Social change

Social change (or Social development) is a general term which refers to:

• change in the nature, the social institutions, the social behaviour or the social relations of a society, community of people, or other social structures.
• any event or action that affects a group of individuals that have shared values or characteristics.
• acts of advocacy for the cause of changing society in a normative way (subjective).

The term is used in the study of history, economies, and politics, and includes topics such as the success or failure of different political systems, globalization, democratization, development and economic growth. The term can encompass concepts as broad as revolution and paradigm shift, to narrow changes such as a particular cause within small town government. The concept of social change imply measurement of some characteristics of this group of individuals. While the term is usually applied to changes that are beneficial to society, it may result in negative side-effects or consequences that undermine or eliminate existing ways of life that are considered positive.

Social change could be:

• slow, gradual, incremental, and evolutionary; in this it might be barely noticeable
• fast, radical, sudden and revolutionary; it might even take people by surprise.
• wide in scope, affecting almost all people in a society
• limited in scope, affecting only a small number of people.

Social change is a topic in sociology and social work , but also involves political science, economics, history, anthropology, and many other social sciences.

Among many forms of creating social change are theater for social change, direct action, protesting, advocacy, community organizing, community practice, revolution, and political activism.

Theories of social change

Some social change is almost always occurring, but many different theories have been mooted to explain significant social changes in history.

These theories include:

1. the idea of decline or degeneration, or, in religious terms, the fall from an original state of grace, connected with theology;
2. the idea of cyclical change, a pattern of subsequent and recurring phases of growth and decline, and the social cycles;
3. the idea of continuous social progress;
4. Marx's historical materialism;
5. Evolutionary theories (how one social form evolves into another), including social Darwinism;
6. Theories of sociobiology

A currently popular author on social change is Jared Diamond.

It is claimed that a primary agent of social agent is technological advancement, such that the wide adoption of a new technology leads to imbalance in the economic relationship between economic agents. This in turn leads to changes in the social balance of power, therefore leading to social change.^{[citation needed]}

Historical precedent shows that major social changes have taken place during "cusp" periods, defined by changing relations among human formations, nature, and technology.

Examples

Some recent trends in global change are that the world population has become more concentrated in the less developed world and in cities, there has been a tremendous growth in internet use, infant mortality rates have declined, illiteracy has declined, more people are living in freedom, GDP per capita has increased, and poverty has declined.

Western society changing values on trends such as the birth control pill, voting rights for non-land holders, and the ups and downs of acceptance of homosexuality are also examples of social change.

Measuring social change

These changes did not happen equally throughout the world, however. For example, in 1960, infant mortality rates were more than 4.5 times higher in developing countries than it was among industrialized countries. In 2000, infant mortality rates in developing countries was about 10 times higher than was IMR in industrialized countries. That is, infant mortality rates declined faster among the more developed countries. There were similar disparities in illiteracy and political freedom. That is, conditions did improve among less developed countries, but not as much as they did among more developed countries. In addition, some countries experienced worsening of conditions, for example, increases in infant mortality rates, increases in illiteracy and less freedom.

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