Page 241 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Social Structure and Social Change

Notes social planning is short-term, however; the goals of planning are often not reached, and, even if the
planning is successful in terms of the stated goals, it often has unforeseen consequences. The wider
the scope and the longer the time span of planning, the more difficult it is to attain the goals and
avoid unforeseen or undesired consequences. This has most often been the case in communist and
totalitarian societies, where the most serious efforts toward integrated and long-term planning were
put into practice. Most large-scale and long-term social developments in any society are still largely
unplanned, yet large-scale changes resulting from laws to establish large governmental agencies,
such as for unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, or guaranteed medical care, have produced
significant institutional changes in most industrial societies.
Planning implies institutionalization of change, but institutionalization does not imply planning.
Many unplanned social changes in modern societies are institutionalized; they originate in
organizations permanently oriented to innovation, such as universities and the research departments
of governments and private firms, but their social repercussions are not controlled. In the fields of
science and technology, change is especially institutionalized, which produces social change that is
partly intended and partly unintended.
Self-Assessment
1. Choose the correct option:
(i) The social goals are ............... .
(a) equality and justice (b) freedom and rationality
(c) rationality and individualism (d) All of these
(ii) The economic planning was advocated by M. Visveswarayas in ............... .
(a) 1940s (b) 1950s (c) 1990s (d) None of these
(iii) At per government claim the poverty line has reduced between 1972 and 1992.

(a) 15% (b) 20% (c) 10% (d) 18%
(iv) The total number of poor people of the world in India is ............... .
(a) 30% (b) 25% (c) 50% (d) 34.2%
(v) Indira Gandhi’s declaring of national emergency in ............... restricted fundamental rights.
(a) 1973 (b) 1974 (c) 1975 (d) 1981

10.7 Summary

• The causes of social change are diverse, and the processes of change can be identified as either
short-term trends or long-term developments. Change can be either cyclic or one-directional.
• The mechanisms of social change can be varied and interconnected. Several mechanisms may
be combined in one explanatory model of social change. For example, innovation by business
might be stimulated by competition and by government regulation.
• To the degree that change processes are regular and interconnected, social change itself is
structured. Since about 1965 there has been a shift in emphasis from “structure” to “change” in
social theory. Change on different levels—social dynamics in everyday life and short-term
transformations and long-term developments in society at large—has become the focus of much
attention in the study of society.
10.8 Key-Words

1. Social Change : Change in the social structure and relationships of a society which is often
interchangeably used with cultural change.
2. Diffusion : The spread of culture traits from groups to group.

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