Social Change In Southern Communities

How Does Social Change Occur

According to the article, “Fund for Southern Communities, What is social change(FSC),” Social change is “the structural transformation of political, social and economic systems and, institutions to create a more equitable and just society.” In other words through cooperation, and organization of the people changes can occur for their benefit. These organizations form when a group of people are dissatisfied with the actions of the government or something that occurred in their community. As agitation and organization builds the people form groups with the fixed mentality of causing the change that they desire. Social change can come about in one of two ways. The first way is from the top down, where the government proposes a change that has to occur for example; President Obama is attempting to have passed into law that to have a job anywhere, a person needs at least two years of college. The social can also occur from bottom to top, where the people rally together and get their senators and community leaders involved in making a change. For example, Ms. Black was named Chancellor of New York City schools by Mayor Bloomberg. Parents worked with their senators and councilmen to have her removed because she lacked the qualifications necessary for the job.
Why is Social Change necessary?
Social Change is necessary because its democracy in practice. Democracy is where people rule, so the government is so post to be working for the people. That is why we have elections. When the government fails to satisfy the people, the people have the right to ban together or write letters to their congress people in order to promote change for their community. For example, in this past election many of the democratic congressmen and senators were voted out of office and replaced with republicans because the people were unhappy with the job that the democrats had
done. According to Jim Buie in his article, “How does Social change happen (HdSCh)” any change involving economics, culture, politics, or religion is very slow. He feels that any change involving anyone of those social forces takes at least a lifetime in order to come into effect. He uses health care as example, because even though President Obama passed a law changing health care, in reality congress is going to continue to debate the changes on whether they are for the better or worse behalf of the people. There for other changes will take place before true health care reform is set in stone. Mr. Bui also compared the leadership styles of President Obama and President Clinton. Clinton used the top to bottom approach in making changes. He would gather in a room the union leaders, business leaders, and government leaders in order to create a policy. On the other hand President Obama used the bottom up theory where he builds a base in the country to activate people to create change at the top. I agree with the bottom up theory, because even though it may take longer to go into effect when the changes are solid it is always in the benefit of the people. As long as we live in a Democratic society there will be social changes occurring either from the top down or the bottom up. People change; communities change; and beliefs change. In order to remain constant with what is good for the people, there will always be social changes.

Reference Page 1. Fund for Southern Communities, “What is Social Change?” http://www.fundforsouth.org\social_change.htm 2. Cutting Through The Clutter of Information Overload, “How does Social Change Happen?” Jim Buie http://jimbuie.blogs.com\journal\2008\03\how-does-social.html