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Social development redirects here. For the aspect of human biological development, see psychosocial development

Social change (that is not quite an equivalent of Social development) is a general term which refers to:

• change in the nature, the social institutions, the social behaviour or the social relations of a society, community of people, or other social structures.
• any event or action that affects a group of individuals that have shared values or characteristics.
• acts of advocacy for the cause of changing society in a normative way (subjective).

The term is used in the study of history, economies, and politics, and includes topics such as the success or failure of different political systems, globalization, democratization, development and economic growth. The term can encompass concepts as broad as revolution and paradigm shift, to narrow changes such as a particular cause within small town government. The concept of social change imply measurement of some characteristics of this group of individuals. While the term is usually applied to changes that are beneficial to society, it may result in negative side-effects or consequences that undermine or eliminate existing ways of life that are considered positive.

Social change is a topic in sociology and social work , but also involves political science, economics, history, anthropology, and many other social sciences.

Among many forms of creating social change are theater for social change, direct action, protesting, advocacy, community organizing, community practice, revolution, and political activism.

Some social change is almost always occurring, but many different theories have attempted to explain significant social changes in history.

These theories include (but are not limited to):

1. the idea of decline or degeneration, or, in religious terms, the fall from an original state of grace, connected with theology;
2. the idea of cyclical change, a pattern of subsequent and recurring phases of growth and decline, and the social cycles;
3. the idea of continuous social progress;
4. Marx's historical materialism;
5. Evolutionary theories (how one social form evolves into another), including social Darwinism;
6. Theories of sociobiology

• Important publications in social change
• Community development
• Community practice
• Culture change
• Generative actor
• Historical institutionalism
• Social
• Social decline
• Social development theory
• Social disintegration
• Social innovation
• Social movement
• Social relations
• Social work
• Sociocultural evolution
• Societal collapse
• Union Organizer

Gene Shackman, Ya-Lin Liu and Xun Wang. Measuring quality of life using free and public domain data. Social Research Update, Issue 47, Autumn, 2005. Available at http://sru.soc.surrey.ac.uk/