 Dear learners, welcome to this video lecture on social change, which is the unit 6 of the paper, sociology and introduction, which is meant for the MA for semester learners. Now, after going through this unit, you will be able to understand the meaning of social change, understand the types of social change and know the factors responsible for bringing about various social change. Now, what is the meaning of social change? Social change is a term used to describe variations, modification or any alteration in any aspect of a society. Now, when we discuss about social change, there are three interrelated concepts and they are process, evolution and progress. Process refers to a step-by-step change in which one state or stage merges into another or is connected to one another. A process may be forward or backward, it may be an integration or a disintegration. It does not signify whether it is a good or bad change. Then we have evolution. The term evolution is derived from the Latin word evolver which means to unfold gradually. It implies a continuous change from within in a particular structure. It indicates change from simplicity to complexity. And then we have progress. Progress implies change towards a predetermined goal, whether the achievement of the goal is good or bad depends upon the person who is judging it. Progress is a relative notion as it involves comparison of the present with the past state of affairs. According to Mekaivar, evolution and progress needs to be differentiated and evolved society does not necessarily mean it may be progressive. Then we have social movement. Social change is also brought about by social movement. The social movement refers to a variety of collective attempts to bring about social change. It involves a collective action by a group of people who are directed towards bringing change in some or all aspects of a particular society. But such an effort has to sustain for a certain period of time. For example, the struggle to attain independence from the British rule is an example of a social movement because as a result of this struggle a lot of changes had undergone in all aspects of the Indian society. Now let us try to discuss the nature of social change. First of all, social change is a universal process because it is evident in every aspect of society, beach, population, technology, ideologies, values, all undergoes change but the speed of the social change is not uniform which brings us to the second nature of social change. The rate at which social change takes place varies from one society to another. Then social change is a change of a particular community. The change that takes place in the life of an individual does not constitute social change. To be a social change, the changes needs to be felt by a large number of people. Then social change is always inevitable. Then the next nature is that the definite prediction of social change is not always possible. There is no law which can determine the other nature in which the change ought to take place. Hence it becomes very difficult to make predictions regarding how the change will occur. Then social change results from an interaction of a number of factors because different aspects of society are interdependent and therefore it reflects a chain reaction sequence. Then finally social change implies modification or replacement. It refers to modification of the physical goods or social relationship. For example, the old authoritarian family has become small, equalitarian family, then the one-room school has become into a centralized school, etc. Now there are different theories in sociology that explain the phenomena of social change. These theories can be broadly divided into those that explain the direction of social change and then there are those theories that explain the sources or cause of social change. Now in context of the direction of social change, mainly two types of theories can be identified. First is the linear theory of social change and then is the cyclical theory. Now let us discuss the linear theory of social change. So under the linear theory of social change, evolutionary theory of social change can be included. It indicates the direction of social change from a simple to complex state. Now there are some scholars who saw or see society as evolving through various stages. For example, August Scott is one of such scholars who believed in the evolutionary theory of social change. He postulated three stages of social change, that is the theological stage, the metaphysical stage and the positive stage. In the first stage, men believed that supernatural powers control and design the world. Then from this stage, society advanced and gradually from belief in fetishist and deities it developed to the stage of monotheism. And then this stage gave way to the metaphysical stage during which men tries to explain the phenomenon by resorting to abstractions. And in the final stage, that is in the positive stage, men considers the search for causes of various events on the basis of explanatory or scientific facts. That can be empirically observed. Therefore according to August Scott, progress will be assured if men adopts a positive attitude in understanding the natural and the social phenomena. Then we have Herbert Spencer who promoted the evolutionary thought of social change. He maintained that human society has been gradually progressing towards a better stage. In its primitive state, according to him, that is the state of militarism, society was characterized by warring groups and by a merciless struggle for existence. Then from militarism, society moved towards a state of industrialism. And in this state of industrialism, it is marked by greater differentiation and integration of different paths. Then another theory that explains social change is the cyclical theory of social change. It believes that society has a predetermined life cycle which includes the birth, growth, maturity and then decline. Now according