Chapter I

Background and Perspectives

• Introduction to society
• Element of society
• Factor causing social change, theories of social changes
• Technology, technological changes and influences of technological change on society
• Characteristics of developing and developed countries
• Technological achievement of the 20th century
Introduction to society
• Group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction
• Organization for people who have the same interest or aim
• Large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, same political
authority and dominant cultural expectations
• Characterized by patterns of relationships (social relations) between individuals who
share a distinctive culture and institutions
• Described as the sum of total relationship among it’s constituent of member.
Society
• complex and multifaceted concept that encompasses the organized patterns of
relationships and institutions that define how individuals interact and live together.
Types of Societies
1. Hunter-Gatherer Societies:
Small, nomadic groups that rely on hunting and gathering for subsistence
this type of subsistence lifestyle that relies on hunting and fishing animals and
foraging for wild vegetation and other nutrients like honey, for food

Fig: Hadza people of Tanzania rely on hunting wild game for meat, a task that requires great skill in tracking, teamwork, and accuracy with a bow and arrow.
Types of Societies
2. Agricultural Societies
• Societies that cultivate crops and domesticate animals, leading to settled communities and the development of towns and cities any community whose
economy is based on producing and maintaining crops and farmland
• Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) was established in 1991 as an autonomous organization under “Nepal Agricultural Research Council Act –
1991” to conduct agricultural research in the country to uplift the economic level of the people.
• NARC was established under the following objectives :-
1. To conduct qualitative studies and researches on different aspects of agriculture
2. To identify the existing problems in agriculture and find out the solution.
3. To assist government in formulation of agricultural policies and strategies
Types of Societies
3. Industrial Societies
• Societies characterized by large-scale industry, technological innovation, and urbanization
• Society is driven by the use of technology and machine to enables mass production, supporting a large population with a high capacity for
division of labour.
• Use external energy sources, such as fossil fuels, to increase the rate and scale of production
• As population grow and mechanization is further refined, often to the level of automation, many worker shift to expanding service industries.
• Industrial society makes urbanization desirable, in part so that worker can be closer to center of production
• Service industry can provide labour to worker and those that benefit financially form them, in exchange for a piece of production profits with
which they can buy goods
• Leads to the rise of very large cities and surrounding suburb areas with a high rate of economic activity.
Characteristics of an industrial society
Vast use of technology
• Rely heavily on the use of modern technology and engineering methods
• To produce things at a large scale I factories, heavy machinery is required
• Employment of human beings at the production stage decreases.
• Use of machines and technology ensure that every product manufactured is identical to
other and saves times
Characteristics of an industrial society
Facilitates social change
• Innovation in the industry change the social fabric of society
• Generally are more educated masses and reduces gender inequality
• Access to education empowers peoples form all classes
Characteristics of an industrial society
Division of labour
• Segmentation of work processes into numerous specified tasks so that each
specified task is performed by different people who have gained specialization
in that field
• Large-scale division of labour in industrial society because thousand of new
jobs are created as per the industry's demands, unlike the traditional role in an
agrarian society
Characteristics of an industrial society
Heterogeneous culture
• People from other countries also settle for a better chance at good-quality life
• They bring their culture, food and traditions with them
• Leads to a society that has a harmonious establishment of different cultures.
• There is an increased diversity
Characteristics of an industrial society
Income inequality
• Economic condition of people in industrial societies is better than in
agricultural societies
• But exist a wide gap between the rich and the poor
• Industrialist have a ton of wealth, visibility more than most working-class
people
• To minimize this, the government imposes heavy taxes on the rich people,
used in social development programs
Types of Societies
Post-Industrial Societies:
• Societies focused on information, services, and technology rather than manufacturing
(examples : Teachers, nurses, Engineers, social workers, lawyers etc. ..)
• Some time known as information society or digital society
• Unlike industrial societies are rooted in the production of material goods, information societies are based on the production of information and services
• Digital technology is the steam engine of information societies
• Economy of information societies is driven by knowledge and not material goods,
• Power lies in those in charge of storing and distrusting information
• Member of a post-industrial society are likely to be employed as seller of services – software programmer or business consultant, (example instead of producer of goods)
• Social classes are divided by accesses to education, since without technical skills, people in an information society lacks the means to achieve success.
Characteristics of Post-Industrial Societies
Sociologist Daniel Bell made the term "post-industrial" popular in 1973 after
discussing the concept in his book "The Coming of Post-Industrial Society:

