D2.Soc.10.9-12: How Social Structures and Cultures Change
In plain English: D2.Soc.10.9-12 is the C3 Framework sociology indicator for grades 9-12 that asks students to analyze how social structures and cultures change. Students trace a change from its source, such as a new technology or the growth of cities, to its effects on relationships, institutions and customs, and they explain why some parts of a culture change later than others.
Analyze how social structures and cultures change.
C3 Framework for Social Studies (NCSS) · Dimension 2: Applying Disciplinary Concepts and Tools · Discipline: Sociology · Social Structure: Culture, Institutions, and Society · Official standard
D2.Soc.10.9-12 asks students to analyze how social structures and cultures change. A social structure is the lasting pattern of relationships, roles and institutions in a society, such as where people live, how work is divided and how families are organized. A culture is a group's shared way of life: its material culture (objects and technology) and its nonmaterial culture (customs, beliefs, values, laws). To analyze a change, students name its source, trace its effects on structure and culture, and ask why some parts change faster than others.
The lesson pairs Robert E. Park's 1925 essay on how the growing city changed relationships and institutions with William F. Ogburn's 1922 hypothesis of cultural lag, a U.S. Census Bureau table of the urban and rural population from 1900 to 1990, and an invented case with invented data. Students plan studies on paper only.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
Define social structure, material culture and nonmaterial culture, and tell a change in structure from a change in culture
Analyze how a source of change, such as a technology or the growth of cities, changes relationships, institutions and customs
Explain Ogburn's hypothesis of cultural lag and apply it to a historical or invented case
Compute and interpret changes in counts and shares from Census data and an invented survey, and state what the numbers cannot show
Evaluate competing readings of change, such as decline and reorganization, with evidence
Prior Knowledge Required
Students should already be comfortable with:
The role of social institutions in society D2.Soc.9.9-12
Major components of culture D2.Soc.6.9-12
Computing a percentage-point change and a percent change
"Name one thing teenagers commonly did in the 1950s that teenagers rarely do now. What changed first: the tools people used, the way people lived and worked, or the rules and customs?"
Sort answers into three columns on the board: tools and technology, how people live and work (structure), and customs and rules (culture). Point out that one change often sets off the others, and not all at the same speed. Today's question: how do social structures and cultures change, and why do some parts move first?
Direct Instruction20 minutes
Key terms (definitions and examples written for this page)
Term
Meaning
Example
Social structure
Lasting patterns of relationships, roles and institutions
Most adults working for wages away from home
Material culture
Objects, tools and technology a group makes and uses
Cars, telephones, factories
Nonmaterial culture
Customs, beliefs, values, norms and laws
Rules for dating, greetings, traffic laws
Primary relations
Direct, face-to-face, personal relationships
Family, close neighbors, a small-town shopkeeper
Secondary relations
Indirect, impersonal relationships for a purpose
A bus driver and riders, a clerk in a large store
Cultural lag
Delay between a change in one part of culture and the adjustment of a dependent part
Safety rules arriving years after a new machine
Sources of change. Sociologists look for what starts a change: a new technology or invention, a change in population (growth, migration, the growth of cities), a change in the economy, ideas spreading from other groups, and conflict between groups. A change in one place can move through the whole society because institutions and customs depend on one another.
Robert E. Park (1864-1944) wrote this essay as the first chapter of The City, a 1925 book by Park and two colleagues published by the University of Chicago Press. Source warning: Source 1 is a set of suggestions for research, not a report of findings. Park's claims about the city, including his judgment that its influences are "disintegrating," are hypotheses he wanted tested, and the essay gives no data for them.
1Modern methods of urban transportation and communication—the electric railway, the automobile, the telephone, and the radio—have silently and rapidly changed in recent years the social and industrial organization of the modern city. They have been the means of concentrating traffic in the business districts, have changed the whole character of retail trade, multiplying the residence suburbs and making the department store possible. These changes in the industrial organization and in the distribution of population have been accompanied by corresponding changes in the habits, sentiments, and character of the urban population.
