UPSC Sociology Syllabus – Paper 1 – Chapter 10 – Social change in Modern Societies
(a) Sociological theories of social change.
(b) Development and dependency.
(c) Agents of social change.
(d) Education and social change.
(e) Science, technology and social change.
- The role of education as an agent or instrument of social change and social development is widely recognized today.
- According to Maclver social change takes place as a response to many types of changes that take place in the social and nonsocial environment. Education can initiate social changes by bringing about a change in outlook and attitude of man.
- Francis J Brown remarks that education is a process which brings about changes in the behavior of society.
- The Report of the Education Commission (1964- 66)—bearing an eloquent-enough title, Education and National Development— makes the even stronger assertion that for achieving “change on a grand scale….there is one instrument, and one instrument only, that can be used – EDUCATION.”
RELATION BETWEEN EDUCATION AND CHANGE
- Initiate social change – Education is the most powerful instrument of social change because education fulfils the needs of society and propagates such ideas which promote social change in all fields of life.
- Capacity to welcome change – Education promotes capacity to welcome and accept social change easily and gladly. Education creates a wholesome and conductive environment.
- Equality of opportunity – Modern education system and schools provide equality of opportunity to members of society to a great extent regardless of their position in the system of stratification. It helps in creating a more open society and provides greater opportunities of social mobility.
- Moral agent – Education also plays a role in imbibing social values like empathy, rational investigation etc. It upgrades personal skills and make members more valuable in society.
- Economic Rule – Mass education began only with industrial revolution. It began as the need of economic system. Technical education helped in scaling up the industries which heralded industrial revolution.
- Fights orthodoxy, promotes liberal ideas – Education strives to banish social evils, blind customs and traditions through various social reform projects. It helps in minimizing
discrimination.
THINKERS’ VIEWS
- Durkheim says it is an agent of transmission of social norms. By respecting rules in schools, children learn to respect norms of the society.
- Parsons says schools are ‘society in miniature’ and education plays a key role in role allocation in an increasingly specialized industrial economy. In family child is judged on
‘particularistic standards’, in schools child learns universal values which are necessary for social integration. - Mark Twain famously said ‘I never let my schooling get in the way of my education’. Modern education has become synonymous with schooling and it removes focus from wider learning opportunities.
- Commercialization of education has further diluted role of education in social change as there is now unequal access to quality education based on one’s class. Children of working class only have ‘working class suited’ education which offers only limited avenues. According to Paul Willis, working class kids get only working class jobs as differential education leads to differential reproduction of cultural values.
- According to Pierre Bourdieu, education also helps in reproducing ‘cultural capital’ which is as necessary as social capital and economic capital.
- Althusser in his ‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus, 1972’ treats education as the most important ‘ideological state apparatus’ appropriated by the ruling classes to pursue their own ideas and interests, and it reinforces dominant ideology and thus hinders real social change in society. It merely leads to reproduction of labor force.
