Journal on Social Change: The role of Social Change in Poverty Reduction

1. INTRODUCTION
This paper discuss about the social change and its role in poverty reduction. It comprises mainly five parts includes, introduction, the theoretical review, empirical and policy review and conclusion. The paper explains in details the context of social change, their meaning, its processes, theories of social change and factors which influences the change to take place resulting in poverty reduction.

2. THEORETICAL LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 The concept of social change
Social change (or 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 implies 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.

Social change is the structural transformation of political, social economic, culture system and institution to create equitable chances and justice.
Social change implies the change of individual, society, community, institution e.t.c. So social change or social development is a general term which refers to change in nature, the social institutions, the social relations of a society, community of people, or other social structures or event or affects a group of individual that have shared values or characteristics, acts of advocacy for the cause of changing society in a normative way. (Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia wikipedia.org/wiki/social-change 12/5/2007).

The specific meaning of social change depends first on the social entity considered , changes in a small group may be important on the level of that group itself but negligible on the level of the larger society(Britannica, 2006). Also social change has been described as the changes at the societal, community, or group level of the patterns of interaction , relations and other social phenomenon over time which pervades the activities of all human social and is basic to the understanding of society.

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

Theories of sociobiology
These theories are discussed below as follows:-

2.2.1 Evolution theory
This theory was born in the early nineteenth century after the industrial revolution and the French revolution .These two revolution not only shattered the old social order but also laid the foundation for new one, the industrial revolution, with its application of science and technology, led to rising productivity , a new factory production system and the conquest of the world market, the French revolution creates a whole new political order based on equality, liberty, freedom and parliamentary democracy.

2.2.2 The classical evolutionary theory
This theory assumed that social change is unidirectional, that is human society invariably moves along one direction from a primitive to advanced state ( comte, 1964)

2.2.3 Functionalist theory
The theory states that human society is like a biological organism and can be studied , that is the different parts Of a biological Organism can be studied to correspond to the different institution s that make up a society. Each part of a biological organism performs a specific function for the good of the whole , so each institutions performs a certain function for the stability and growth of the society. A biological organism is always in a uniform state, if one of the parts changes, the other parts will change accordingly in order to restore equilibrium and reduce tension, society also observes the rhythms needed for homoeostasis: There are constant interaction among institution to maintain homoeostatic equilibrium, when one institution experiences social change it cause a chain of reaction of changes in other institutions so as to restore equilibrium. Parsons assumes that institutions will generally be in harmony , rather than conflict with one another furthermore, as a biological organism will not kill itself , so parsons assumes that society will not destroy its existing institutions.

2.2.4 Marxist theory
Suggest that changes in model of production can lead to changes in class system , which can prompt other new form of change in class system which can prompt other new forms of change or incite class conflict

2.3 CHARACTERISTICS OF SOCIAL CHANGE
· Social change occurs all the time
· There is no society that is still and unchanging
· The change involves wide societal processes and mechanism but can occur in interpersonal relationships between people
· Social change has a rate
· Change can be rapid or slow, if it is rapid, it can be somewhat destabilizing.
· Social change is universal phenomenon, some scholar have discovered primitive societies which have recorded little change does not invalidate the fact that those societies are changing, change has become so universal that it has been contended, that most human societies today are converging towards a common technological age.

2.4 FACTORS INFLUENCING SOCIAL CHANGE
2.4.1 Population change
Increase in population causes changes in occupational structure, availability of resource, adjustments in class relationship.
Overcrowding and attendant criminal activities are becoming more wide spread

2.4.2 Education
It open up new avenue for the educated such an employment opportunities and improved life chances.
It gives opportunities for greater exposure, knowledge and hence lay foundation for new altitude and values .

2.4.3 Technological advancement
It leads to imbalance in the economic relationship between economic agents, this lead to change in social balance of power, therefore leading to social change in social balance of power, therefore leading to social change

2.4.4 Industrialization
The industrialization increases the level of urbanization, social and geographical Mobility. The acquisition of a new or more specialized skills results in some movement up the social ladder.

2.4.5 Globalization
This caused the community to learn a new culture which may affect their culture , hence caused the changes within a community .

2.4.6 Cultural transmission
Families play a major role in the propagation of new activities once they win the support of society. It is the family that educates the younger generation and transmits to them such social value as self- restraint, responsibility and the skills and occupational training of the parents the propagation of a new activity, it is a sure that the new activity has become an integral part of the society.

