Social change

About: Social change is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 61197 publications have been published within this topic receiving 1797013 citations.

Friendship Quality and Social Development

Abstract: A high-quality friendship is characterized by high levels of prosocial behavior, intimacy, and other positive features, and low levels of conflicts, rivalry, and other negative features. Friendship quality has been assumed to have direct effects on many aspects of children's social development, including their self-esteem and social adjustment. Recent research suggests, however, that friendship quality affects primarily children's success in the social world of peers. Friendship quality could also have indirect effects, by magnifying or diminishing the influence of friends on each other's attitudes and behaviors. Having high-quality friendships may lessen children's tendencies to imitate the behavior of shy and withdrawn friends, but little evidence supports the hypothesis that high-quality friendships magnify friends’ influence.

The social environment and health: a discussion of the epidemiologic literature.

Abstract: The environment can be thought of in terms of physical and social dimensions. The social environment includes the groups to which we belong, the neighborhoods in which we live, the organization of our workplaces, and the policies we create to order our lives. There have been recent reports in the literature that the social environment is associated with disease and mortality risks, independent of individual risk factors. These findings suggest that the social environment influences disease pathways. Yet much remains to be learned about the social environment, including how to understand, define, and measure it. The research that needs to be done could benefit from a long tradition in sociology and sociological research that has examined the urban environment, social areas, social disorganization, and social control. We summarize this sociological literature and discuss its relevance to epidemiologic research.

Towards a Sociology of Forced Migration and Social Transformation

Abstract: Forced migration - including refugee flows, asylum seekers, internal displacement and development-induced displacement - has increased considerably in volume and political significance since the end of the Cold War. It has become an integral part of North-South relationships and is closely linked to current processes of global social transformation. This makes it as important for sociologists to develop empirical research and analysis on forced migration as it is to include it in their theoretical understandings of contemporary society. The study of forced migration is linked to research on economic migration, but has its own specific research topics, methodological problems and conceptual issues. Forced migration needs to be analysed as a social process in which human agency and social networks play a major part. It gives rise to fears of loss of state control, especially in the context of recent concerns about migration and security. In this context, it is essential to question earlier sociological appr...

Disruptive innovation for social change.

Abstract: Countries, organizations, and individuals around the globe spend aggressively to solve social problems, but these efforts often fail to deliver Misdirected investment is the primary reason for that failure Most of the money earmarked for social initiatives goes to organizations that are structured to support specific groups of recipients, often with sophisticated solutions Such organizations rarely reach the broader populations that could be served by simpler alternatives There is, however, an effective way to get to those underserved populations The authors call it "catalytic innovation" Based on Clayton Christensen's disruptive-innovation model, catalytic innovations challenge organizational incumbents by offering simpler, good-enough solutions aimed at underserved groups Unlike disruptive innovations, though, catalytic innovations are focused on creating social change Catalytic innovators are defined by five distinct qualities First, they create social change through scaling and replication Second, they meet a need that is either overserved (that is, the existing solution is more complex than necessary for many people) or not served at all Third, the products and services they offer are simpler and cheaper than alternatives, but recipients view them as good enough Fourth, they bring in resources in ways that initially seem unattractive to incumbents And fifth, they are often ignored, put down, or even encouraged by existing organizations, which don't see the catalytic innovators' solutions as viable As the authors show through examples in health care, education, and economic development, both nonprofit and for-profit groups are finding ways to create catalytic innovation that drives social change