Social Change and Sociological Traditions

Contents: Preface. 1. Ideology of social change. 2. Social action. 3. Theories of social change. 4. Social power. 5. Endogenous and exogenous sources of change. 6. Sociological traditions. 7. Social change and formal organizations. 8. Socio-cultural evolution. 9. Kinship and structural principles. 10. Capitalist system and class conflict. 11. Culture and approaches. Index.

Sociologists, to begin with, adopted the words evolution and progress but changed over to the word development and new accept change as the most satisfactory word. The word progress was first chosen by intellectuals and writers of history in the 19 century. The classic statement of the 19 century was that the study of history revealed the progress of freedom. This idea of progress was equally popularized by the biological theory of evolution in the nineteenth century. According to Darwin the evolution of organic species clearly shows that there is an ascent towards better and better species.