Week 4

Question 1

According to Vago four categories of the theory of social change:

Answer 1

• evolutionary theories,
• conflict theories,
• social psychological theories
• and structural-functional theories of change

Question 2

What it is society?

Answer 2

is a complex network of relationships in which all members participate to varying degrees.

Question 3

What it is social change?

Answer 3

situations reflect such factors as the introduction of new techniques, new innovations, ideas, and social values. Thus social change entails modifications in the way people work, raise a family, educate their children, discipline them and seek ultimate meaning in life. Social change is usually viewed as involving some kind of change in the size of society, its composition in the balance of its parts or in the character of its organizations.

Question 4

What is the concept of social change according to Hans Gerth and Wright Mills theory?

Answer 4

social change is whatever may happen over the course of time with respect to social roles institutions and orders or regarding the use structure, emergence, growth, and decline.

Gerth and Mills believed this promised: “a view of man as an actor in historic crises, and of man as a whole entity.” It was a general view of institutions and social structures and how they are related to persons.

Question 5

Technology in social changes:

Answer 5

As discussed earlier, technological change is naturally disruptive. While it challenges traditional boundaries and institutions, it can also be used to build a better world as technologies shape social, economic, and political life. New technologies are leading to important changes in every aspect of human activity.

Question 6

What is the concept of social change according to Alan and Davies theory?

Answer 6

point out that social change not only involves a change in the structure of society but also in its functioning. In this case, the meaning of social change is limited to such alternation as a cure in social organization. That is the structure and functions of society.

Question 7

What is the concept of social change according to Mikeaver and Peggy?

Answer 7

link the concept of social change with the concept of social relations. In this case, social change concerns changes in the ways in which human beings relate to each other. We can also come across definitions that try to combine two or more elements mentioned before. Hence, in the present case, social change will be defined as a change in the structure and functioning of social relationships in a society.

Question 8

What is the Vagos interpretation of social change?

Answer 8

Social change here will be understood as a process of planned or unplanned qualitative or quantitative alternation in social phenomena. From this perspective, the process of social change is defined as a continuum that can be analyzed by several interrelated variables,

i. e:
- the identity of change,
- the level of change,
- the duration of change, —– the magnitude of change – and the rate of change.

Question 9

What it is the identity of change?

Answer 9

By identity of change Vago means a specific social phenomenon undergoing the transformation. This can be a specific practice, behavior, attitude, pattern of interaction, authority structure etc.

Question 10

What it is the level of change?

Answer 10

Level of change refers to the layer of a social system at which change is taking place i.e.

• whether it is taking place e.i:
• at the individual level
• at the group level,
• at the level of an organization
• at the level of an institution
• or at the level of society,

Question 11

What it is the duration of change?

Answer 11

The duration of change refers to how long a particular form of change lasts after it has been accepted or to put it slightly differently how long this change will be sustained after it is accepted at any level of the social system without major modification or replacement.

Question 12

What it is magnitude of change?

Answer 12

the magnitude of change refers to the extent to which a social phenomena that phenomenon is altered. It can be based on a three-part scheme of incremental or marginal, comprehensive and revolutionary change.

Question 13

What it is the rate of change

Answer 13

According to Vega the rate of change may be based on an arbitrary scale such as fast or slow, continues or spasmodic orderly or erratic

Question 14

What it is the individual level ?

Answer 14

At the individual level we can talk about changes in attitudes, beliefs, aspirations and motivations.

Question 15

What it is the group level?

Answer 15

At the group level we might consider changes in the types of interaction, patterns, in communication methods of conflict resolutions, cohesion and unity competition and acceptance and rejection patterns.

Question 16

What it is the level of organization?

Answer 16

At the level of organization, the scope of change would include alternations in the structure and functions of organizations. Changes in the hierarchy, communication, role relationships, productivity, recruitment and socialization patterns.

Question 17

What it is the level of institutional level?

Answer 17

At the institutional level change may include alteration in marriage and family patterns, in education and religious practices.

Question 18

What it is the level of social (society) change?

Answer 18

At the level of social change may involve some kind of modification in social stratification or in economic or political systems.

Question 19

What was the first social revolution?

Answer 19

the first social revolution was triggered by the domestication of plants and animals. now they could grow their own food. They no longer had to leave an area when the food supply was exhausted. They could stay in one place until the soil was depleted.

Question 20

What it is nomadic form?

Answer 20

Members of such societies were closely interdependent and the division of labor between them was gender-based. It means men hunted and women gathered.

Question 21

What it is horticultural society?

Answer 21

The members of a pastoral society had to move only when the grazing land ceases to be usable. he technological improvements helped societies to produce more food than they needed. For the first time in human history, not everyone was engaged in the gathering or production of food. As a result job specialization emerged. While some people farmed or raised animals, others produce crafts, became involved in the trade or provided goods such as farming tools or clothing.