to Splinger, he developed a version of cyclical theory of social change and according to him, the history of various civilizations including the Egyptian, Greek and the Romans, all civilizations go through this phase of birth, maturity and death. Then there is Wilfredo Pareto who propounded that, society is passed through the periods of political vigor, decline, which repeat themselves in a cyclical fashion. Let us try to understand this more. So according to him, society consists of two types of people, one who like to follow the traditional ways whom Pareto calls as the reenters and then there are those who likes to take chances for attaining their ends whom he calls as the speculators. Now political change is initiated by a strong aristocracy that is the speculators who later lose the energy and become incapable of vigorous role. Then the ruling class eventually resort to the tricks or the clever manipulations characterized by the reentier mentality and then the society declines but at the same time the speculators arise from those among the subjugated class to become a new ruling class and they overthrow the old group and this cycle continues. Now let us try to understand some of the sources or factors of social change. A various physical, biological, technological and cultural factors leads to social change. Now physical factors of social change refers to geographical changes as well as change in the climatic conditions like earthquake, flood or any change in the weather conditions which changes the social life of the people. Then we have biological factors. For example, changes that is witnessed in a society as a result of fluctuations in the composition of population due to high or low birth rate etc. Then there are technological factors like adoption of new technology which leads to lifestyle changes in a particular society. For example, when human society introduced the plow, a transformation from rendering to settled societies took place. Then cultural factors like changes in values, attitude, belief system also leads to social change. Furthermore, Glyn had mentioned four other factors of social change like invention, diffusion, war, natural disasters etc. Now invention can be divided into material, inventions like automobile, gunpowder, atomic reactions and non-material inventions like banking, social security etc. Then we have diffusion. Differs to a process of spreading the cultural elements from one culture to another. Then we have wars. Wars through the invention of arms and spreading revolutionary ideas leads to many social change. Then we have natural disasters like flood, drought which we have in the earlier section discussed as the physical factors of social change. Also are important factors in bringing social change. Then let us discuss some of the processes of social change. First of all, development. In context of social phenomena, development means upward movement of an entire society. It includes growth of not only economic factors but improvement of overall lifestyle of a particular society like consumption by various groups of people, access to educational and health facilities, equal distribution of or access to power in society are all taken as indicators of development in a particular society. Then we have globalization. Globalization is a process through which economic, political and the cultural aspects of different societies of the world were integrated. And this integration in the recent times has resulted in far-reaching changes in societies with the developed countries in advantageous position in comparison to the developing or the underdeveloped nations. Then we have another process of social change that is modernization. Modernization is a process whereby the individuals in a particular society adhere to scientific ways of thinking and practicing in their everyday life. Now it is different from the concept of westernization. Westernization refers to changes undergone by a particular society due to exposure to a western society. For example, Indian society had undergone a lot of changes due to exposure to the British culture during the colonial period. However, we cannot call it modernization, we can call it westernization. Now other processes of social change can be discovery, which means finding something which already existed. It becomes a factor of social change only when it is put to use. For example, the discovery of iron. Then invention. Invention is often defined as a new use of the old elements of a particular culture. This may be classified as material inventions such as the bow, arrow, telephone, airplane and inventions such as alphabets, constitutional government, etc. And in all these cases, the old elements are used, combined and improved for a new application. Then we have diffusion. Western social changes in all known societies have developed through diffusion. Diffusion is a spread of cultural traits from one group to another. Diffusion operates from both within the society and between societies. Diffusion takes place whenever societies come into contact with one another. There are some problems while studying social change. Now in studying social change, one encounters the problem to specify the unit of social change, whether it is the individual or it is affecting the whole society. Then the second problem is the need to specify the nature of the elements. Thirdly, there is no clarity as to whether it constitutes change or it is the continuity of an old character. Fourthly, the effort to measure the rate and the direction of change is very difficult. So at present context, it is difficult to predict whether a particular change that is occurring will be progressive or not. But still, understanding social change is necessary to understand a society. And today we have tried to understand some of the aspects of social change. I am sure after going through this unit you will be able to identify the processes and aspects of social change in your society. Thank you.