or that can produce variation or proliferation without any seemingly significant changes in complexity (cladogenesis). Sociocultural evolution is "the process by which structural reorganization is affected through time, eventually producing a form or structure that is qualitatively different from the ancestral form".
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, and social transformation. Marxism originates with the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, and as a result, there is no single, definitive "Marxist theory". Marxism has had a profound effect in shaping the modern world, with various left-wing and far-left political movements taking inspiration from it in varying local contexts.
Unilineal evolution, also referred to as classical social evolution, is a 19th-century social theory about the evolution of societies and cultures. It was composed of many competing theories by various anthropologists and sociologists, who believed that Western culture is the contemporary pinnacle of social evolution. Different social status is aligned in a single line that moves from most primitive to most civilized. This theory is now generally considered obsolete in academic circles.
Metabolic rift is a theory of ecological crisis tendencies under the capitalist mode of production that sociologist John Bellamy Foster ascribes to Karl Marx. Quoting Marx, Foster defines this as the "irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism". Foster argues that Marx theorized a rupture in the metabolic interaction between humanity and the rest of nature emanating from capitalist agricultural production and the growing division between town and country.
The sociology of law, legal sociology, or law and society, is often described as a sub-discipline of sociology or an interdisciplinary approach within legal studies. Some see sociology of law as belonging "necessarily" to the field of sociology, but others tend to consider it a field of research caught up between the disciplines of law and sociology. Still others regard it as neither a subdiscipline of sociology nor a branch of legal studies but as a field of research on its own right within the broader social science tradition. Accordingly, it may be described without reference to mainstream sociology as "the systematic, theoretically grounded, empirical study of law as a set of social practices or as an aspect or field of social experience". It has been seen as treating law and justice as fundamental institutions of the basic structure of society mediating "between political and economic interests, between culture and the normative order of society, establishing and maintaining interdependence, and constituting themselves as sources of consensus, coercion and social control".
Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. Regarded as a part of both the social sciences and humanities, sociology uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about social order and social change. Sociological subject matter ranges from micro-level analyses of individual interaction and agency to macro-level analyses of social systems and social structure. Applied sociological research may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, whereas theoretical approaches may focus on the understanding of social processes and phenomenological method.
Transition management is a governance approach that aims to facilitate and accelerate sustainability transitions through a participatory process of visioning, learning and experimenting. In its application, transition management seeks to bring together multiple viewpoints and multiple approaches in a 'transition arena'. Participants are invited to structure their shared problems with the current system and develop shared visions and goals which are then tested for practicality through the use of experimentation, learning and reflexivity. The model is often discussed in reference to sustainable development and the possible use of the model as a method for change.
Technological transitions (TT) can best be described as a collection of theories regarding how technological innovations occur, the driving forces behind them, and how they are incorporated into society. TT draws on a number of fields, including history of science, technology studies, and evolutionary economics. Alongside the technological advancement, TT considers wider societal changes such as "user practices, regulation, industrial networks, infrastructure, and symbolic meaning or culture". Hughes refers to the 'seamless web' where physical artifacts, organizations, scientific communities, and social practices combine. A technological transition occurs when there is a major shift in these socio-technical configurations.
Overurbanization is a thesis originally developed by scholars of demography, geography, ecology, economics, political science, and sociology in thrergence of International Nongovernmental Organizations Amid Declining States. The term is intentionally comparative and has been used to differentiate between developed and developing countries. Several causes have been suggested, but the most common is rural-push and urban-pull factors in addition to population growth.
Social revolutions are sudden changes in the structure and nature of society. These revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed society, economy, culture, philosophy, and technology along with but more than just the political systems.
Marx believed the struggle between social classes would drive social change.
The pressures for change influence the type of change experienced – its speed and scope, and how it is introduced and planned. Change can be anywhere on a scale from radical to gradual. It may be imposed from above or initiated from below.
The only choice would be to accept Fabian change, whether it was desirable or not [...].
Revolutionary change is a special kind of social change, one that involves the intrusion of violence into civil social relations.
Transformational change is always stochastic: it is the outcome of established systems having been disturbed by n unpredictable change.
Open-ended change is characterised by a radical change, followed soon by another, and perhaps more to come.
[...] leaders who impose top-down change tend to overestimate both their ability to spread change through [an] entire organization without getting adequate buy-in and their ability to fully assess the scope of problems [...].
Bottom-up change tries to unlock ideas and initiative at lower organizational levels and let them percolate upward.
[...] changes that happen in London are the harbingers of changes that will soon come to other towns and cities [...]. [...] One of London's most attractive yet puzzling features is the way that poverty and 'posherty' can co-exist on opposite sides of the same street. But if you think of that tarmac divide as some sort of socio-tectonic fault-line, along which various neighbourhoods have split and slid, then it all suddenly makes sense.
[...] I will use the available data from surveys and my own observations to delineate the class-generational units that form the core constituencies of the respective protest mobilizations and their corridors of experience or the large socio-tectonic shifts that affected these class-generational units.