• Production of goods (like clothing) declines and the production of services (like restaurants) goes up.
• Manual labor jobs and blue collar jobs are replaced with technical and professional jobs.
• Society experiences a shift from focusing on practical knowledge to theoretical knowledge. The latter
involves the creation of new, invention solutions.
• There is a focus on new technologies, how to create and utilize them as well as harness them.
• New technologies foster the need for new scientific approaches like IT and cybersecurity.
• Society needs more college graduates with advanced knowledge who can help develop and advance
technological change.
Types of societies
Elements of society
Element of society refers to the fundamental components that makes up and influence a society.
Element works together to shape the social structure, culture and dynamics of a community.
Group of people is the first requirement of society, of establishment of social relationship a group of
people is necessary, without people society can not exist.
Key element of society
1. Likeness or Similarity
• Refers to similarities, member in a society have similarities among member in a social group
with regards to their needs, ideas, values etc.
• exists among the like-being, like-bodies and like-mined
• likeness provides comfort and it causes various institutions and associations to exist and
continue.
• Similarity which we find in social relationship of human beings is based upon the identity of
interest, objectives, needs traditions etc.
Elements of society
2. Difference
• Society also involves differences, difference within the society are not excluded.
• There can be little doughty about the fact that social relationship of the people would be restricted to a
great extent in the absence of differences.
• People are not alike, they are different from one another in respect of their ability, capacity, interests,
tendency etc. these differences are either natural or they can be developed in course of the process of
socialization and specialization.
• Human beings differ from one another in respect of rights and duties, thoughts, ideals etc.
• Thus likenesses and difference are considered to be equally essential for society
Elements of society
3. Interdependence
• Member of society mutually interact with each other and depend on one another for the fulfillment of their needs
(e.g. In society different group of worker such as carpenter, sweeper, driver, plumber performing their task and
depending each other for fulfillment their daily needs)
• It is not possible for human to satisfy his need in isolation. He needs society because his nature compels him to live in
it. He can by no means cut adrift from society.
• Society fulfils all the needs of the people
• Not only countries, but also continents have felt need for interdependence these days
Elements of society
4. Co-operation
• Co-operation may be direct or indirect and it plays a vital role in every human society. People cannot lead a happy
and comfortable life without co-operation.
• No society can be healthy and prosperous without co-operation these days. It is a difference to mutual destructives of
groups with opposing interests
• Consequently it leads to the protection of resource and result in economy.
 Elements of society
5. Organization
• Organized group of people with a particular purpose, such as business or government department.
• A social organization is a pattern of relationships and among individuals and social groups
• Every society has its own individual and unique organization
• Social organization happen in everyday life. Many people belong to various social structures- institutional and
informal. These includes clubs, professional organizations and religious institutions.
 Elements of society
5. Organization
Elements of society
6. We-feeling
• We feeling refers to a sense of collective identity, solidarity and belonging that develops within a group or
community.
• Society is based on we feeling of belonging together
• Member of these group has feeling of attachment, sympathy and affection towards the other member of these
groups.
• groups are generally based on a consciousness of kind.
• We-feeling makes society identifiable and distinct people in comparison of other.
• It is the we feeling which can distinguish societies from one another
Elements of society
7. Comprehensive culture
• Each society is distinct from the other. Every society is unique because it has own way of life, called culture.
• Culture refers to the social heritage of man
• It includes the whole range of our life (attitudes, judgements, morals, values, beliefs, ideas, ideologies and institutions)
• Culture is the expansion of human nature in our ways of living and thinking, in behaving and acting as member of society.
• Beliefs and Values: Shared convictions and ethical standards that guide behavior
and decision-making.
• Norms: Rules and expectations for behavior within a society.
• Symbols and Language: Means of communication and expression, including spoken and written language, gestures, and symbols.
• Art and Literature: Creative expressions that reflect and shape societal values and experiences
Elements of society
8. Institutions
• Family: The primary social unit responsible for the socialization of individuals.
• Education: Systems and structures for learning and knowledge dissemination.
• Religion: Organized systems of beliefs and practices related to spirituality and moral guidance
• Government: Structures and processes for creating and enforcing laws, policies, and
administration.
• Economy: Systems of production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.
Elements of society
9. Social Stratification
Elements of society
9. Social Stratification
• Class: Economic and social divisions based on income, wealth, education, and occupation.
• Status: Social honor or prestige attached to one's position within a society.
• Power: The ability to influence or control the behavior of others.
Er. Gagan Singh Bist
Social change
• Society cannot stay in constant position in terms of language change, population growth and
decline, fashion come and go and food consumptions.
• It has been occur due to natural disaster, scientific innovation, assimilation, migration, human
evolution, climate change and transformation of knowledge.
• Societies are dynamic and continually evolve due to various factors, including technological
advancements, economic shifts, cultural exchanges, and political movements
• social change might occur due to industrial revolution, social movement and scientific invention,
democratic and feminist movement around the world
• Change is law of nature, today is different than yesterday
Factor causing social change
Factor causing social change
1. Demographic factor
• Demographic factor means the factors that are associated with the change in the number
and compositions of the population.
• Change in the size of population has deep impact on the economic life of the people
which in turn may further affect other aspects of life.
• Increase in population creates problems of unemployment, malnutrition, poverty and
accommodation.
• Thus the balance between the size of population and natural resources of a country is
important.
• Quantitive aspect – demography takes into account, the size, composition and
density of human population. .
• Determining factors for rise or fall in density of population
1. High fertility rate (high birth rate )
2. Low mortality rate ( low death rate )
3. Migration
Factor causing social change
Factor causing social change
2.Technological factor
• Technological advancement is one of the important causes of change in the society.
• Social change is more rapid in technologically more advanced societies.
• Technological innovation, discoveries and diffusion accelerates the pace of social change in a
traditional society.
• Due to advancement in technology, simple division of labour in traditional societies has
changed into complex form of division of labour.