2.4.7 Resources capacity
The role of physical resources tends to diminish as society moves higher levels in scale of development. Correspondingly the role of non-material resources keeps increasing as development advances. One of the non-material resources is the information, greater access of the resources helps increase the pace of its development. i.e rising productivity of societies in spine of a limited physical resources base.


3. EMPIRICAL LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1 Information as an agent of social change in Tanzania
Before 1961 there were few libraries that existed used by Europeans and a few Asians, most of the libraries were located in major towns and cities deliberately, as they were strategic to the colonial administration. After independence in 1961, Tanzania inherited the colonial environment and it took time to change and to build new infrastructures. Multi-party democracy was introduced in the early 1980s. Nyerere was committed to education, people and the development of the country and under him public libraries flourished, but they deteriorated rapidly after this time.

Women are disadvantage in Tanzania from primary school level upwards. They are expected to take care of the family, not use libraries. Poor people are disadvantaged as they cannot afford to use the system. The rural base population is disadvantaged as public libraries are in cities and tend to operate on the false notion that libraries are academics only. These librarians depend greatly on organizations such as Book Aid International for resources, but these resources are in English, and Tanzanians speak Kiswahili. The World Bank sometimes even insists that its money spent in the USA. It is difficult for libraries to purchase even materials published in Dar-Es-Salaam. This is haphazard provision of materials does not consider the information needs of the communities of Tanzania (http//www.libr.org/isc/articales/Tanzania.html)

But now, distance education is a new development and most institutions which are supposed to provide support to distance education, like public libraries, documentation centers and other information units, are not aware of the needs of distance education students. This suggests that every staff provision cannot articulate clearly or cater for needs of these new users. Therefore they cannot provide for the needs of distance learning students. This has been stipulated by all theorists of distance education.

For instance, in 1993 the Open University of Tanzania was established. It is the first Open University apart from which was established in the 1940s in South Africa. In 1994 it enrolled something like 700 students. Today it has more than 5000 students who are studying for BA, BA education, B.Com, B.Com education, LLB, BSc, BSc for Education, and Foundation courses. Clearly there was a social demand and manpower demand for having such an institution. The people have been asking for this type of education for quite some time, there were only two universities in Tanzania which were not able to cater the demand of the Tanzanian.

4. POLICY REVIEW
The Government of Tanzania developed policies on poverty elevation. A multi-focus approach to poverty reduction and elutriation is the central to economic in Tanzania. A policy on poverty is now under consideration. Its overall eradication goal, objectives and strategies are oriented toward are:-
· Creating an environment for effective poverty eradication
· Empowering the poor to participate in poverty eradication programmes
· Promoting of poverty eradication initiatives and promoting equality opportunities for men and women to lead a decent and productive life.

Besides the Government, non-government, community are religious organisation are playing an important role in eradicating poverty. This organization has been particularly active in provision of education, (Primary and secondary Schools) and health care is about 49% Hospitals in Country has been constructed and managed by the voluntary organisations. While in education sector is equally significant. Donor agencies have also active partners in poverty eradication efforts.

Tanzania adopted a National Population Policy (NPP) in 1992. The policy recognises that there is no simple cause and effect relationship between population growth and economic growth, and that population growth may not be the primary obstacle to development. Nevertheless, it is appreciated that a high population growth rate aggravates the difficult economic situation and renders remedial measures more difficult. At the micro level, a rapid and high population growth rate results in increased outlays on private and public consumption, drawing resources away from savings for productive investment. The NPP spells out as its principal objective, the reinforcement of national development through exploiting available resources to improve the quality of life of the people, with special emphasis on regulating population growth rate, enhancing the quality of life, and improving the health and welfare of women and children.

Human resource development refers to both physical and mental well-being. It involves developing the physical and mental faculties of people so that they are better able to control and skilfully manage the different aspects of life and environment. Such development is fundamental in building a strong, resilient and competitive economy. Tanzania’s history since independence shows that it has pursued poverty and illiteracy; Universal Primary Education (UPE); introduction of the philosophy of education for self reliance; and diversification of secondary education, interfacing work with education as well as expansion of secondary schools and tertiary and higher education institutions.

5. CONCLUSION
Social change is a topic in sociology, but also involves political science, economics, history, anthropology, social work and many other social sciences. Among many forms of creating social change are theater for social change, direct action, protesting, advocacy, community organizing, revolution, and political activism. Therefore, Social change is very important process within the community because it may change the altitude and behavior of the community and bring the new culture and development of the community.