“Social Change”

• Cities and their communities everywhere are challenged

by socio-economic shifts in global environment of
escalating change. Shifts in values between generations in
a more individualistic society, increased mobility of
people leading to more diversity in communities, changing
employment requirements, and an on going impact of new
technologies in their cumulative impact confront cities
with a broad spectrum of complex changes.
• In some cases, social change has gone along with the
weakening of social bonds and trust. Deeper social
changes needs to be understood with holistic responses,
often innovative and non traditional brought forward.
Sources of Social Changes
• Values and Beliefs
Ideology; system of belief that justifies the social, moral,
religious, political or economic interests held by a group or
society.
• Technology
Finding new ways to manipulate environment discovery &
invention.
• Diffusion
Reformulation; adapting borrowed cultural traits to suit a
society’s own needs.
Causes of Social Change
• Social change is brought about not by one factor alone. To
be considered interplay of various social and non- social
factors like geographical location, topography of the land,
climate soil type, plant and animal life, and other natural
resources, the people’s motor skills and other abilities,
technology, philosophical, religious, moral and ethical values,
beliefs, social organization and other social norms. It is not
only the occurrence and combination of these factors in a
given situation at a given time that brings about social
change.
 Political Change
• Political change occurs when the rulers in a country lose power or
the type of governance in the country changes. ... Examples of types
of governance would be democracy and monarchy. Political
change is a normal function of internal and external politics.
Causes of Political Change
• Political changes most often stem from social or
economic issues that a country may be facing. For
instance, political change may be caused by social issues,
such as the tensions between differing racial and ethnic
groups or policies that deny specific groups of people civil
rights.
 Cultural Change
Why does culture change?
• Cultural Diffusion- the spread of cultural characteristics from
one culture to another culture.
• Cultural leveling- As one part of a culture changes. The other
parts has to follow, cultural leveling refers to the process by
which culture becomes similar to one another.
• Cultural lag- William Ogburn’s term for a situation in which non
material culture lags behind changes in the material culture.
• Cultural Shock- the psychological and social mal adjustment many
people suffer when they visit or live in another society.
Three Phenomena of Culture Change
• INVENTIONS – the process of creating new cultural
elements.
• DISCOVERY- recognizing and understanding an idea not
fully understood before.
• DIFFUSION- the spread of cultural traits from one cultural
system to one another.