Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Social Revolution
Social revolution: A revolution that involves a fundamental change in social practices (as distinct from a political revolution, which involves the overthrow of one type of political regime by another).
Standardization
Standardization: A characteristic of the industrial age whereby everything was produced en masse, following the same guidelines and design protocol and resulting in identical products.
Figure 18.1
Percent of Children Ages 3 to 17 Who Have Access to Computers and Who Make Use of the Internet
Figure 18.2
Percent of Children Ages 3 to 17 Who Have Home Computer Access, 1993 & 2003, by Age
Figure 18.3
Percent of Children Ages 8 to 18 Who Have Home Computer Access, 2009, by Race and Hispanic Origin
of Children Ages 8 to 18 Who Have Home Computer Access, 2003, by Race and Hispanic Origin, Householders/Parents Educational Attainment, & Household Income
Social Change
Social change: The alteration of social structures with respect not only to institutions and actions but also to changes in cultural elements, such as norms, beliefs, and values.
Cultural Lag
Term coined by William Ogburn Cultural lag: The phenomenon whereby cultural elements (such as religious beliefs) change more slowly than structural elements (such as technological innovations).
Differentiation
Differentiation: In the context of development of the modern social system, this process involves the separation of major social functions so that each is the specialized responsibility of an appropriate social institution.
Metanarratives
Metanarratives: All-encompassing, macrosocial theories of development. These metanarratives (social evolutionary theories & theories of revolutionary change) began to be criticized in the second half of the twentieth century.
Karl Marx
For Marx, the factory was important as a prime example of the methods used by capitalists to make a profit out of combining machinery and workers to produce goods for sale. The factory was a means of concentrating and organizing labor.
Max Weber
For Weber, the manufacturing firm typified the modern form of organization, which was highly rational and bureaucratic.
Rationalization
Rationalization: The process by which traditional institutions and values are replaced by those based on rational calculation regarding the most efficient means to achieve empirical ends. According to Marx, rationalization is the defining characteristic of modernity.
Networks
Networks: The components of an interconnected system through which social actors are organized toward the attainment of goals. They represent the new social structure and organization replacing the hierarchical form exemplified by the welfare state.
Post-industrial Society
Daniel Bell popularized this concept in the early 1970s. The term signifies an intermediate stage between industrial society and a future form of society, the precise nature of which was still to be established.
Figure 18.6
Daniel Bell
Bells main concern is with the conflict between the techno-economic and cultural realms. Bell discerned the emergence of a postmodern culture based on consumerism, concerned with play, fun, display and pleasure (Bell 1976: 70).
Welfare State
Welfare state: A state in which the government takes responsibility for its citizens well-being. A welfare state typically devotes a significant portion of its expenditures to programs that provide access for its citizens to resources such as housing, health care, education, and/or employment.
Manuel Castells
Three types of social movements and identities that can be generated in response to the globalization of information flows:
Legitimizing Resistance Project
Collective Behavior
Term defined by Neil Smelser Collective behavior: Mobilization on the basis of a belief which redefines social action.
Frame Analysis
Frame analysis: A method of determining the ways in which social movements are socially constructed, interpreted, and represented both by actors in the movement itself and by outside influences, such as the mass media.
Globalization
Globalization: As defined by David Held, Globalization may be thought of initially as the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual (Held et al. 1999: 2).
Study Questions
What is the difference between evolutionary and revolutionary social change? Are they mutually exclusive? How is social revolution different from political revolution? What are Alvin Tofflers three waves of social development? Briefly describe each of these stages by identifying its dominant form of economic production, its basis of wealth, and its social significance. Which stage are we in now?