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Explaining Social Change

Chapter 18, Section 1. Explaining Social Change. What is it?. Remember, sociology stemmed from the Industrial Revolution in Europe in the 1800s. Social change = alterations in various aspects of society over time . Led to the formation of four major theories to explain the process. .

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Explaining Social Change

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  1. Chapter 18, Section 1 Explaining Social Change

  2. What is it? • Remember, sociology stemmed from the Industrial Revolution in Europe in the 1800s. • Social change= alterations in various aspects of society over time. • Led to the formation of four major theories to explain the process.

  3. Cyclical Theory • Views change from a historical perspective. • States that societies pass through stages of emergence, development, and then decline. Social change is a natural offshoot of that cycle. • Oswald Spengler and Pitirim Sorokin.

  4. Spengler and Sorokin • Spengler • 4 stages of societies: childhood, youth, adulthood and old age. • Western civilization reached ‘adulthood’ around 1700…. so now it is on the decline and will eventually disappear. • Sorokin • Societies fluctuate between two extremes– ideational culture (belief/truth in religion) and sensate culture (belief/truth in science). • The balance is known as idealistic culture.

  5. Evolutionary Theory • Views change as a process that moves in one direction, and grows in complexity. • As members in a society adapt, they push society to develop more extensively. • Difference between early evolutionary sociologists and modern ones.

  6. Early v. Modern • Early Evolutionary • Comte, Spencer • Justified social and political conditions; • Distinction between weaker and stronger countries. • Modern Evolutionary • Societies have a tendency to be more complex over time; • Progress does not mean the same in all societies.

  7. Equilibrium Theory • Change in one aspect of society yields changes in all aspects– societies maintain balance • Functionalist Talcott Parsons • As a society encounters new norms, it differentiates between old and new, and the new ones become institutionalized.

  8. Conflict Theory • Change results from conflicts between groups of opposing interests. • Karl Marx and Ralf Dahrendorf • Marx’s class conflict differences between classes lead to revolutions (an extreme form of social change).

  9. Dahrendorfand Social Conflict • Agreed with Marx in that conflict is central to all societies. • Social conflict is not just between classes, but race, gender, etc. as well. • Also believed that revolution does not yield all social change within modern, industrial societies– interest groups.

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