SOCIAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENT

• According to Kingsley Davis, social change refers to the alterations that occur in social organisations, that is, the structure and functions of society.
• Social change is brought about by diffusions of inventions in the group.
• Social change is continuous process, but its pace and objective may vary from society to society.
• Social change may need to be initiated but sometimes takes place continuously.
• Social change is temporal: it denotes a time sequence. Innovations of new things, modification and renovation of the existing behaviour and discarding of old behaviour patterns take time.
• Social change is environmental- it must take place within a geographical, physical or cultural context which has an impact on human behaviour.
• Social change may create a chain reaction- change in one aspect of life may lead to a series of changes in others.
• Social change may be planned or unplanned, the direction and speed are often conditioned by human effort.
• Social change may have both positive and negative consequences which require effort to adapt to which in turn proves effortful for the common man.
• Inventionists are people in heading capacity to make inventions.
• Diffusions are the introduction of behaviour from another culture.
• Inventions are rearrangements of known traits into new patterns/configurations.
• Industrialisation is the process in which a society or a country (or the world) transforms itself from a primarily agricultural society to one based on the manufacturing of goods and services.
• Modernisation is the process in which modern scientific knowledge is introduced into society with the ultimate purpose of achieving a better and more satisfactory life.
• Modernisation is a process of socio-cultural transformation. It is a thorough, ongoing process of change involving values, norms, institutions and structures.
• Urbanisation is the movement of the population from rural to urban areas resulting in an increase in the proportion of the population that resides in the urban areas rather than rural places.
• Urbanisation refers to the population shift from rural to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and how societies adapt to this change.
• Globalisation is the process of interaction and integration among people, groups and governments of the nation which is driven by investments and trade and aided by information technology and communication.
• The word 'globalisation' has evolved over time and has assumed rapid liberation of emerging economies. The whole process is about development and transformation and has become a necessary consequence of economic development.
• Special focus on sustainable development, ecological and environmental issues for improving quality of life for the present and future.
• Sustainable development is the development that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Eg: Auroville, Barefoot College (Tilonia).
• World Bank's position on sustainable development as "economic growth, the alleviation of poverty and sound environmental management is in many cases mutually consistent objectives" thereby providing 3 dimensions of sustainable development: social, ecological and economic.
• Sustainable development is more than conservation. It focuses on improving the quality of life for all the earth's citizens without increasing the use of natural resources beyond the capacity of the environment to supply them.
• Capitalism has led to the destruction of the environment, socialist models are also to blame but capitalism has a unique function in the destruction of the environment.
• Capitalism's self-expansion through the appropriation and production of surplus value is simultaneously the attempt to insinuate into the subjects of nature and its varied processes the value relation in which exchange value subjugates. Eg: terminator seeds.
• Capitalism has caused its own ecological crisis - the 'second contradiction'. Capitalism pairs and exhausts its own social and environmental conditions and thus threatens its ability to reproduce the basis for profit and accumulation.
• According to Horton and Hunt, a social movement is an organised activity that influences social change.
• A social movement must reflect a minimal degree of organisation, though this may range from an informal or partial level of organisation to a highly institutionalised movement.
• Education is the action exercised by the older generations upon those who are not yet ready for social life. Its object is to awaken and develop in the child whose physical, intellectual and moral states which are required by the milieu for which he is destined.
• The Constitution (Eighty-Sixth Amendment) Act 2002, inserted Article 21-A in the Constitution of India to provide free and compulsory education to all children in the age group of 6 to 14 years as a Fundamental Right in such a manner as the State may, by law, determine.
• Right of children to free and compulsory education till completion of elementary education in a neighbourhood school.
• Under RTE, 'free' means that no child should be liable to pay any kind of fee, charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing elementary education.
• RTE lays down the norms and standards relating to inter alia to the Pupil-Teacher Ratio (PTRs), buildings and infrastructure, school-working day, teacher-working hours.
• Mass media implies using media as a source of communication to reach out to the masses that is general public through audio, visual and electronic means to inform, propagate, make aware and entertain through ideas, goods and services.
• Electronic media is the media that uses electronics or electro-mechanical energy for the end user or audience to access the content.
• India is a democratic nation securing the rights of its citizens under the Constitution of India, the Central Government has enacted the RTI Act 2005 to promote transparency and accountability in the working of the Public Authority.