Page 233 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes The unilinear sub-approach talks of change in stages and believes that every stage is better and higher.
The universal sub-approach does not believe in change in stages but it talks of change from simple to
complex. It also talks of increasing differentiation and integration. The cyclical sub-approach talks of
change in rhythmic way. The multilinear sub-approach concentrates on the process of adaptation to
environment.
Conflict Approach
According to Marxist’s conflict approach, economic change produces other changes through the
mechanism of intensified conflict between social groups and between different parts of the social
system. Some theorists like D.P. Mukherjee, A.R. Desai, M.N. Dutta, have suggested that conflict in
its broadest sense must be the cause of social change. The reasoning behind this is that if there is
consensus in society and if the various sectors are integrated, there is little pressure for change;
therefore, change must be due to conflict between groups and/or between different parts of the
social and cultural systems.
Cultural Approach
In the cultural approach, change is studied by analyzing changing cultural elements of society. Within
this approach, M.N. Srinivas studied change through sanskritization and westernization processes;
Robert Redfield through change in Little and Great traditions; and McKim Marriott through the
process of Parochialization and Universatization. Sanskritization (Srinivas, 1973) refers to the process
of adopting customs, rituals, ideology and way of life of higher castes by the lower castes with a view
to raise their position in the caste hierarchy. It is the process of cultural mobility in the traditional
social structure. The higher castes are not always Brahmins; they could be Kshatriyas, Vaisyas, and
so on in various regions of the country. Westernization is adopting the ideals, values (like rationalism,
humanism), institutions and technology of the western society by the non-western society. Some
scholars are, however, of the opinion that both sanskritization and westernization processes do not
fully describe the ramifications of socio-cultural changes in India. Sanskritization refers only to the
positional change of an individual or a group in the caste system; it does not explain change in the
society or social system. Yogendra Singh (1973: 9) has also maintained that to describe the social
changes occurring in modern India in terms of sanskritization and westernization is to describe it
primarily in cultural and not in structural terms.
Following Robert Redfield (1955) who analyzed social change in the Mexican communities with the
help of the concepts of Little and Great traditions, McKim Marriott (1955) and Milton Singer (1959)
studied social change in India with this conceptual framework. Little traditions are indigenous customs,
deities, and rites found at the folks’ or peasants’ level. They persist at the level of village community
and their growth is internal. Those traditions which grow because of outside contacts and are found
at elite level are called ‘Great traditions’. Explaining cultural changes, Milton Singer has said that (a)
the growth of ‘great tradition’ was continuous with the ‘Little tradition’, (b) the cause of cultural
continuity in India is the sharing of common cultural consciousness by the people and having a
similar mental outlook, (c) the common cultural consciousness is formed by sacred books and sacred
objects, and (d) India’s cultural continuity with the past is so great that even accepting change does
not result in discarding ancient traditions. Thus, even though modern influences are changing many
aspects of Indian society and culture, they have not destroyed its (India’s) basic structure and pattern.
The process of moving of elements of Little tradition (customs, rites, etc.) upward to the level of Great
tradition is called ‘universalization’ by McKim Marriott, while the process of moving of elements of
Great tradition downward to become part of the Little tradition is called ‘parochialization’. Thus,
these concepts (of universalization and parochialization) also describe the processes of cultural change.

Structural Approach
This approach analyzes change in the network of social relationships and in social structures (like
castes, kinship, factory, administrative structures, etc.). These social relationships and structures are
compared intra-culturally as well as cross-culturally. According to Yogendra Singh (1977: 17), a
structural analysis of change consists of demonstrating the qualitative nature of new adaptations in
the patterned relationships. For example, when the spouse is selected by a child himself and not by

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