Exploring Social Change Process and Context

by Wessels, Bridgette

• ISBN13: 9780230361041
• ISBN10: 0230361048
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-11-14
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Social change is intrinsic to our social lives and to the study of the social sciences. The interaction of changes within different contexts – economic, political and cultural – shapes our life experience.

But how exactly do we define social change, and how can we recognise its significance to contemporary life? In this critical and dynamic text, Bridgette Wessels explores social change as a process, which enables us to better understand the world we live in and how it changes over time.

Through this insightful conceptual framework, the book analyses a number of key sites of social change, from personal experience and everyday life, to work and production, consumerism, communication, diversity and power formations. Introducing and placing the study of social change within its historical, theoretical and contemporary context, Exploring Social Change is a significant resource for students across the social sciences.

Author Biography

Bridgette Wessels is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Director of the Centre of Interdisciplinary Research in Socio-digital Worlds at the University of Sheffield, UK. Her research and writing focuses on social change and the innovation and use of digital services in everyday life.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Exploring Social Change
3. Key Periods of Change
4. Exploring Dimensions of Change
5. Everyday Life and Social Change
6. Work, Production and Social Change
7. Social Change and Consumerism
8. The Creative and Cultural Industries
9. Changes in Communication
10. Difference, Diversity and Contesting Power
11. Conclusion