• With industrialization, production moves out of households to factories and the occupational
structure of workforce changed from largely agrarian to an increasingly larger industrial
workforce.
Factor causing social change
2.Technological factor
• Appropriate organization and systematic application of scientific knowledge to meet the
human requirements
• Scientific knowledge is applied to the life, it becomes technology
• It develop the product for human utilization
• It brings inventions and discovery
Social change :
Technological innovations
Changes in production technology
Change in transportation and communication
Factor causing social change
2.Technological factor
Factor causing social change
3. Cultural factor
• Culture refers to the shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviors and practices that define a group of
people or society
• New cultural values and belief system can also produce social change.
• While materialistic changes, such as new technology, are easily adopted but changes in the non-
materialists aspects of society, such as culture, are very slow
• Diffusion also takes places through mass media as it transmits and diffuses information to a large
umber of people
• accelerate the process of change by spreading the elements of individuals culture to people far away
and thus resulted in a forms of cultural modernization.
• mobilize a group of people to bring about social change.
• organized social movement that seeks to challenge social norms, practices or institutions.
• Acquired behavior, shared and transmitted among the member of the society
• Behavior which are learnt and transferred
(singing, dancing, eating, playing )
• Expression for our modes of living and thinking (in our everyday intercourse, in art, in literature, in
recreation and enjoyment)
(symbolic, cumulative and progressive process)
Factor causing social change
4. Biological Factor
• Concerned with genetic constitution of the human beings
• include the plants, animals and human beings. The non-human biological factors such as animals and plants influences the
life of human being. It limits the social possibilities. To fulfill his/her demands he modifies them, meet their demand such
as food, shelter and cloths. The interaction between human and non-human factor influenced the social structure.
• Rapid decline of useful animals, birds and plants will also create a number of problems in human society and influences
social change
• rapid increase or decrease of population also brings a number of changes in society
• Size, density, migration, immigration etc. brings number of changes in society
• the change in geographic climate, food, drought, drying river and change in soil condition consequently change the social
life.
• Rapid increasing and decreasing of plants and animals creates the day-to day problems in the life of human beings that may
effect their fertility and mortality rate which has close connection in size, density, migration and immigration. Such change
may cause food storage, poverty and health problems. It is also influenced by the non-human factors
Factor causing social change
Factor causing social change
5. Ideational factor
Factor causing social change
5. Ideational factor
• Idea could influence the course of social change
• Important contributory factor to most of social changes
• Ideas along with ideologies, powerful factor in social change
• Self-betterment, freedom, equality and democratic participation, creation of
past histories
• Served to mobilize processes of social change and political change
• Includes reformation movement and revolutions
For better social change not only the way we think but also the content of the
ideas have also changed
Factor causing social change
Factor causing social change
6. Economic Factor
• Economic factor also influence the quality and direction of social change.
• Karl Marx believed that social change results from the class struggle of bourgeois and
proletariat.
• Marx was of the view that a revolution carried out by the worker against the captilist would
end the ills of capitalism and would lead to the establishment of a socialist society.
• Industrialization and Green revolution also had far reaching effect across society.
• Most far-reaching in the impact of industrialization
• Revolutionized the whole way of life, institutions, organizations and community life
• New capitalism in industry promotes the constant revision of the technology of production,
• Priories the latest scientific adaption to create quick social impact
• Socio-economic condition influences industrialization which then impact on society.
Factor causing social change
7. Political Factor
• Political factor such as elections, legislations and public opinion etc. also play a
crucial role in bringing about social change.
• Laws act as an instruments of socio-economic and political change in the society.
• Mobilization of public opinion is also essential for the laws to be effective.
• most powerful organization which regulates the social relationships
• has the power to legislate new laws, repeal old ones to bring social change (Laws
regarding child marriage, widow remarriage, divorce, inheritance and succession,
untouchability )
• political leadership and individuals in power also influences the rate and direction of
social change
• political leadership controls the economy
• Scientific-technological and non-technological change are also dependent on political
development
Factor causing social change
Factor causing social change
8. Educational Factor
• instrument of social change
• Transmits traditions, culture, knowledge and skills form one generation to another
• New ideas and values are initiated by it and becomes the goal for the young generation to
pursue and achieve.
• Also bring political awareness
• Through education, government try to communicate their national goals to he citizens in order
to ensure cohesive and unity.
• changes the outlook and the tradition approach towards social and economic problems.
• sharpens the skills and knowledge of the children
• Technical education helps in the process of industrialization
• Education not only preserves the cultural traditions i.e., customs, traditions and values etc. of
the society but also transmits them to the next generation
• motivates to adopt new pattern in order to remain dynamic and forward looking
• fulfils the needs of the society
• propagates such ideas which promote social changes in all fields of life
• impart specific values, aspirations and attitudes
Factor causing social change
Theories of Social Change
• Social change can be experienced in
1. Economic
2. Political
3. Cultural
Social change can be studied as follows
1. Evolutionary theory
2. Cyclical theory
3. Economical (Mandan ) theory of social change
4. Conflict theory
5. Technological theory
Evolutionary Theory
• Based on the assumption that societies gradually changes from simple
being into even more complex forms
• Progress towards something better
• Change need to be positive and beneficial
• Focuses, society will necessarily reach new and higher level of
civilization
Cyclical Change theory
• Society has a predetermined life
(birth. Growth, maturity and decline)
• Society , after passing through all these stages of life cycle, return to
the original stage and thus the cycle begins again.
Economic theory of change
• Consist of two structure
1. Infra-structure
2. Super structure
1. Infra-structure – force of production and relation of production
Production forces – means of production (natural resources, land, labour, raw
material, machines, tools and other instruments of production)
Mode of prediction – technique of production, mental and moral habits of human
beings their level of development determines the social relation of
production
Socio-economic structure of society is basically determined by the state of productive
forces
2. Super-structure – features of the social system
(legal, ideological, political and religious institution)
Serve to maintain the infra-structure
Conflict Theory

