Sociology 448
Seminar: Social Change
Fall 2003
Dr. Scott Schaffer

Grammar of Social Change

The questions below are designed to help you highlight the essential players in any sociological theory or study of social change. They can, of course, be expanded ad infinitum to cover the particulars of any situation of social change, so feel free to push on these questions for the sake of deepening your understanding of how it all plays out.

Who?: Who wants social change? Who resists it? Who’s on the sidelines? What other players exist in the realm in which social change is occurring?

What?: What kinds of social change are being pursued?

Where?: What kind of society is this process of social change taking place in? What is the institutional terrain dictating how the social change is taking place?

When?: What set of historical, political, social and economic conditions govern how this social change takes place? What other factors at different levels of analysis impact on the process of social change?

Why?: What are the stated reasons for pursuing social change? For resisting it?

How?: What kinds of tactics are used to pursue social change? To resist it? What is the overall strategy?

How much?: How much will the system change? (reform or revolution question)