This document summarizes social and cultural change. It defines social change as significant alterations in behavior, values, and norms over time. Examples of major social changes provided include the Industrial Revolution, abolition of slavery, and feminist movement. Theories of social change discussed include evolutionary, conflict, and functionalist theories. Key aspects of social change covered are characteristics, process, factors, resistance/acceptance, and consequences. Suggestions are made for bringing positive social change, such as eradicating problems like poverty, discrimination, illiteracy, and child labor.

1. “SOCIALAND CULTURAL CHANGE IN SOCIETY”
Syed Burhan Rafay Bukhari
Visiting Lecturer
Dept. Gender Studies
Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan
burhanrafay@gmail.com

2. CONTENTS
 Introduction of Social and Cultural Change
 Characteristics of Social Change
 Theories f Social Change
 Process of Social Change
 Factors of Change
 Resistance and Acceptance of Social Change
 Consequences of Change

3. INTRODUCTION OF SOCIAL
&CULTURAL CHANGE
“Social change refers to any significant alteration over time
in behavior patterns , cultural values and norms. By
“significant” alteration, sociologists mean changes
yielding profound social consequences.”
Examples of significant social changes having long‐term effects include
 The Industrial Revolution (1760-1840)
 The Abolition of Slavery 15th Century
 The Feminist Movement 19th Century

4. OTHER CONCEPTS
Auguste Comte saw human societies as progressing into using scientific methods.
Emile Durkheim one of the founders of functionalism, saw society moving from
simple to complex social structure.
Heber Spencer compared society to a living organism with interrelated parts
moving toward a common end .
In short COMTE, DURKHEIM & SPENCER proposed unilinear evolutionary
theories.

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF
SOCIAL CHANGE
1. SOCIAL CHANGE IS SOCIAL
 Social change obviously means a change in the system of social relationships.
 Only that change can be called social change whose influence can be felt in
a community form.
 The changes that have significance for all or considerable segment of population
can be considered as social change

6. 2. SOCIAL CHANGE IS UNIVERSAL
 Change is the universal law of nature.
 The social structure, social organization and social institutions are all
dynamic.
 Social change occur in all societies no society remains static for
long time.
 Adjustments take place in every society and conflicts break down
adjustments.
3. SOCIAL CHANGE OCCURS AS AN ESSENTIAL LAW
 Social change is an unavoidable law of nature.
 Our needs keep on changing to satisfy our desire for change and to satisfy
these needs, social change becomes a necessity.

7. 4. SOCIAL CHANGE IS BOUND BYTIME FACTORS
 Social change is temporal.
 It happens through time, because society exists only as a time-sequences.
i.e. The caste system which was a pillar of stability in traditional Pakistani society, is
now undergoing considerable changes in the modern Pakistan.
5. DEFINATE PRIDICTION OF SOCIAL CHANGE IS IMPOSSIBLE
 It is very much difficult to make out any prediction on the exact forms of social
change.
i.e. A thousand years ago in Asia, Europe and Latin America the face of society was
vastly different from that what exists today. But what the society will be in thousand
years from now, no one can tell.

8. THEORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGE
1. EVOLUTIONARYTHEORY
According to evolutionary theory, society moves in specific directions.
Therefore, early social evolutionists saw society as progressing to higher and
higher levels, as a result, they concluded that their own cultural attitudes and
behaviors were more advanced than those of earlier societies.
2. CONFLICT THEORY
 Grounded in the idea of Karl Marx claims that the engine for Social change
is conflict between unequal social classes.
 Recent Conflict theorists says that Conflict between various groups, not
necessarily class-based also fuels social change.
i.e. National Organizations for Women.

9. 3. FUNCTIONALIST THEORY
 Functionalists see society as a homeostatic system consisting of inter-related parts.
 The normal state of society is one of equilibrium. Because society is an open
system, it is usually in a dynamic state, or a state of near equilibrium.
 Society changes as it seeks to integrate conditions which act upon it.
 The changes, however, are piecemeal and very gradual. The purpose of these
changes is to bring society to a place of equilibrium.

10. PROCESS OF SOCIAL CHANGE
The process of social change starts when an innovation spread in a society. Social
change accepted easily in some societies and some societies show rigidness in
acceptance.
Steps of Social Change:
1. DISCOVERY
2. INVENTION
3. DIFFUSION

11. 1. DISCOVERY
 Discovery is finding something that has never been found before, or finding
something new in something that already exists Social Change
 A discovery is a share human perception of an aspect of reality which
already exists.
 A discovery is addition to the world’s store of verified knowledge
 A discovery becomes factor in social change only when it is put in use
 When new knowledge is used to develop new technology, vast changes
generally follow.

12. 2. INVENTION
 An invention is often described as new combination or a new use
of existing knowledge
 Each invention may be new in form of function and meaning
and principle.
 Invention is not strictly an individual matter, It is a social process involving an
endless series of modifications, improvements and combinations.
3. DIFFUSION
 It is a spread of culture traits from group to group.
 Diffusion takes place whenever societies come into contact and always a two
way contact.
 Diffusion is a selective process.