• Emphasizes the role of coercion and power in producing social order

• At every moment experiences social conflict

• Every conflict in the society contributes to change and so conflict in

society also leads societies to being many changes
Technological Theory
• Refers to the application of knowledge for making the tools
• Utilization of the natural resources
• Important factor of social change
• Technological change which is great enough will produce some other
social change
(the invention of wheel, compass, gun powder, steam engine, printing press,
telephone, mobile, radio, TV, internet, aero plane, motor car and invention in
medical sector have revolutionized the human life.
• Technological advancement in agriculture sector (iron-tipped plow to
tractor technology and three crop rotation system) made possible the
creation of a surplus
Influence of technological change in society
• Affects the way individual communicate, learn and think
• Helps the society and determines how people interact with each other on a daily basis
• Made learning more interactive and collaborative,
• Helps people better engage with the material that are learning and have trouble with
• Better access to resources ( internet gives access to information at a 24 hour rate and
access t almost anything online)
• Allows to get work done easier
• Students can take quizzes and exams more easily, and teachers being able to hold online
classes can be very effective
Influence of technological change in society
• expands the boundaries of the classroom, encouraging self-paced earning
• helps students learn better than sitting down for lectures and reading from textbook ( technological advancement made learning more fun and
convenient)
• has impacted society is through communication, how we talk and communicate with one another worldwide
• brought many new methods of electronic communication ( emails, social networking, can face time a person that lives on the other side of the world,
and video conferencing where you can have conferences electronically)
• technological advancements that were made within the health industry have helped keep people safe and healthy
• innovate apps on phones ( people to watch their weight, how many calories they intake, heart rate and other health properties any time of the day)
• accessibility of treatment available,(change in healthcare that adds benefits for the elderly, and hospitals using advanced technology within their surgical
rooms)
• Mobile technology can also decrease communication and relations between people
• less personal time, (find that we don’t have enough time for ourselves because we’re always in contact with someone)
• Can distract from social work
• loss of privacy, because anyone can find you anywhere, at any time of the day
• Without technological advancements, our way of life would not be as complex.
• Technological influences shape the way humans act today
Characteristics of developing and developed
countries
• Broadly classified into two

• Bases of their beginning, composition and values and culture

1. Western Societies

2. Eastern Societies
Western societies
Following values are regarded as the success
1. Achievement and success
2. Activity and Work
3. Moral orientation
4. Efficiency and practicability
5. Progress
6. Material comfort
7. Equality
8. Freedom
9. Use of Technology
10. Individualistic
11. High concern overtime
Eastern Societies
• Values accorded by culture to the individual and groups
• Achieve high morality, power of truth
• Achievement in religious activities
• Acquiring the materialistic and physical object are given no more
importance
(saint Buddha , Sadhu etc. )
Technological Achievement in 20th and 21st
centuries
• Assignment to all Dear students
Illustrate all advancement in chronological order