Process of Social Change
Concept of Social Change
Social change is a concept in sociology which talks about a change in the established patterns
of social relations, or change in social values or change in structures and subsystems
operating in the society. The term social change is used to indicate the changes that take place
in human interactions and interrelations. Society is a web of social relationships and hence
social change means change in the system of social relationships. These are understood in
terms of social processes and social interactions and social organization. Auguste Comte the
father of Sociology has posed two problems- the question of social statics and the question of
social dynamics, what is and how it changes. The sociologists not only outline the structure
of the society but also seek to know its causes also. According to Morris Ginsberg social
change is a change in the social structure. Generally, social change can either be total or
partial. Change is the basic nature of society and change is universal. Social change occupies
a dominant place in the consciousness of humanity. Man and society have evolved through
the times immemorial. In this course, both men and their social institutions have undergone
changes that generate contradictory feelings of hope as well as anxiety. Even a casual student
of history must admit that social change occupies an important place in the human chronicle.
Whether this can be proved or not in the case of extinct societies is a matter for
anthropological research, but what is evident to the current observer is the reality of change in
all living societies. The subject of social change in modern India is vast and complex, and an
understanding of it will require the collaboration of a number of scholars in such diverse
fields as economics, history, law, politics, religion, demography and sociology. It will have to
take into account also of regional, linguistic and other differences.
Definition of Social Change
Social change may be defined as the process which is discernible in the alteration of the
structure and functioning of a particular social system. It is a term used to describe variation
in, modifications of, any aspect of social processes, social patterns, and social interaction
within a social organisation. Social changes and variations from the accepted modes of life,
whether due to geographical conditions, in cultural equipment, composition of the population
or ideologies and whether brought about by diffusions or inventions within the group. By
social change is meant only such alterations as occur in social organisations, that is, structure
and functions of society. Usually social change refers to a significant change in social
behaviour or a change in social system rather than minor changes within a small group.
Social change means such alterations as they occur in social organisation that is the structure
of society. Any such ordered arrangement of social phenomena gives a structure to society.
When alterations take place in the form of relationships and the pattern of social action within
such structure, it is known as social change4. The nature and pace of social change are not
uniform in each age or period in the same society. There is no inherent law in social change
according to which it assumes definite forms. It is difficult to make any prediction about the
exact forms of social change.
Thus, social change refers to a change in social structure. However, change in per capita
income, if not accompanied by changes in social relationships, is not a part of social change.
Sociologists have developed several concepts to study social change in India: development,
modernization, Westenization, universalization, social development, great and little traditions
are some of them. For a long time sociologists and anthropologists in India used the concepts
of parochialization and universalization, and great and little traditions which were developed
by McKim Marriot and Robert Redfield in studies of Indian and Mexican villages. Among
such concepts Sanskritization and Westernization hold special significance.
Ironically, despite our profession of socialistic pattern of society, our policies in social and
economic fields have been most detrimental to the prosperity of the weaker sections of
society, such as the Dalits, the women, the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and the
minorities. It is reflected also in the failure of our education policy. The mass illiteracy in the
forty per cent of the population still persists. It is higher still in the case of women. There is a
vicious circular relationship between poverty, susceptibility to fall a victim to exploitation,
proneness to health morbidity, high fertility rate and illiteracy. Education is a single most
effective factor which breaks this process of vicious cumulative causation. We find that
wherever educational achievements, whether within a region or a social group are higher, the
indicators of economic growth as also of the quality of life are higher. Our failure in the field
of removal of illiteracy, and universalization of education is indeed at the root of the most
facets of our “crisis of failures”.