SOCIAL CHANGE

Social change in the broadest sense is any change in social relations. In this sense, social change is an ever-present phenomenon in any society. In order to give the concept a more restricted meaning, it has been defined as change of the social structure. A distinction is made then between processes within the social structure, which serve, at least partially, to maintain the structure (social dynamics), and processes that modify the structure (social change). Because the concept of social structure does not have one generally accepted and unambiguous meaning, however, this distinction does not clearly determine which social processes belong to the field of social change.

The specific meaning of social change depends first of all on the social entity considered. Changes in a small group may be important on the level of that group itself, but negligible on the level of the larger society. Similarly, the observation of social change depends on the time span taken; most short-term changes are negligible if a social development is studied in the long run. Even if one abstracts from small-scale and short-term changes, social change is a general characteristic of human societies: customs and norms change, inventions are made and applied, environmental changes lead to new adaptations, conflicts result in redistribution of power. This universal human potential for social change has a biological basis. It is rooted in the flexibility and adaptability of the human species --the near absence of biologically fixed action patterns on the one hand and the enormous capacity for learning, symbolizing, and creating on the other hand. The human biological constitution makes changes possible that are not biologically (genetically) determined. Social change, in other words, is only possible by virtue of biological characteristics of the human species, but the nature of the actual changes cannot be reduced to these species traits.

STRUCTURALISM

The concept of structure in the study called structuralism, as in structural functionalism and the class and power theories, is theoretical and explanatory. Unlike those other studies, however, it is not descriptive. The concept here refers to the underlying, unconscious regularities of human expressions, which are not observable but explain what is observed.

Claude Lévi-Strauss, a French anthropologist, derived this concept from structural linguistics as developed by the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure. Any language is structured in the sense that its elements are interrelated in nonarbitrary, regular, rule-bound ways; a competent speaker of the language largely follows these rules without being aware of doing so. The task of the theorist is to detect this underlying structure, including the rules of transformation that connect the structure to the various observed expressions.

According to Lévi-Strauss, this same method can be applied to social and cultural life in general. He constructed theories concerning the underlying structure of kinship systems, myths, and customs of cooking and eating. The structural method, in short, purports to detect the common structure of widely different social and cultural forms. The structure does not determine the concrete expressions; the variety of expressions it generates is potentially unlimited. The structures that generate the varieties of social and cultural forms ultimately reflect, according to Lévi-Strauss, basic characteristics of the human mind. Structuralism became an intellectual fashion in the 1960s in France, where such different writers as Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and Louis Althusser were also regarded as representatives of the new theoretical current. Structuralism in this wide sense, however, is not one coherent theoretical perspective. The Marxist structuralism of Althusser, for example, is far removed from Lévi-Strauss's anthropological structuralism. The structural method, when applied by different scholars, appears to lead to different results. The criticisms launched against structural functionalism, class theories, and structuralism indicate that the concept of social structure is problematic. Yet the notion of social structure is not so easy to dispense with, because it expresses ideas of continuity, regularity, and inter relatedness in social life. Other terms are often used that

have similar, but not identical, meanings, such as social network, social figuration, or social system. The British sociologist Anthony Giddens has suggested the term "structuration" in order to express the view that social life is, to a certain extent, both dynamic and ordered.

THEORIES OF CLASS AND POWER

Parsons' work has been criticized for several reasons. One has been the comparatively meagre attention he paid to inequalities of power, wealth, and other social rewards. Other social theorists, including functionalists like the U.S. sociologist Robert K. Merton, have given these distributional properties a more central place in their concepts of social structure. For Merton and others, the social structure consists not only of normative patterns but also of the inequalities of power, status, and material privileges, which give the members of a society widely different opportunities and alternatives. In complex societies these inequalities define different strata, or classes, which form the stratification system, or class structure, of the society. Both aspects of the social structure, the normative and the distributive aspect, are strongly interconnected, as may be inferred from the observation that members of different classes often have different and even conflicting norms and values. This leads to a consideration contrary to structural functionalism: certain norms in a society may be established, not because of any general consensus about their moral value, but because they are forced upon the population by those who have both the interest and the power to do so. To take one example, the "norms" of apartheid in South Africa reflect the interests and values of only one section of the population, which has the power to enforce them upon the majority. In theories of class and power this argument has been generalized: norms, values, and ideas are explained as the result of the power inequalities between groups with conflicting interests.

The most influential theory of this type has been Marxism, or historical materialism. The Marxian view is succinctly summarized in Marx's phrase that "the ideas of the ruling class are, in every age, the ruling ideas." These ideas are regarded as reflections of class interests and are connected to the power structure, which is identified with the class structure.

This Marxian model, which was claimed to be particularly valid for capitalist societies, has met with several criticisms. One basic problem is its distinction between economic structure and spiritual superstructure, which are identified with social being and consciousness, respectively. This suggests that economic activities and relations are in themselves somehow not conscious, as if they were conceivable without knowing and thinking human beings. Nevertheless, the Marxian model has become influential even among non-Marxist social scientists. The distinction between material structure and non material superstructure continues to be reflected in sociological textbooks as the distinction between social structure and culture. Social structure here refers to the ways people are interrelated or interdependent; culture refers to the ideas, knowledge, norms, customs, and capacities that they have learned and share as members of a society.

