Description
Scitus Academics LLC Social Change and Human Development Concept and Results by Brendan Hillam
Social change has accelerated globally. Greenfield's interdisciplinary and
multilevel theory of social change and human development provides a
unified framework for exploring implications of these changes for cultural
values, learning environments/socialization processes, and human
development/behavior. Social change is the alteration of mechanisms
within the social structure, characterized by changes in cultural symbols,
rules of behaviour, social organizations, or value systems. Throughout the
historical development of their discipline, sociologists have borrowed
models of social change from other academic fields. In the late 19th century,
when evolution became the predominant model for understanding
biological change, ideas of social change took on an evolutionary cast, and,
though other models have refined modern notion. Globally dominant
sociodemographic trends are: rural to urban, agriculture to commerce,
isolation to interconnectedness, less to more education, less to more
technology, lesser to greater wealth, and larger to smaller
families/households. Social change can evolve from a number of different
sources, including contact with other societies (diffusion), changes in the
ecosystem (which can cause the loss of natural resources or widespread
disease), technological change (epitomized by the Industrial Revolution,
which created a new social group, the urban proletariat), and population
growth and other demographic variables. Social change is also spurred by
ideological, economic, and political movements.
This Book, Social Change and Human Development, shows how changing
sociodemographic ecologies alter cultural values and learning
environments and thereby shift developmental pathways. Worldwide
sociodemographic trends include movement from rural residence, informal
education at home, subsistence economy, and low-technology
environments to urban residence, formal schooling, commerce, and
high-technology environments. The Book will be of valuable resource for
students and researchers involved in all areas of human development,
including developmental psychology, sociology and education.