Social Change (Ch. 13)

Question 1

how do you create change?

Answer 1

• personal behaviour
• active in politics (change from within)
• collective action (civil society groups, social movements)
• populist movements (of “the people” against the elite)
• grassroots organizations (ie. Act Up) can change the way society views social issues (ie. HIV/AIDS)

Question 2

why does societal change happen?

Answer 2

• dialectics:
  
  • material and social world inter-related (history)
  • unity of opposites (every process made by opposing forces)
  • change is quantitative and then qualitative (gradual change leads to turning points)
  • change is constant (but moves in spirals, not circles)

Question 3

reform

Answer 3

changes within a given socioeconomic formation

Question 4

revolution

Answer 4

radical transformation of social order

Question 5

dialectic of control and change

Answer 5

• change is continuous, but at variable rates, and is driven by conflict, not idealism
• change is only likely to occur in right context (level of knowledge, motivating conditions [ie. economic collapse, homelessness, HIV, etc.])

Question 6

what makes social change happen?

Answer 6

• collective, not individual action

- means to change via social power (economic, political, ideological, and coercive power)

Question 7

elements of social change

Answer 7

• change linked to objective and subjective elements
• objective: material conditions of class structure (ie. poverty, high tuition, etc.)
• subjective: human actions/how we perceive and respond to conditions (ie. movements against global capitalism -> WTO protests, G20 summit, etc.)