Syllabus
Annotation
The aim of this subject is to familiarize students with the basic issues linked to the topic of social change. Social change may relate to demographic processes, social structures, cultural patterns, societies and their subsystems, organizations, institutions or groups.
They may have different scopes (total - partial), severity and depth (deep - surface level), durations (long - short term) and speed (fast - slow). The problem of social change is explained through theories aimed at describing change in a theoretical way as well as explaining it.
The theoretical descriptions on which the class is based primarily focus upon the nature of the expression and direction of change (replacing what with what; what increases or decreases? Is it linear, cyclic or jumping?). Explanations focus primarily on issues such as: what are the sources of dynamism and innovation? What are the agents of change and what factors influence its course?