Revision summary
Science and technology remake production, health, and communication. Marx embedded tools in class relations; Ogburn named cultural lag. Weber treated science as a cultural order, not a neutral engine. Green Revolution, unpaid care, and platforms show unequal effects. Beck’s risk society names manufactured uncertainties.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Science and technology change how people produce, communicate, and die. They do not change society by themselves. Social relations decide who invents, who owns, and who is displaced. A critical analysis treats tools as socially embedded.
Body
How they change society
- Karl Marx treated new productive forces as unsettling old relations, from the hand-mill to the steam-mill in a famous formula, always inside class.
- William Ogburn’s cultural lag: material culture moves first, norms trail, producing strain.
- Medical and contraceptive technologies reshaped fertility, which NFHS still tracks. Digital networks reshape publics.
Critical limits
- Technological determinism forgets Max Weber’s point that rational science itself is a cultural order of disenchantment.
- Labour-saving tools can cheapen labour or throw it out, as Braverman argued about machines and management.
- Green Revolution raised yields and also differentiated rural classes and groundwater stress.
- Digital platforms create gig informality as well as access to information.
Gender and caste
- Ann Oakley’s unpaid care is not automatically cut by gadgets; standards of housework may rise.
- Caste can follow into labs, IITs, and algorithmically sorted jobs.
State and science
- Big science is a state and corporate project. The Indian nuclear, space, and Aadhaar stacks are political technologies.
- Risk society, after Ulrich Beck, names manufactured uncertainties that science both causes and is asked to fix.
Verdict
- Science and technology are powerful levers of change in production, health, and communication.
- Direction of change follows property, state, and honour, not the gadget alone.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD ST[Science technology] --> PF[Productive forces] ST --> COM[Communication health] REL[Class state gender] --> DIR[Direction of change] PF[PF] --> DIR[DIR] COM[COM] --> DIR[DIR]
Conclusion
Science and technology bring change by remaking production, bodies, and publics. Marx, Ogburn, Weber, and Beck prevent a hymn to gadgets. Indian agriculture, care, and digital stacks show both gain and new inequality.
Quick related
Students also ask
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"Social conflict is both a cause and a consequence of social change." Explain.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2016 · Q5(e)). View answer →
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Does every invention cause progress?
It causes change. Progress is a value judgment about who gains.
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Can society reject a technology?
Movements delay or reshape adoption, as with some large dams and GM debates.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2024 · Q5(e) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Critically examine the roles of science and technology in social change. What is your opinion on their increasing trend in 'online' education and teaching? -
2026 · Q1(e) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Explain in brief the relationship between social movement, collective action and revolution in bringing about social and political changes. -
2026 · Q1(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
Discuss the role of geographical factors in social change and development. -
2026 · Q8(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Critically evaluate the relevance of the cyclical theory of social change in understanding contemporary societies -
2025 · Q5(e) · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks
To what extent can education and skill development be an agent of social change? Critically analyze.
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Q8(b) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks · Solution
Critically evaluate the relevance of the cyclical theory of social change in understanding contemporary societies
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This model answer evaluates the cyclical theory of social change for contemporary societies. It analyses how classical cyclical models help explain recurring crises, institutional decay, and cultural revivals. It then highlights the limitations of cyclical theories, such as ignoring linear technological progress, cumulative scientific knowledge, and modern globalisation. The response integrates classical sociological thinkers and concludes with a balanced perspective on contemporary social transformation.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2026 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks · Solution
Discuss the role of geographical factors in social change and development.
Social Change in Modern Society
This model answer for UPSC Mains Sociology evaluates the role of geographical factors in social change and development. It moves beyond strict environmental determinism to examine how topography, climate, and natural resources shape settlement patterns, economic systems, and social stratification. Classical perspectives from Montesquieu to modern ecological approaches are integrated with examples like river valley civilizations and contemporary climate migration. The answer maintains a crisp, examiner-facing style with structural headings and a flowchart.
Q5(e) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Sociology GS 1 · 10 marks · Solution
To what extent can education and skill development be an agent of social change? Critically analyze.
Social Change in Modern Society
Durkheim and Parsons treat schooling as moral and role socialisation, a force of change. Human capital and capability approaches link skill to productivity and freedom. Bourdieu and correspondence theorists show reproduction of class through the school. Indian expansion of education has created new aspirations and some mobility. Coaching, English, caste and credential inflation limit the equalising effect. The extent is partial: necessary for change, insufficient as a sole agent.