13. FACTORS OF CHANGE
1. PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT
2. POPULATION CHANGES
3. ISOLATION AND CONTACT
4. SOCIAL STRUCTURE
5. ATTITUDES AND VALUES
6. PERCEIVED NEEDS
7. CULTURAL BASE

14. 1. PHYSICALENVIRONMENT
 Major changes in the physical environment are quite rare but very
compelling when they happen.
 Human misuse can bring very rapid changes in physical environment which
in return, changes the social and cultural life of people.
 Environmental destruction has been at least a contributing factor in the fall
of most great civilizations.
2. POPULATION CHANGES
 A population change is it self a social change, but also becomes a casual
factor in further social change.
 A stable population may able to resist most change, but rapidly growing
population must migrate, improve it’s productivity, or starve.

15. 3. ISOLATION & CONTACT
 Since most new traits come through diffusion, those societies in closest contact
with other societies are likely to change most rapidly.
 Areas of greatest international contact are center of change. Conversely,
isolated areas are centers of stability, conservatism, and resistance to change.
4. SOCIALSTRUCTURE
 A tightly structure society, wherein every person’s role, duties, privileges, and
obligations are precisely and rigidly defined, is less given to change than a
more loosely structured society, that is more open to individual rearrangement.
 When a culture is very highly integrated, so that each element is rightly
interwoven with all the other in a mutually interdependent system, change is
difficult and costly. But when the culture is less highly integrated, change is
easier and more frequent.

16. 5. ATTITUDES AND VALUES
 Societies obviously differ greatly in their general attitude and value toward change.
 Some societies intensely and unconsciously ethnocentric, they assume
that their customs and techniques are correct and everlasting.
 Rapidly changing societies are aware of social change. Their attitude is both cause
and effect of the changes already taking place.
6. PERCEIVED NEEDS
 A society’s rate and direction of change are greatly affected by the needs its
member perceive.
 Conflict theorists see that a majority of our “needs” are perceived as a result of
skillful promotion by those who profit from creating and then meeting them.
 Both functionalist and conflict theorists agree that some “needs” are created and
some are objective necessities.

17. 7. CULTURALBASE
 The cultural base mean the accumulation of knowledge and technique
available to the inventor. As the cultural base grows, an increasing number
of invention and discoveries come possible.
The importance of the cultural base is revealed by:
 Cross-fertilization Principle:
CFP used in one field of discoveries and inventions from entire different field.
 Exponential Principle:
The idea that as a cultural base grows, its possible uses tend to grow in
geometric ratio.

18. RESISTANCE AND ACCEPTANCE
OF SOCIAL CHANGE
1. SPECIFIC ATTITUDES & VALUES
 If a change has a purely utilitarian value, change may be accepted readily.
 If some feature of some traditional culture is valued intrinsically, change is
less readily accepted.
2. DEMONSTRABILITY OF INVENTION
 An innovation is most quickly accepted when its usefulness can be easily
demonstrated.
 We hesitate to adopt an invention until we have been shown how it works, yet
we can determine the practical value only by adopting them. This dilemma
slows their acceptance.

19. 3. COMPATABILITY WITH EXISTING CULTURE
The innovation may be incompatible with the existing culture in at 3 ways:
 The innovation may conflict with existing cultural pattern.
 The innovations may call for new patterns not presentin the culture.
 Some innovations are substitutive, not additive, and less readily accepted.
4. COST OF CHANGE
 Most social changes carry threat to some people with vested interests, who
then oppose these change.
 Social changes which are profitable to status quo, having vested interests,
will be promoted by them.
5. ROLE OF CHANGEAGENT
 The identity of the change originator greatly affect acceptance or rejection.
 Change agents must know the culture in which they work.
 Successful change agents often seek to make change appear innocuous by
identifying it with familiar cultural elements.

20. CONSEQUENCES OF CHANGE
1. GLOBALIZATION
 More income inequality in developed countries.
 Concentration of international power.
 Cheaper and more diverse goods and services.
 Higher income for employed in developing countries.
2. URBANIZATION
 Urban sprawl (loss of green space)
 Air quality declines
 Crime increases
 Transportation needs increases
 Emergency service needs increases

21. 3. POPULATION
 Less developed countries are increasingly dependent on other countries
for resources.
 Population decreases in more developed countries.
4. EFFECTS HEALTH
Infant mortality rate (IMR) among developing countries declined from 141
infant death per 1000 births in 1960 to 63 in 2000. However, infant
mortality rate was and still is very high for some countries.

22. SUGGESTIONS REQUIRE FOR
CHANGES IN SOCIETY
We can bring social change by eradicating suchproblems which is rooted in society:
 Poverty
 Gender discrimination
 Social tensions
 Corruption
 Illiteracy
 Urbanization
 Divorce
 Child abuse
 Population
 Child labor
 Drug abuse

23. Contributed By:
MS. USHNA TARIQ
Visiting Lecturer
Dept. Gender Studies
Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan