Social change refers to acts of advocacy for the cause of changing society in a positive way.

The term has significance to the study of history, economies and politics, and includes topics such as the success or failure of different political systems, globalization, democratization, development and economic growth. The term can encompass concepts as broad as revolution and paradigm shift, to narrow changes such as a particular cause within small town government.

Social change is about how societies change, from the grand scale, for example, evolution of societies, to the small scale.

Social change is generally a branch of sociology, but also involves political science, economics, history, anthropology and many other social sciences.

Global trends

Some recent trends in global change are that the world population has become more concentrated in the less developed world and in cities, there has been a tremendous growth in internet use, infant mortality rates have declined, illiteracy has declined, more people are living in freedom, GDP per capita has increased, and poverty has declined.

The changes did not happen equally throughout the world, however. For example, in 1960, infant mortality rate was more than 4.5 times higher in developing countries than it was among industrialized countries. In 2000, infant mortality rates in developing countries was about 10 times higher than was IMR in industrialized countries. That is, infant mortality rates declined faster among the more developed countries. There were similar disparities in illiteracy and political freedom. That is, conditions did improve among less developed countries, but not as much as they did among more developed countries.

In addition, some countries experienced worsening of conditions, for example, increases in infant mortality rates, increases in illiteracy and less freedom. These patterns were complex through, as usually a country had a worsening in one of these conditions, but not in others. That is, there didn't seem to be any clear pattern of single countries experiencing overall worsening conditions.

See also

• Important publications in social change

References

Global Social Change Reports. Gene Shackman, Ya-Lin Liu and George (Xun) Wang. 2004. http://gsociology.icaap.org/reports.html

External links

• Haferkamp, Hans, and Neil J. Smelser, editors Social Change and Modernity. Berkeley : University of California Press, 1992.
• Social Continuity and Change, and Social Theory
• Social Change class notes includes notes on theories, causes and patterns of change.