STRUCTURE FUNCTIONALISM

A.R. Radcliffe-Brown, a British social anthropologist, gave the concept of social structure a central place in his approach and connected it to the concept of function. In his view, the components of the social structure have indispensable functions for each other--the continued existence of the one component is dependent on that of the others--and for the society as a whole, which is seen as an integrated, organic entity.

Radcliffe-Brown defined the social structure empirically as patterned, or "normal," social relations (those aspects of social activities that conform to accepted social rules or norms). These rules bind society's members to socially useful activities. Structural functionalism was elaborated further by Talcott Parsons, a U.S. sociologist, who, like Radcliffe-Brown, was strongly influenced by the French social scientist Émile Durkheim. While Radcliffe-Brown focused on so-called primitive societies, Parsons attempted to formulate a theory that was valid for large and complex societies as well. For Parsons, the social structure is essentially normative; it consists of "institutionalized patterns of normative culture." Social behaviour is structured insofar as it conforms to norms, ranging from general ideas of right and wrong (values) to specific rules of behaviour in specific situations. These rules vary according to the positions of the individual actors: they define different roles, such as various occupational roles, or the roles of husband-father and wife-mother. Norms also vary according to the type of activities or sphere of life: they form clusters called social institutions, such as the institution of property or the institution of marriage. Norms, roles, and institutions are components of the social structure on different levels of complexity.

SOCIAL STRUCTURE AND CHANGE

The term structure has been used with reference to human societies since the 19th century. Before that time, it had been already applied to other fields, particularly construction and biology. Its biological connotations are evident in the work of several social theorists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Herbert Spencer in England. He and others conceived of society as an organism, the parts of which are interdependent and thereby form a structure that is similar to the anatomy of a living body.

The metaphor of construction is clear in the work of Karl Marx, where he speaks of "the economic structure [Struktur] of society, the real basis on which is erected a legal and political superstructure [Überbau] and to which definite forms of social consciousness correspond." This phrase expresses the Marxian view that the basic structure of society is economic, or material, and determines, at least to a large extent, the rest of social life, which is defined as spiritual or ideological. Although social scientists since Spencer and Marx have disagreed on the concept of social structure, their definitions have certain elements in common. In the most general way, social structure may be defined as those

features of a social entity (a society or group within a society) that have a certain permanence over time, are interrelated, and determine or condition to a large extent both the functioning of the entity as a whole and the activities of its individual members. As may be inferred from this definition, several ideas are implicit in the notion of social structure. The concept expresses the idea that human beings form social relations that are not arbitrary and coincidental, but exhibit some regularity and persistence. The concept also refers to the observation that social life is not amorphous but is differentiated into groups, positions, and institutions that are interdependent, or functionally interrelated. These differentiated and interrelated characteristics of human groupings, although constituted by the social activities of individuals, are not a direct corollary of the wishes and intentions of these individuals; instead, individual choices are shaped and circumscribed by the social environment. The notion of social structure implies, in other words, that human beings are not completely free and autonomous in choosing their activities, but rather they are constrained by the social world they live in and the social relations they form with one another.

The social structure is sometimes simply defined as patterned social relations--those regular and repetitive aspects of the interactions between the members of a given social entity. Even on this descriptive level, the concept is highly abstract: it selects only certain elements from ongoing social activities. The larger the social entity considered, the more abstract the concept tends to be. What is considered as the social structure of a small group is generally much nearer to the daily activities of its individual members than that which is regarded as the social structure of a larger society. In the latter case the problem of selection is acute: what to include or not include as components of the

social structure. The solution to the problem varies with the different theoretical views according to which characteristics of the society are regarded as particularly important. Apart from these different theoretical views, some preliminary remarks on general aspects of the social structure of any society may be made. Most generally, social life is structured along the dimensions of time and space. Specific social activities take place at specific times, and time is divided into periods that are connected with the rhythms of social life--the routines of the day, the month, and the year. Specific social activities are also organized at specific places; particular places, for instance, are designated for such activities as working, worshiping, eating, or sleeping. Territorial boundaries delineate these

places. These boundaries are defined by rules of property, which in any society structure the use and possession of scarce goods. In any society, moreover, there is a more or less regular division of labour. Yet another universal structural characteristic of human societies is the regulation of violence. The use of violence is everywhere a potentially disruptive force; at the same time, it is a means of coercion and coordination of activities. Human beings have formed political units, such as nations, within which the use of violence is strictly regulated and which, at the same time, are organized for the use of violence against outside groups. In any society, furthermore, there are arrangements within the structure for sexual reproduction and the care and education of the young. These arrangements partly take the form of kinship and marriage relations. Finally, systems of symbolic communication, particularly language, everywhere structure the interactions between the members of a society. Within the broad framework of these and other general features of human society, there is an enormous variety of social forms between and even within societies. Several theories have been developed to account for both the similarities and the varieties. In these theories certain aspects of social life are regarded as basic and, therefore, central components of the social structure. Some social scientists use the concept of social structure as a device for creating an order for the various aspects of social life. Thus, the U.S. anthropologist George P. Murdock, in his Social Structure (1949), a comparative study of kinship systems, used the concept as a taxonomic scheme for classifying, comparing, and correlating aspects of kinship systems of different societies. In other studies, the concept is of greater theoretical importance; it is regarded as an explanatory concept, a key to the understanding of human social life. Some of the more prominent of these theories are reviewed here.