Revision summary
Science and technology are major forces of social change and are also steered institutions. Marx, Weber, Ogburn and Merton offer different angles on this role. Online education can archive and extend lessons for connected students. It exposes a digital divide of devices, space and home support. Schooling is socialisation as well as content, which a screen only partly supplies. The sound opinion is public digital infrastructure plus the school, not replacement by platforms.
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 societies produce, heal, fight, communicate and teach. They are among the strongest forces of modern social change. They are also social institutions, funded and steered by states, firms and professions. A critical examination must hold both sides. Online education is a current test of that double view.
Body
Roles in social change
- William Ogburn spoke of cultural lag: material technology moves first, and norms catch up later. Karl Marx treated the forces of production, including tools and knowledge, as a motor of change, always inside relations of property. Max Weber saw rationalisation and technical means as part of the disenchantment of the world. Science, as Robert Merton described it, has an ethos of organised scepticism, yet it also needs patronage. Green revolution seeds, vaccines, railways and mobile phones have remade Indian rural and urban life. They have also created new inequalities of skill, capital and risk, as in industrial disasters and in data extraction.
Technology does not determine a single path. The same digital network can support a public health campaign and a rumour mill. Langdon Winner and later STS scholars argue that artefacts can embody social choices. Social change through science is therefore real, powerful and politically directed.
Online education and teaching
Online education expanded sharply during COVID-19. It can reach a student who has a device and a signal, and it can archive lectures. SWAYAM and other Indian platforms show a public effort to widen access. That is a genuine gain for some working students and for remote coaching.
The same trend deepens the digital divide. ASER and other studies showed that many children lacked devices, quiet space or literate help at home. Teaching is not only content delivery. It is socialisation, peer group, discipline and the hidden curriculum that Bourdieu linked to cultural capital. A screen lesson can weaken those functions. Surveillance of students, commercial platforms and a market in recorded coaching can turn education into a commodity more than a public good. Teachers’ labour is also reorganised, sometimes without security.
My opinion is that online tools should remain a supplement and a public infrastructure, not a cheap replacement for the school as a social institution. Science and technology should widen equal access to knowledge. When they are left to private platforms and uneven households, they speed change for some and leave others further behind.
Flow diagram
Conclusion
Science and technology drive social change as productive forces and as institutions of power. Online education can extend teaching, but it cannot replace the school’s social functions for most children. A critical view supports public digital access and keeps face-to-face education at the centre.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Discuss various theories of social change. Explain the limitations of unilinear theory of social change
Next question on this syllabus topic (2024 · Q8(b)). View answer →
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Is opposition to online teaching anti-science?
No. A sociological opinion can support science and still say that teaching is a social relationship, not only a file transfer.
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Can online education reduce inequality?
It can, if devices, language and public platforms are equalised. Without that, it often reproduces household advantage.
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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2021 · Q8(c) · Sociology GS 1 · 15 marks
Highlight the roles and functions of civil society in a democratic system. -
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. -
2024 · Q8(b) · Sociology GS 1 · 20 marks
Discuss various theories of social change. Explain the limitations of unilinear theory of social change
More from this topic
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.
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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.
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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.