No society has ever remained the same. Change is always happening. We accept change as inevitable, and it is, end of story, right? Well, not exactly. 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. Well known examples of such change have resulted from social movements in civil rights, women's rights, and LBGTQ rights, to name just a few.
Relationships have changed, institutions have changed, and cultural norms have changed as a result of these social change movements. That's pretty heady stuff. Don't you think?
What interests me, and what I hope interests you, is our collective power to influence social change. While we accept that change is constant, we do not have to accept that we are powerless in its wake. It is the extent to which we care about the direction of social change that we can try to shape it and help to create the kind of "change we wish to see in the world.
What matters is that the phrase begs the question, what kind of change do we wish to see in the world? I imagine that our partner and host institution, Southern New Hampshire University SNHU , also thinks about this question on a daily basis as it seeks to "transform the lives of students. We may exercise our power to influence change in different ways. GCC does it through discussion among people of diverse opinions and backgrounds. A bigger population affects the dispersal and availability of resources.
An increase in immigration or emigration also affects society. New inventions, discoveries, and the spread of ideas contribute to cultural changes. Consider the effect of the internet. This example shows how social change is not always beneficial to everyone.
New ideas about gender, race, religion, work, education, and so on also change a culture. There are countless examples throughout history in every country on earth. Social change occurs when societal institutions, structures, and cultures undergo a significant shift.
Famous examples include the Reformation in 16th-century Europe and the American civil rights movement. More often than not, social change is slow. This is especially true of a global society. Why does social change matter? Here are 10 reasons:. Looking at the state of gender equality can be overwhelming, even discouraging.
It becomes impactful as more individuals, groups, and institutions get on board. These actors propel the world forward culture by culture, country by country. Throughout the course of history, greed exploits and endangers employees in every industry. The United States is an example of how social change affects labor and worker rights. Over two centuries, the US experienced the birth of unions, child labor laws, the minimum wage, and laws for family and medical leave. This area of social change is ongoing as workers continue to fight for their rights.
They strike for higher wages and push for better legal protections. Consumers also play a part when they boycott businesses with unethical practices. People in this community face higher rates of suicide, violence, and discrimination.
The legalization of same-sex marriage; legal protections against discrimination; and shifts in cultural perspectives represent social change. It protects individuals and gives them equality within society. Most societies deal with racial inequalities. Based on their race, groups and individuals face discrimination and disenfranchisement.
Social movements like the civil rights movement in the United States focus on protesting current conditions and changing laws. Education and awareness can be as important as legislative measures. Social changes include closing the gender pay gap, establishing legal protections for workers, and following non-discriminatory practices.
Movements like The environment is best described as an ecosystem, one that exists as the interplay of multiple parts including 8. The growth of the human population, currently over seven billion and expected to rise to nine or ten billion by , perfectly correlates with the rising extinction rate of life on earth.
The four key elements that affect social change that are described in this chapter are the environment, technology, social institutions, and population. In , New Orleans was struck by a devastating hurricane. But it was not just the hurricane that was disastrous. It was the converging of all four of these elements, and the text below will connect the elements by putting the words in parentheses.
Before Hurricane Katrina environment hit, poorly coordinated evacuation efforts had left about 25 percent of the population, almost entirely African Americans who lacked private transportation, to suffer the consequences of the coming storm demographics. No public transportation was provided, drinking water and communications were delayed, and FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency institutions , was headed by an appointee with no real experience in emergency management.
Those who were eventually evacuated did not know where they were being sent or how to contact family members. African Americans were sent the farthest from their homes. When the displaced began to return, public housing had not been reestablished, yet the Superdome stadium, which had served as a temporary disaster shelter, had been rebuilt. Homeowners received financial support, but renters did not. And with that clean sheet we have some very big opportunities. Public housing was seriously reduced and the poor were forced out altogether or into the suburbs far from medical and other facilities The Advocate Finally, by relocating African Americans and changing the ratio of African Americans to whites, New Orleans changed its entire demographic makeup.
Modernization describes the processes that increase the amount of specialization and differentiation of structure in societies resulting in the move from an undeveloped society to developed, technologically driven society Irwin By this definition, the level of modernity within a society is judged by the sophistication of its technology, particularly as it relates to infrastructure, industry, and the like.
However, it is important to note the inherent ethnocentric bias of such assessment. Why do we assume that those living in semi-peripheral and peripheral nations would find it so wonderful to become more like the core nations?
Is modernization always positive? One contradiction of all kinds of technology is that they often promise time-saving benefits, but somehow fail to deliver. How many times have you ground your teeth in frustration at an Internet site that refused to load or at a dropped call on your cell phone? Despite time-saving devices such as dishwashers, washing machines, and, now, remote control vacuum cleaners, the average amount of time spent on housework is the same today as it was fifty years ago.
While once businesses had to travel at the speed of the U. Further, the Internet bought us information, but at a cost. The morass of information means that there is as much poor information available as trustworthy sources.
There is a delicate line to walk when core nations seek to bring the assumed benefits of modernization to more traditional cultures. For one, there are obvious procapitalist biases that go into such attempts, and it is short-sighted for western governments and social scientists to assume all other countries aspire to follow in their footsteps.
Additionally, there can be a kind of neo-liberal defense of rural cultures, ignoring the often crushing poverty and diseases that exist in peripheral nations and focusing only on a nostalgic mythology of the happy peasant.
It takes a very careful hand to understand both the need for cultural identity and preservation as well as the hopes for future growth. There are numerous and varied causes of social change.
Four common causes, as recognized by social scientists, are technology, social institutions, population, and the environment. All four of these areas can impact when and how society changes. And they are all interrelated: a change in one area can lead to changes throughout. Modernization is a typical result of social change. Modernization refers to the process of increased differentiation and specialization within a society, particularly around its industry and infrastructure.
While this assumes that more modern societies are better, there has been significant pushback on this western-centric view that all peripheral and semi-peripheral countries should aspire to be like North America and Western Europe. ABC News. CBS News. Center for Biological Diversity. Freidman, Thomas. Irwin, Patrick.
Klein, Naomi. New York: Picador. Megan Meier Foundation. Miller, Laura. Mullins, Dexter. Indicators of School Crime and Safety: National Center for Education Statistics, U.
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