Interface between socio cultural change and education
Answers
Explanation:
SOCIAL CHANGE AND EDUCATION :
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. August 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.
The International Encyclopedia of the Social Science looks at social change as the change
in the social structure, or in the pattern of action and interaction in societies. Alterations
may occur in norms, values, cultural products and symbols in a society. Alteration may
occur in norms, values, cultural products and symbols in society. Other definitions of
change also point out that change implies, above all other things, alteration in the
structure and functions of a social system. Institutions, patterns of interaction, work, leisure activities, roles, norms, and other aspects of society can be altered over time as a
result of the process of social change. While defining the social change we can say that
social change is essentially a process of alteration with no reference to the quality of
change. Changes in society are related/linked to changes in culture, so that it would be
sometimes useful to talk about ‘socio-cultural change’.
Social change can vary in its scope and in speed. We can talk of small or large scale
changes. Change can take a cyclical pattern, e.g., when there is the recurrence of
centralization and decentralization in administrative organization. It can also be
revolutionary. Revolutionary change can be seen when there is an overthrow of
government in a particular nation. Change can also include short term changes (e.g., in
migration rates) as well as long term changes (in economic structures). We can include in
social change, both growth and decline in membership and size of social institutions.
Change may include continuous processes like specialization, bureaucratization, and also
include discontinuous process such as particular technical or social invention which
appears at some point of time.
Change also varies in scope, in that it may influence many aspects of a society and disrupt
the whole social system like the process of industrialization has affected many aspects of
society. Some changes occur rapidly but others take a long time. Many of the western
nations took many decades to become industrialized, but developing nations are trying to
do it more quickly. They do this by borrowing or adapting from those nations which have
already achieved it.
Today, most of the sociologists assume that change is a natural, inevitable, ever present
part of life in every society. When we are looking at social change, we are focusing not in
changes in the experiences of an individual, but on variations in social structures,
institutions and social relationship. To understand social change clearly, here are some
definitions of social change.
M. E. Jones, “Social change is a term used to describe variations in, or modifications of, any
aspect of social processes, social patterns, social interactions, or social organizations.”