Social Change, Development and Modernization
Social change
Social change is alteration in social structure, institutions and culture over time. Know the evolutionary (Comte, Spencer), cyclical (Sorokin, Toynbee), conflict (Marx) and functionalist (Parsons, equilibrium and differentiation) models. Distinguish change from progress: change is neutral, progress is evaluative.
Factors and mechanisms
Examine demographic, technological, ideological, economic and environmental factors. Note innovation, diffusion, acculturation and assimilation as mechanisms, and cultural lag as a source of strain. Know social movements as vehicles of change, and the difference between reform and revolution.
Development
Development is contested. The modernisation paradigm equates development with movement toward industrial, urban, rational, achievement-oriented society (Parsons's pattern variables). Dependency theory (Frank, Amin) argues the periphery is underdeveloped by the core. World-systems theory (Wallerstein) distinguishes core, semi-periphery and periphery. Post-development critiques the whole enterprise. Know indicators such as GDP, HDI, Gini and the multidimensional poverty index, and their limits.
Modernisation
Understand the distinction between modernisation (a process) and modernity (a condition), and between modernity and postmodernity. Note that modernisation is not simply Westernisation.
Traps and rule of thumb
Questions often conflate growth with development, or assume modernisation is universally desirable. A useful rule: growth is quantitative, development is qualitative and multidimensional, and modernisation is a specific historical trajectory, not a synonym for either.