Question 22

What it is the second social revolution?

Answer 22

the discovery of the plow paved the way for the emergence of agricultural societies. This was so because a plow helps people to cultivate larger areas and to harvest bigger fields over a longer period of time. People did not need to move from one place to another. As a result, the job specialization increased and people began to develop new skills. Particularly those required to manage complex and settled organizations. Not surprisingly both the wheel and writing were invented around the same time.

Question 23

What is the third social transformation?

Answer 23

It was the steam engine that ushered in the industrial revolution and the shift from an agricultural to industrial society. The industrial society uses advanced sources of energy to run large machinery. Thanks to new inventions in transportation, people and goods could travel much longer distances. Rural areas lost population because more and more people were engaged in factory work and have had to move to cities. Fewer people were needed in agriculture and societies became urbanized. Which means that the majority of the population lived within commuting distance of a major city.

Question 24

What it is court social revolution?

Answer 24

the fourth social revolution stimulated by the invention of the microchip and the development of IT technology.

Question 25

Edmont Moutekfai

Answer 25

claim that by the time the social revolution is fully blown little of our way of life will remain untouched. He argues that this is likely to be so because this is how it was with the first three revolutions. He gives the following examples: the change from an agricultural to industrial society meant not only that people moved from villages to cities but also impersonal short-term association replaced those intimate lifelong relationships.

Question 26

Ferdinand Tönnies

Answer 26

The scale of change that we shall witness as more new IT neuro and nanotechnologies are implemented would resemble that which exist between to use Ferdinand Tönnies terminology Gemeinschaft societies and Gesellschaft societies.

Question 27

What it is Traditional or Gemeinschaft societies?

Answer 27

are small and rural, slow changing with little stress on formal education, most illnesses are treated at home, people live in extended families look to the past for guidelines to the present. They usually show a great deal of respect for their elders. Such societies are characterized by Redig social stratification and considerable inequality between the sexes. Life and morals tend to be seen in absolute terms and few differences are tolerated.

Question 28

What it is Gesellschaft society?

Answer 28

is large more urbanized and fast changing. People have little in common with one another and their relationships are short-term and based on self-interest with little concern for the well-being of others. They stress the need for formal education are future-oriented and are guided less by religious concerns and needs.

Question 29

Social theories such as William Ogburn

Answer 29

rgued that technology is one of the major force of social change. for example, traced the direct connection between such developments as the invention of the automobile cell starter and the emancipation of woman. He claims that when it became easy for them to drive cars they entered the business world and thus changed the role and the nature of their family relationships. If we accept the assumption that human beings are rational then we can argue that human decisions rather than blind forces provide essential dynamics of social change. In such case we might highlight the role played by knowledge, beliefs, and attitudes in bringing about social change

Question 30

Admore Moutekfe

Answer 30

Admore Moutekfest analysis can be very instructive in this respect. Agreeing with bolding, he sees learning as the primary source of the great transition from an agricultural to an industrial urban and now post-industrial civilization. In his opinion the claim that change is the change in the desired direction is progress has given momentum to Western societies not unlike the idea that man is in charge of his own destiny which accompanied the reformation and the secularization of culture. Moutekfe also sits theories like marathon who consider a gap between society’s ideas or basic values and real patterns as the present condition for social change. He claims that when there is a sizable discrepancy between what is and what people think ought to be, tension appears. At when it becomes especially destructive members of a society feel a sense of moral crisis, identified the strain as a social problem and seek to bring the real patter into correspondence with the ideal. This may be done through dissent, resistance, protest, legislation, planning, reform or revolution.

Question 31

How actually technology changes societies?

Answer 31

technology can be equated with the tools and methods of applying them. Technology also includes the knowledge necessary to make and use these tools. However, the phrase new technology often refers to the emerging technologies of an era. Undeniably minor technologies appear occasionally but most of the time they are nothing but insist insignificant modification of already existing technologies. Once in a while however the technology appears that has a major impact on human life. It is to such phenomena in particular that the term new technology refers. Hence, technologies like the printing press or the steam engine were once new technologies for the people who lived in times when they were invented. They were new in the same sense as computer, satellite and electronic media are new for us today.

Question 32

Motekfe:

Answer 32

Mouteck argues that apart from its particular aspects technology always refers to artificial means of extending human abilities. All human groups make and use technology but the chief characteristic of post-industrial societies technology that greatly extends our abilities to analyze information to communicate and to travel.

Question 33

How technology changes people’s way of life?