2The general nature of these changes is indicated by the fact that the growth of cities has been accompanied by the substitution of indirect, “secondary,” for direct, face-to-face, “primary” relations in the associations of individuals in the community.
[...]
3Touch and sight, physical contact, are the basis for the first and most elementary human relationships. Mother and child, husband and wife, father and son, master and servant, kinsman and neighbor, minister, physician, and teacher—these are the most intimate and real relationships of life, and in the small community they are practically inclusive.
4The interactions which take place among the members of a community so constituted are immediate and unreflecting. Intercourse is carried on largely within the region of instinct and feeling. Social control arises, for the most part spontaneously, in direct response to personal influences and public sentiment. It is the result of a personal accommodation, rather than the formulation of a rational and abstract principle.
5The church, the school, and the family.—In a great city, where the population is unstable, where parents and children are employed out of the house and often in distant parts of the city, where thousands of people live side by side for years without so much as a bowing acquaintance, these intimate relationships of the primary group are weakened and the moral order which rested upon them is gradually dissolved.
6Under the disintegrating influences of city life most of our traditional institutions, the church, the school, and the family, have been greatly modified. The school, for example, has taken over some of the functions of the family. It is around the public school and its solicitude for the moral and physical welfare of the children that something like a new neighborhood and community spirit tends to get itself organized.
7The church, on the other hand, which has lost much of its influence since the printed page has so largely taken the place of the pulpit in the interpretation of life, seems at present to be in process of readjustment to the new conditions.
Robert E. Park, Source 1: Park on how the city changed relationships and institutions (1925) (1925). Public domain (published 1925). Source text.
Then read Source 2. William F. Ogburn (1886-1959) was a sociologist at Columbia University in 1922. In the part left out before the last paragraph, he describes how Americans cut forests freely when they seemed plentiful, and how a policy of conservation was advocated once people realized that the forests would soon be gone. In the last paragraph he calls the earlier practice "the old policy of exploitation."
1The thesis is that the various parts of modern culture are not changing at the same rate, some parts are changing much more rapidly than others; and that since there is a correlation and interdependence of parts, a rapid change in one part of our culture requires readjustments through other changes in the various correlated parts of culture. For instance, industry and education are correlated, hence a change in industry makes adjustments necessary through changes in the educational system. Industry and education are two variables, and if the change in industry occurs first and the adjustment through education follows, industry may be referred to as the independent variable and education as the dependent variable. Where one part of culture changes first, through some discovery or invention, and occasions changes in some part of culture dependent upon it, there frequently is a delay in the changes occasioned in the dependent part of culture. The extent of this lag will vary according to the nature of the cultural material, but may exist for a considerable number of years, during which time there may be said to be a maladjustment. It is desirable to reduce the period of maladjustment, to make the cultural adjustments as quickly as possible.
[...]
2A first simple statement of the hypothesis we wish to investigate now follows. A large part of our environment consists of the material conditions of life and a large part of our social heritage is our material culture. These material things consist of houses, factories, machines, raw materials, manufactured products, foodstuffs and other material objects. In using these material things we employ certain methods. Some of these methods are as simple as the technique of handling a tool. But a good many of the ways of using the material objects of culture involve rather larger usages and adjustments, such as customs, beliefs, philosophies, laws, governments. [...] Sumner has called many of these processes of adjustments, mores. The cultural adjustments to material conditions, however, include a larger body of processes than the mores; certainly they include the folk ways and social institutions. These ways of adjustment may be called, for purposes of this particular analysis, the adaptive culture. The adaptive culture is therefore that portion of the non-material culture which is adjusted or adapted to the material conditions. Some parts of the non-material culture are thoroughly adaptive culture such as certain rules involved in handling technical appliances, and some parts are only indirectly or partially so, as for instance, religion. The family makes some adjustments to fit changed material conditions, while some of its functions remain constant. The family, therefore, under the terminology used here is a part of the non-material culture that is only partly adaptive. When the material conditions change, changes are occasioned in the adaptive culture. But these changes in the adaptive culture do not synchronize exactly with the change in the material culture. There is a lag which may last for varying lengths of time, sometimes indeed, for many years.
[...]
