ACTIVITY #3 NAME: DINAH JOY S.

ALSOLA

1. Social Change: Meaning Nature and Causes.

M.E. Jones defined Social Change as “a term used to describe variations in, or

modifications of, any aspect of social processes, social patterns, social interaction or

social organization.” Sociologists define social change as changes in human

interactions and relationships that transform cultural and social institutions. These

changes occur over time and often have profound and long-term consequences for

society.

Social change means observable differences in any social phenomena over any

period of time. There are main characteristics of the nature of social change.

Firstly, Social change is a universal phenomenon. Social change occurs in all

societies. No society remains completely static. This is true of all societies, primitive as

well as civilized. Secondly, Social change is community change, it does not refer to the

change in the life of an individual or the life patterns of several individuals. It is a change

which occurs in the life of the entire community. In other words, only that change can be

called social change whose influence can be felt in a community form. Social change is

social and not individual. Another nature of social Change is that the speed of social

change is not uniform. While social change occurs in all societies, its speed is not

uniform in every society.

Social change occurs as an essential law. Change is the law of nature. Social

change also is natural. It may occur either in the natural course or as a result of planned

efforts. By nature, we desire change. Our needs keep on changing. According to Green,

‘The enthusiastic response of change has become almost a way of life.”

Definite prediction of social change is not possible. It is difficult to make any

prediction about the exact forms of social change. There is no inherent law of social

change according to which it would assume definite forms.

Social change shows chain-reaction sequence. A society’s pattern of living is a

dynamic system of inter-related parts. Therefore, change in one of these parts usually

reacts on others and those on additional ones until they bring a change in the whole

mode of life of many people.

Social change results from the interaction of a number of factors. Generally, it is

thought that a particular factor like changes in technology, economic development or

climatic conditions causes social change. As a matter of fact, social change is the

consequence of a number of factors. A special factor may trigger a change but it is

always associated with other factors that make the triggering possible. The reason is

that social phenomena are mutually interdependent. In summary, there can be many

causes of social change, A large part of change in society is caused by change in

culture. Culture is a system that constantly loses and gains components. Invention,

discovery, and diffusion are the main sources of cultural change.

Conflict is also a major cause of change and social movements in the world.

Inequalities are part of our social structure and may be based on religion, caste, gender,

race and class. This leads to anger, dissatisfaction and conflict amongst common

people especially if the civil rights of people are compromised.

Lastly, Change in climate structure is a great cause of devolution and evolution

and often has a serious impact on society as a whole. It is a proven fact that

geographical environment like excessive rain, change in seasons, drought and floods

leave their impact on social relationships and human society in the world.
ACTIVITY #3 NAME: DINAH JOY S. ALSOLA

2. Constraints of Social Change (caste, ethnicity, class, language, religion ,

regionalism)

Sticking to one's traditions and refusing to accept new ideas act as a barrier

to social change. The degree of cultural accumulation and the amount of contact with

other societies determine the nature and extent of social change within a society.

Caste system is one in which people are born into their social standing and will

remain in it their whole lives. People are assigned occupations regardless of their

talents, interests, or potential. There are virtually no opportunities to improve a person's

social position. Caste, the rural community, and the joint family have contributed to

social and cultural solidarity where differences of race and culture were likely to provoke

perpetual conflict. Although they make up an interwoven compact and solid structure,

they are plastic, bending to economic forces. Through the caste system the aboriginal

tribes have been gradually absorbed into social organization.

Ethnicity and Social Change over a century communal problem have occupied

the attention of policymakers and academicians. These problems have been the result

of conflict between communities separated by religion, language, caste, or region. Many

and varied explanations have been offered for persistent that most discussions have

centered around the communities where all other communal conflicts are considered

internal and therefore less important.

Throughout human history, most people live and die in the social class into which

they were born. If they were born poor, chances are they will die poor. One way that
ACTIVITY #3 NAME: DINAH JOY S. ALSOLA

societies can help people rise in social class is to initiate new enterprises, like improved

educational opportunities or technological advancements. When this happens, the need

for workers in higher-class jobs motivates and enables people to move up in social

class, which can help them to escape poverty. 

Language plays a vital role in what has been called the “social construction of

reality” creating frames of consistency. Languages are systems of categories and rules

based on fundamental principles and assumptions about the world. Whorf (1956) calls

these assumptions science and metaphysics, immersed in life, which then generate an

“ideology” defined as: “a systematic body of ideas organized from a particular point of

view”. Ideology is a conception of the world that implicitly manifests itself in law, in

economic activity, in science and even in art, including political ideologies of various

kinds. It can be located either in language structure or in language event.

The role of religion as a tool for social change is not contestable as it brings

about both positive and negative changes. For example, religious wars and extremism

experienced in our world are offshoots of religious intolerance. Religious doctrines

engender social change in so many ways for example it took missionaries from Europe

to put a halt to killing of twins and human sacrifices in Nigeria. Max Weber’s work on

Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism is a classic example of the role of religion in

social change.

Regionalism refers to formal economic cooperation and economic arrangements

of a group of countries aimed at facilitating or enhancing regional integration. It seeks to

achieve legitimacy for definitions of boundaries and to obtain approval for this definition

in cultural and political, and popular and official understandings. Thus, regionalism is

concerned with giving meaning to bounded material and symbolic worlds to create inter-

subjective meanings.
ACTIVITY #3 NAME: DINAH JOY S. ALSOLA

3. Education as an agent of Social And Economic Change and Human Resource

Development.

There is hardly anything in our midst which is static. Everything changes, just

as every organism grows. The society composed of human beings also undergoes

changes. These changes occur in the society’s cultural pattern and its structure

and, consequently, cast an impact on its members. This process of change is quite

complicated and needs careful and in depth study.

Education has to change its direction in response to the changes in environment.

The institutional framework in society is geared towards improving the quality of life and

this is brought about by changes in production patterns, which, in turn, influence the

consumption patterns, and that leads to change/shift in relationships. The structure of

society undergoes change and such changes are a continuum. Education is considered

as the most powerful social change instrument. Through education, any society can

bring desirable changes that can cope with the rapid development of technology.

Education, no doubt, can help the process of social change as a necessary and vitally

important collateral factor. It can help to stimulate, accelerate and work out that

process by disseminating and inculcating knowledge, information, skills and

values appropriate to the changing socio-economic issues. Education may help the

process of far-reaching social change by using its liberating role of examining and

analyzing the existing social situation.

The relation between education and social change has been examined in rural

contexts, where rigid class systems have proved as barriers to education as well as

agricultural changes. Some research studies are mentioned below: Lerner (1958)

stated that the key to modernization lies in the participant society – one in which

people go through school, read newspapers, are in the wage and market economy,

participate politically through elections and change opinions on diverse matters. He

also posted that education is the pivotal agent in the transition to a fully participant

society. Theodore Schultz (1982) has pointed out that with economic

development and the requirement for highly educated and trained manpower,

parents become increasingly concerned with the quality of their children, as against

the number of children emphasized in traditional societies. Therefore, parents invest in

children’s education more as it is investment in growth agent (education); it has twin

advantages of stimulating the process of development and lowering fertility thus

accelerating the process of development.

Indeed, Education plays a very important role in development of human

resource. If people are educated, equipped and skilled, they will earn more and their

standard will become high. They will have better quality of life. They will be beneficial to

the society.