Answer 33

William Ogburn’s theory of the technological and social change. technology is the fundamental driver of social change. technology is the fundamental driver of social change. In particular the innate curiosity of human beings, the desire for new experiences, the willingness to explore new territories or a desire to overcome the limits of external reality.

Question 34

In Ogburns famous paper “social change” he wrote:

Answer 34

the key to social change may be sought in the invention, namely any new element in culture to understand social change, it is necessary to know how inventions are made and how they are diffused. He argues that social change comes through three prong processes namely through invention, discovery, and diffusion.

Question 35

What it is invention by Ogburn?

Answer 35

as an event where existing elements and materials are combined to form new ones.

Locke and Hume believed that complex ideas emerge from the creative combination of simple ones. Ogburn saw invention as the combination of previous art and ideas, the combination of known elements into a new element. the combination is more than the mere act of material or the physical combination. Ogburn argues that combination refers to a social and revolutionary process with a certain specificity.

Question 36

Invention by Ogburn

Answer 36

Firstly the invention depends on many individuals, not on one genius.

Secondly, the invention as a combination is the cumulative effects of many small inventions.

Thirdly the invention is more and more systematic or organized in time.

Summing up we can say that for Ogburn invention often requires many years of effort, usually by several inventors and the contribution of many inventions.

Question 37

how does the invention occur?

Answer 37

According to Ogburn three factors come into play in the notion of invention. First individuals, mental ability. Second the culture base attendance and achievements and third social attitude toward the new.

Question 38

1

Answer 38

to Ogburn inventions are not only material artifacts. There are also social inventions. A social invention is an invention that is not mechanical and that is not a discovery in natural science. For example, bureaucracy and capitalism are social inventions. From this point of view it is easy to accept the claim that social inventions can also have far-reaching consequences for society.

Question 39

Ogburn’s three process of the social change?

Answer 39

• invention
• discovery
• diffusion

Question 40

Invention by Ogburn

Answer 40

inventions are not only material artifacts. There are also social inventions. A social invention is an invention that is not mechanical and that is not a discovery in natural science. For example, bureaucracy and capitalism are social inventions. From this point of view it is easy to accept the claim that social inventions can also have far-reaching consequences for society.

Question 41

Discovery by Ogburn

Answer 41

Discovery is a new way of seeing reality. Discovery implies that reality is already present. What changes is only that people are now seeing it for the first time. It is interesting that Ogburn diminishes the role of individual geniuses. He explicitly claims that the role of technology in history is clouded by the devotion to heroes. We like our history to be in terms of exploits of great man. Therefore to him, the discovery of a calculus was not dependent upon Newton. If Newton had died it would have been discovered by Leglinz.

Another good example is Christopher Columbus discovery of North America. No one would deny that this discovery had enormous consequences for the course of history, however, this example illustrates yet another principle.

A discovery brings extensive change only when it comes at the right time. Please note that Vikings had discovered America before Columbus and yet the Viking settlements disappeared into history and North culture was untouched by the discovery.

Question 42

Diffusion by by Ogburn

Answer 42

diffusion. The spread of inventions from the area of origin to other areas held by communications and transportation. In line with the findings of anthropology Ogburn suggested that most inventions are acquired by diffusion or by importing them from elsewhere. Diffusion occurs through the contact whether face to face or not, between the members of different societies and groups. Ogburn viewed the diffusion as the major process of social change and argues it can have far-reaching effects on the human relationships. In fact, he suggested that most inventions are acquainted by diffusion or by importing them from elsewhere. Interestingly enough he claimed that diffusion also includes the spread of ideas. The idea of citizenship, for example, change the political structure for no longer was the monarch an unquestioned source of authority. Today the concept of gender equality is circling the globe. The basic idea that it is wrong to withhold rights on the basis of a person’s sex. This idea though now taken for granted in the few parts of the world is revolutionary. Like citizenship it is designed to transform basic human relationships and entire societies.

Question 43

What it is the concept of cultural lag?

Answer 43

By means of cultural lag he wished to explain how and why some elements of a culture adapt to an invention or discovery more rapidly than others. For Ogburn lags are an indication of imperfect diffusion or a lack of diffusion. The technology he suggested usually changes first followed by culture. In other words, we play catch up with changing technology adapting our customs and ways of life to meet its needs.

Question 44

What it is maladjustment?

Answer 44

Ogburn identified two kinds of maladjustments.

The first involves the adjustments of human beings to culture.

The second concerns maladjustment between different parts of culture.

Question 45

What is lecture 4 about?

Answer 45

New technologies and social change.
The concept of social change.
Sociologists view social change.
Genesis and development of technological underpinnings of social change.
Perspectives on social change.
Technology and society. Technology as vehicles of social change.
Technology as vehicles for economic development.
The role of technology in the information society