Understanding Social Change - Political Psychology in Poland

Exploring Social Change provides a compelling analysis of theories that explain social change, innovation, social movements, and revolution, and concludes with reflections about how individuals do and should live in an uncertain and rapidly changing world. Written in a personal and clear manner, the authors provide definitions of key terms and analysis of theories and ideas from the study of social change. The seventh edition includes updated examples reflecting the social changes that have occurred in the world around us, including new discussions on the environmental and social landscapes, as well as updated methods and discussions that reflect that changing field of social change study.

From the Stone Age to the Internet Age, this book tells the story of human sociocultural evolution. It describes the conditions under which hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, agricultural states, and industrial capitalist societies formed, flourished, and declined. Drawing evidence from archaeology, ethnography, linguistics, historical documents, statistics, and survey research, the authors trace the growth of human societies and their complexity, and they probe the conflicts in hierarchies both within and among societies. They also explain the macro-micro links that connect cultural evolution and history with the development of the individual self, thinking processes, and perceptions. Key features of the text Designed for undergraduate and graduate social science classes on social change and globalization topics in sociology, world history, cultural geography, anthropology, and international studies. Describes the evolution of the modern capitalist world-system since the fourteenth century BCE, with coverage of the rise and fall of system leaders: the Dutch in the seventeenth century, the British in the nineteenth century, and the United States in the twentieth century. Provides a framework for analyzing patterns of social change. Includes numerous tables, figures, and illustrations throughout the text. Supplemented by framing part introductions, suggested readings at the end of each chapter, an end of text glossary, and a comprehensive bibliography. Offers a web-based auxiliary chapter on Indigenous North American World-Systems and a companion website with excel data sets and additional web links for students.

Social Change in a Material World offers a new, practice theoretical account of social change and its explanation. Extending the author’s earlier account of social life, and drawing on general ideas about events, processes, and change, the book conceptualizes social changes as configurations of significant differences in bundles of practices and material arrangements. Illustrated with examples from the history of bourbon distillation and the formation and evolution of digitally-mediated associations in contemporary life, the book argues that chains of activity combine with material events and processes to cause social changes. The book thereby stresses the significance of the material dimension of society for the constitution, determination, and explanation of social phenomena, as well as the types of space needed to understand them. The book also challenges the explanatory significance of such key phenomena as power, dependence, relations, mechanisms, and individual behavior. As such, it will appeal to sociologists, geographers, organization studies scholars, and others interested in social life and social change.

The world is at our fingertips, but understanding what is going on has never been more daunting. Garth Massey’s Ways of Social Change is a primer for making sense of both rapidly moving events and the cultural and structural forces on which social life is built, while teaching critical thinking skills needed to understand social change. With an approach that is fresh, timely, challenging, and engaging, Ways of Social Change shows students how social change is both a lived experience and the result of our actions in the world. It invites the reader into the realm of social science, where clarification, understanding, and inquiry provide for both informed opinions and a path to effective involvement. The core of the book focuses on five forces that powerfully influence the direction, scope and speed of social change: science and technology, social movements, war and revolution, large corporations, and the state. A concluding chapter encourages students to examine their own perspectives and offers ways to engage in social change, now and in their lifetime.

This work provides an overall review and analysis of the history of education and of its key research priorities in the British context. It investigates the extent to which education has contributed historically to social change in Britain, how it has itself been moulded by society, and the needs and opportunities that remain for further research in this general area. Contributors review the strengths and limitations of the historical literature on social change in British education over the past forty years, ascertain what this literature tells us about the relationship between education and social change, and map areas and themes for future historical research. They consider both formal and informal education, different levels and stages of the education system, the process and experience of education, and regional and national perspectives. They also engage with broader discussions about theory and methodology. The collection covers a large amount of historical territory, from the sixteenth century to the present, including the emergence of the learned professions, the relationship between society and the economy, the role of higher technological education, the historical experiences of Ireland, Scotland and Wales, the social significance of teaching and learning, and the importance of social class, gender, ethnicity, and disability. It involves personal biography no less than broad national and international movements in its considerations. This book will be a major contribution to research as well as a general resource in the history and historiography of education in Britain.

Based on large research material collected in Hungary, Macedonia, Serbia and Bulgaria Social change, Gender and Violence is the book which explores the impact of transition from communism and war on everyday life of women and men, as well as the way how everyday life and gender related changes affect women's vulnerability to domestic violence and trafficking in women. The book also explores the impact of micro level changes on development of civil society, women's movement, and legal and policy changes regarding violence against women. This is a unique book, which tries to look at violence against women as connected to oppression of both women and men. It argues that violence against women in post-communist and war affected societies is significantly connected to the increase of social stratification, economic hardship, unemployment, instability, uncertainty and related social stresses, changes in gender identity and structural inequalities brought by new world order. Using largely accounts of more than hundred interviewed people, the author shows vividly how, in post-communist societies, the contradictions of capitalism are interlaced with the mostly negative relics of communism. Moreover, the book shows how contradictory processes in post-communist societies have led to a rather paradoxical result: political pluralism and a capitalist economic system generated both violence against women and a women's movement, albeit not the conditions for a reduction of violence.

Modern relativism and postmodern thought in culture and language challenge the 'truth' of history. This book considers how historians, confined by argument of their own cultures, can still discover truths about the past.

This multidisciplinary volume provides a unique and truly global collection of research on the nature of dating, mating, and coupling, as they occur across a variety of cultures in dynamically shifting societies.