The term social transformation 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.

Auguste 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.

 Evolutionary Theories
 Factors of Change
 Impact of Technological Change
 Social Movements Types
 Books and Author
 Points to Remember

Evolutionary Theories

 Evolutionary theories are based on the assumption that societies gradually change from
simple beginnings into even more complex forms. Early sociologists beginning with
Auguste Comte believed that human societies evolve in a unilinear way- that is in one
line of development. According to them social change meant progress toward something
better. They saw change as positive and beneficial. To them the evolutionary process
implied that societies would necessarily reach new and higher levels of civilization.L.H
Morgan believed that there were three basic stages in the process: savagery, barbarism
and civilization.Auguste Comte's ideas relating to the three stages in the development of
human thought and also of society namely-the theological, the metaphysical and the
positive in a way represent the three basic stages of social change. This evolutionary view
of social change was highly influenced by Charles Darwin's theory of Organic Evolution.
 Those who were fascinated by this theory applied it to the human society and argued that
societies must have evolved from the simple and primitive to that of too complex and
advanced such as the western society. Herbert Spencer a British sociologist carried this
analogy to its extremity. He argued that society itself is an organism. He even applied
Darwin's principle of the survival of the fittest to human societies. He said that society
has been gradually progressing towards a better state. He argued that it has evolved from
military society to the industrial society. He claimed that western races, classes or
societies had survived and evolved because they were better adapted to face the
conditions of life. This view known as social Darwinism got widespread popularity in the
late 19th century. It survived even during the first phase of the 20th century. Emile
Durkheim identified the cause of societal evolution as a society's increasing moral
density.Durkheim viewed societies as changing in the direction of greater differentiation,
interdependence and formal control under the pressure of increasing moral density. He
advocated that societies have evolved from a relatively undifferentiated social structure
with minimum of division of labor and with a kind of solidarity called mechanical
solidarity to a more differentiated social structure with maximum division of labor giving
rise to a kind of solidarity called organic solidarity.

Cyclical theories:
Cyclical theories of social change focus on the rise and fall of civilizations attempting to
discover and account for these patterns of growth and decay.Spengler, Toynbee and
Sorokin can be regarded as the champions of this theory.Spengler pointed out that the
fate of civilizations was a matter of destiny. Each civilization is like a biological
organism and has a similar life-cycle, birth, maturity, old-age and death. After making a
study of eight major civilizations including the west he said that the modern western
society is in the last stage i.e. old age. He concluded that the western societies were
entering a period of decay as evidenced by wars, conflicts and social breakdown that
heralded their doom.

Toynbee:
Arnold Toynbee's famous book 'A study of History' (1946) focus on the key concepts of
challenge and response. Every society faces challenges at first, challenges posed by the
environment and later challenges from internal and external enemies. The nature of
responses determines the society's fate. The achievements of a civilization consist of its
successful responses to the challenges; if cannot mount an effective response it dies. He
does not believe that all civilizations will inevitably decay. He has pointed out that
history is a series of cycles of decay and growth. But each new civilization is able to learn
from the mistakes and to borrow from cultures of others. It is therefore possible for each
new cycle to offer higher level of achievement.

Sorokin:
Pitirin Sorokin in his book Social and Culture Dynamics - 1938 has offered another
explanation of social change. Instead of viewing civilization into the terms of
development and decline he proposed that they alternate of fluctuate between two cultural
extremes: the sensate and the ideational. The sensate culture stresses those things which
can be perceived directly by the senses. It is practical, hedonistic, sensual and
materialistic. Ideational culture emphasizes those things which can be perceived only by
the mind. It is abstract, religious concerned with faith and ultimate truth. It is the opposite
of the sensate culture. Both represent pure types of culture. Hence no society ever fully
conforms to either type. As the culture of a society develops towards one pure type, it is
countered by the opposing cultural force. Cultural development is then reversed moving
towards the opposite type of culture. Too much emphasis on one type of culture leads to a
reaction towards the other. Societies contain both these impulses in varying degrees and
the tension between them creates long-term instability. Between these types lies a third
type 'idealistic' culture. This is a desirable blend of other two but no society ever seems to
have achieved it as a stable condition.

Functionalist or Dynamic theories:

In the middle decades of the 20th century a number of American sociologists shifted their
attention from social dynamics to social static or from social change to social
stability.Talcott Parsons stressed the importance of cultural patterns in controlling the
stability of a society. According to him society has the ability to absorb disruptive forces
while maintaining overall stability. Change is not as something that disturbs the social
equilibrium but as something that alters the state of equilibrium so that a qualitatively
new equilibrium results. He has stated that changes may arise from two sources. They
may come from outside the society through contact with other societies. They may also
come from inside the society through adjustment that must be made to resolve strains
within the system. Parsons speaks of two processes that are at work in social change. In
simple societies institutions are undifferentiated that is a single institution serves many
functions. The family performs reproductive, educational, socializing, economic,
recreational and other functions. A process of differentiation takes place when the society
becomes more and more complex. Different institutions such as school, factory may take
over some of the functions of a family. The new institutions must be linked together in a
proper way by the process of integration. New norms must be established in order to
govern the relationship between the school and the home. Further bridging institutions
such as law courts must resolve conflicts between other components in the system.

Conflict theories:
Whereas the equilibrium theories emphasize the stabilizing processes at work in social
systems the so-called conflict theories highlight the forces producing instability, struggle
and social disorganization. According to Ralf Dahrendorf the conflict theories assume
that - every society is subjected at every moment to change, hence social change is
ubiquitous. Every society experiences at every moment social conflict, hence social
conflict is ubiquitous. Every element in society contributes to change. Every society rests
on constraint of some of its members by others. The most famous and influential of the
conflict theories is the one put forward by Karl Marx who along with Engel wrote in
Communist Manifesto 'all history is the history of class conflict.' Individuals and groups
with opposing interests are bound to be at conflict. Since the two major social classes the
rich and poor or capitalists and the proletariat have mutually hostile interests they are at
conflict. History is the story of conflict between the exploiter and the exploited. This
conflict repeats itself off and on until capitalism is overthrown by the workers and a
socialist state is created. What is to be stressed here is that Marx and other conflict
theorists deem society as basically dynamic and not static. They consider conflict as a
normal process. They also believe that the existing conditions in any society contain the
seeds of future social changes. Like Karl Marx George Simmel too stressed the
 importance of conflict in social change. According to him conflict is a permanent feature
of society and not just a temporary event. It is a process that binds people together in
interaction. Further conflict encourages people of similar interests to unite together to
achieve their objectives. Continuous conflict in this way keeps society dynamic and ever
changing.
 Social Structure:
The structure of a society affects its rate of change in subtle and not immediately
apparent ways. A society which vests great authority in the very old people as classical
China did for centuries is likely to be conservative and stable. According to Ottenberg a
society which stresses conformity and trains the individual to be highly responsive to the
group such as the Zunis is less receptive to the change than a society like the Ileo who are
highly individualistic and tolerate considerable cultural variability. A highly centralized
bureaucracy is very favorable to the promotion and diffusion of change although
bureaucracy has sometimes been used in an attempt to suppress change usually with no
more than temporary success. When a culture is very highly integrated so that each
element is rightly interwoven with all the others in a mutually interdependent system
change is difficult and costly. But when the culture is less highly integrated so that work,
play, family, religion and other activities are less dependent upon one another change is
easier and more frequent. A tightly structured society wherein every person's roles,
duties, privileges and obligations are precisely and rigidly defined is less given to
changes than a more loosely structured society wherein roles, lines of authority,
privileges and obligations are more open to individual rearrangement