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Society and Its Types

Society can be categorized into different types based on their economic systems and level of technological advancement. The earliest and simplest form of human society was hunting and gathering societies. As agriculture developed, horticultural and pastoral societies emerged, relying on small-scale farming and herding, respectively. With advances in plowing and irrigation, agricultural societies produced large food surpluses. The Industrial Revolution led to industrial societies where machine production dominated. Today, most developed nations are considered post-industrial societies that rely on specialized knowledge and information technologies.

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33 views11 pages

Society and Its Types

Society can be categorized into different types based on their economic systems and level of technological advancement. The earliest and simplest form of human society was hunting and gathering societies. As agriculture developed, horticultural and pastoral societies emerged, relying on small-scale farming and herding, respectively. With advances in plowing and irrigation, agricultural societies produced large food surpluses. The Industrial Revolution led to industrial societies where machine production dominated. Today, most developed nations are considered post-industrial societies that rely on specialized knowledge and information technologies.

Uploaded by

Shane
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SOCIETY

MEANING OF SOCIETY

- The Latin word “Societas” means friend, ally or interaction between people.

- A community of people engaging with each other through persistent relationships, or a


broad social grouping occupying the same geographical or social territory, normally
subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations.

- A complex of mutual relationship classes, communicating with each other, allowing


human organisms to carry on their life activities and helping each person, in association
with their fellows, to fulfill their wishes and fulfill their interests.

- Society is a group of persons joined together for a common purpose or by a common


interest. They come to learn and perform the behavior expected of them.
THE MEANING OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

• The study of how social, political and cultural principles influence scientific research and
technological progress, and how they, in turn, impact society.
• Refers to the relationship of science and technology with the socio-cultural, political and
economic environments that form and shape them; concrete examples of scientific and
technological advances throughout human history.
• A relatively young field which brings together previously independent and older
disciplines, such as science history, science philosophy of science and sociology.
• As an academic field, STS according to Harvard University’s Kennedy School (2018),
traces its root from interwar period and start of the Cold War.
• The growth of STS as an academic field resulted from the realization that many schools
today do not really prepare students to respond to the challenges raised by science and
technology in the current term objectively, reflectively and proactively.
• As an interdisciplinary field, the advent of STS was the product of concerns about the
complex relationship of science and technology with different facets of society, which was
seen as a socially embedded community.
TYPES OF SOCIETIES
Hunting and food gathering societies

- This is the earliest form of human society and the simplest of all societies.
- People survived by foraging for vegetable foods, fishing, hunting larger wild
animals, and collecting shellfish
- They depended, to a large extent, on tools made of stones, wood and bones.
- Males were the hunters. The females were tasked with child care and plant food
gathering
- are nomadic
- have only a few dozen members
- family-centered
- consider men and women roughly equal in social importance
- Examples: San peoples of Southern Africa (including the Ju/’hoansi people,
formerly referred to by outsiders as Kung); Inuit (Eskimo) and other northern
Canadian peoples; Pygmies of Central Africa; Semai of Malaysia
Horticultural societies
- Believed to have started some 12,000 to 15,000 years ago.
- is the simplest type of farming based on growing crops in gardens using hand tools such as
the hoe or digging stick
- Anthropologists agree that women invented this new and revolutionary form of food
production- deliberately planting seeds with the idea of having a source of food in the future.
- No fertilizers, no pesticides, no animals used to plow, no irrigation systems
- Variety of foods grown, often in the same field: yams, bananas, maize, manioc, beans, etc.
- A major technique of horticulturalists is shifting cultivation, sometimes called swidden
cultivation or the slash-and-burn method which involves clearing the land by manually cutting
down the growth, burning it, and planting in the burned area
- Horticulturalists usually grow enough food for their subsistence
- May also produce a small surplus of food for purposes such as inter-village feasts and
exchange
- Horticulturalists sometimes engage in some foraging as well, although the food from their
garden is their main source of subsistence
- Yanomamo of Brazil are a good example of this
Pastoral societies

• Relies on herding and domestication of animals for food and clothing


to satisfy the bulk of the group’s needs.
• Here, animals raised provide milk, dung (for fuel), sheared fur, and
even blood (which was drunk as a major source of protein in East
Africa).
• Most pastoralists are nomads who follow their herds in a never-
ending quest for pasture and water.
• Pastoral societies are organized along male-centered kinship
groups.
• Pastoral societies develop in many regions not suitable for plant
domestication, for example, Northern Tundra plains in Europe and
Asia. Pastoralism never occurs in forest or jungle regions
Agricultural societies
• Developed 5,000 years ago
• involves growing crops on permanent plots with the use of
plowing, irrigation, and fertilizer
• By about 5,500 BC, farmers in the Middle East were not only
using the plow but irrigation thus farming became capable of
producing huge surpluses – enough to feed numbers of people
who did not produce food themselves.
• Examples: Medieval Europe, Egypt during the construction of
the Great Pyramid, and in Babylon – the cradle of Western
civilization about 3,000 years ago.
Industrial societies

• These societies rose in connection with the Industrial Revolution


• Around 1750, industrialism used mechanical means (machine and chemical
processes) for the production of goods.
• It requires an immense, mobile diversity of specialized, highly skilled, and well-
coordinated labor force. Many members of the labor force need to be educated,
at least to be able to read and write.
• Cities contain most of the population; and provide many modern conveniences
and advanced forms of transportation and communication
• Industrialism brought about a tremendous shift in population. Over the past
century and a half, a huge number of rural peasants have migrated from the
countryside to the cities, transforming themselves into the urban masses.
• Reduces the traditional importance of family. Kinship now plays a much smaller
role in patterning public affairs.
• Examples: Most societies today in Europe, North America, Australia and Japan
Post-industrial societies
• Depends on specialized knowledge to bring about continuing
progress in technology.
• One characteristic of this society is the spread of the computer
industry. Advances in the field are made by highly trained
specialists who work to increase the capabilities of computers.
• Requires a population with information-based skills

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