Relevance: Sociology: Paper I: Social Change
Elements of functionalism are clearly evident in Parsons’ explanation of social changes that takes place within social systems. He drew an analogy between the changes in biological life cycles and changes within social systems, although he qualified this analogy by saying that unlike the organic or biological systems, social systems are governed to a large extent by cultural factors which transcend biology. Nevertheless, the processes of growth, differentiation, the tendency towards self-maintenance that we witness operating in the processes of change within biological systems to a large extent also operate within the social system. In addition, social systems also undergo changes from within due to cultural innovations within the system, contact with other cultures and diffusion of new values and styles of living.
A primary factor related to processes of change within the social system is increase in population, its density and aggregation. It has been observed historically that major social systems, such as large communities, cities and organised forms of polity emerged in the past near river valleys and fertile lands where production of food could be harnessed in larger quantities. This increase in food production contributed to a growth of population and for other major changes within the social system, such as the division of labour, emergence of urban centres, and more complex form of social organisations such as caste in India and guild in Europe. According to Parsons these changes did not come about smoothly but almost invariably through the need for re-establishing equilibrium in the system. This re- establishing of equilibrium was required due to strains in relationships between past and present patterns of relationship, values and interests. Parsons says, “change is never just alteration of pattern but alteration by the overcoming of resistance”. By overcoming of resistance, Parsons meant the resolution of strain or conflict in the social system.
Each social system, according to Parsons, develops a vested interest or interests of different kinds over a period of time as it integrates itself in accordance with its functional prerequisites (adaptation, goal attainment, integration and latency). But the demands of new ideas from within, need for changes in technology or the mere pressure of external factors on the system, such as changes in climate, ecology or pestilence, etc., force social systems to shed pre-existing vested interests and give way to accepting new modes of thinking; to new ideas, technology, patterns of work, division of labour, and so on. These contribute to disturbances in the older mode of equilibrium and to its replacement by a new equilibrium in the social system.
Between these two points of time a long-drawn process of adaptation takes place in social systems by which new ideas, new ways of doing things are made acceptable to people. Parsons calls this process, the process of institutionalisation. New roles, new types of organisations, new “cultural configurations” such as the development of science or of religious ideas, impinge, or put strain, upon existent modes of equilibrium in the social system. The impingement of the new upon the old elements of the social organisation generates strains and conflicts with established vested interests. Parsons does not place the responsibility for causing social strain on any one factor; there is no ‘prime mover’ as such in the making of social change. The fact of social strain, however, represents a point of social development at which the older balance of interaction systems, institutions and structures of the system (roles, statuses, occupations etc.) is destabilised and the tendency towards a new equilibrium begins.
Factors Causing Strain Towards Change
Parsons mentioned several factors, which contribute towards the building up of strain in social systems, which bring about the need to establish a new equilibrium. Some of these factors are
- Changes in the demographic character of population through migration, racial intermixture (intermarriages), as well as changes in the mortality and fertility rates of the population. All of these factors affect the nature of social
- Changes in the physical environment, such as exhaustion of physical resources (soil, water, weather conditions etc.) may also contribute to strain and change in the social
- Changes in population resulting from increased productivity of food and availability of resources for members within a social
- Changes in technology and application of scientific knowledge for the advancement of society, and finally
- Development of new “cultural configuration” such as new religious ideas, or the integration of religious values with science and technology might also trigger changes in the social system. Parsons held the view that these factors are not exhaustive but merely illustrative in order to indicate that they do not act individually but in a state of “interdependent plurality”. Or, in other words many factors and some may have escaped mention above, act interdependently, to bring about changes within the social
Cultural factors bring about changes within the social system through a continuous process of “rationalisation” and “traditionalisation” of values and beliefs. Parsons used the concept of “rationalisation” to mean, as it did for Weber, a process of progressive growth of rational, individualistic and innovative attitudes towards work, personal commitments and social institutions in general. It also includes an increase in legal and formal methods of allocation of responsibilities in place of custom or tradition or personal whims of people in authority such as the king, the priest or the potentate.
But there is also a tendency in social systems to render its values stable, and thus institutionalize them over a period of time. This gives birth to the rise of vested interests. These vested interests emphasise preservation of these values irrespective of changing situations. When this happens, the rational values tend to become traditionalised. Cultural values in society or in social systems continually undergo these processes of rationalization and traditionalisation and again further rationalisation leading to traditionalisation, and so on in a cyclical process
Parsons illustrated the processes of social change within the social system by drawing examples from the family system. The family undergoes changes inherently through the life cycle of the persons who are its members. The processes of birth, maturation, adulthood, old age and death are internal to the family system, each giving rise to social consequences which call for change and new adjustment in family roles, occupation, authority, status, as well as values and beliefs of its members. The mechanism by which the child is socialised is crucial to this process of continuity and change in the family. It engrains values of the system in the personality of the child, but as the child grows older other values are imbibed from the larger systems of society. The new roles and expectations in adult life may not always harmonise with those of the child, and family system has thus an inbuilt process of both stability and change.
These changes are best illustrated through the study of the family cycle. One aspect of this cycle relates to changes in the role of the child in the process of biological growth. This puts strain on his or her personality for at each stage in the changing biological cycle of the person (for example, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and old age) the role expectations also change. New educational and cultural values need to be imbibed in place of the older ones. The biological process of socialisation is however not without strain because change from one phase of life of a person to another involves resistance and anxiety. It gives expression to new defense mechanisms to preserve the old in place of learning new roles and new values. The process of socialisation and education therefore always involves manipulation of role expectations through rewards and punishments. In early childhood parents perform this role and in later life social system offers its own structure of social sanctions to bring about conformity with expected roles.
The second aspect of the family cycle is structural in nature. It is determined by changes in the size of the family. Families, which were nuclear become joint with the increase in membership. The size of family may be governed by factors both internal and external to the system. The external factors may have to do with economic resources, wealth and property or mode of occupation. The internal factors are governed by the reproduction rate and sex ratio. These two factors are interrelated.