3That the conservation of forests in the United States should have been begun earlier is quite generally admitted. We may say, therefore, that the old policy of exploitation has hung over longer than it should before the institution of the new policy. In other words, the material conditions in regard to our forests have changed but the old customs of the use of forests which once fitted the material conditions very well have hung over into a period of changed conditions. [...]
William F. Ogburn, Source 2: Ogburn's hypothesis of cultural lag (1922) (1922; this edition 1928). Public domain (published 1928). Source text.
A technology changes structure and culture: Source 1, paragraph 1
Sort the effects of new transportation and communication that Park names into changes in structure and changes in culture.
Result: Structure: they "changed the whole character of retail trade" and moved people ("the distribution of population"). Culture: these changes were "accompanied by corresponding changes in the habits, sentiments, and character of the urban population." The technology came first; changes in structure and in habits followed.
Reading the Census table
By how many percentage points did the share of Americans living in urban areas rise from 1900 to 1950?
Result: 64.0 - 39.6 = 24.4 percentage points. A percentage point is a difference between two percents; it is not the same as a percent change, which would compare the rise with the 1900 share.
Cultural lag: Source 2, paragraph 3
Explain Ogburn's forest example in the terms of his hypothesis.
Result: The material conditions changed first: forests that once seemed plentiful were being used up. The adaptive culture, "the old customs of the use of forests which once fitted the material conditions very well," lagged and "hung over into a period of changed conditions." The gap between the two changes is the lag.
Material and adaptive culture: Source 2, paragraph 2
Why does Ogburn call the family only "partly adaptive"?
Result: "The family makes some adjustments to fit changed material conditions, while some of its functions remain constant." Part of family life shifts with new tools and work, such as who cooks or when meals happen, while other parts, such as caring for children, continue.
Census table: urban and rural population of the United States, 1900-1990 (U.S. Census Bureau, Table 1, Urban and Rural Population: 1900 to 1990, released October 1995). The Bureau delineates urban areas after each census by applying specified criteria, so the boundary between urban and rural is redrawn each decade. For 1970 and 1980 the source prints corrected totals, so urban plus rural differs slightly from the total in those two rows.
Census year
Total population
Urban
Rural
Percent urban
1900
76,212,168
30,214,832
45,997,336
39.6
1910
92,228,496
42,064,001
50,164,495
45.6
1920
106,021,537
54,253,282
51,768,255
51.2
1930
123,202,624
69,160,599
54,042,025
56.1
1940
132,164,569
74,705,338
57,459,231
56.5
1950
151,325,798
96,846,817
54,478,981
64.0
1960
179,323,175
125,268,750
54,054,425
69.9
1970
203,302,031
149,646,629
53,565,297
73.6
1980
226,542,199
167,050,992
59,494,813
73.7
1990
248,709,873
187,053,487
61,656,386
75.2
Close the segment: The Census table shows the structure of where people lived. Which parts of Park's Source 1 would you expect to change in the decades when the urban share grew fastest?
Guided Practice15 minutes
Use Diagram 2 and Source 2 together. Students work in pairs.
Point a. In Ogburn's hypothesis, what kind of change comes first, and where does it start?
Point b. What part of culture changes second, and why does it take longer?
The gap. What does Ogburn call the period between a and b, and does he think it should be long or short?
Test. Name one change from the warm-up board that fits the diagram, and one that does not.
Independent Practice15 minutes
Students read Source 3, an invented case with invented data, and use all three sources and the Census table for the quiz and homework.
1Invented case with invented data, written for this page. Lindell is an invented town of about 6,000 people. Until 2023, most adults worked daytime shifts at farms, shops and a food-packing plant. In 2024 a large warehouse opened and hired about 900 workers, many of them on night and weekend shifts.
2A parent group asked households to answer an online form about the year before and the year after the warehouse opened. Fifty households answered. Households in which everyone ate dinner together on most weekdays: 31 of 50 before, 19 of 50 after. Households with at least one adult working nights or weekends: 9 of 50 before, 22 of 50 after.
3Other things changed too. A grocery store began staying open until midnight, and two congregations added Sunday evening services. The school district kept its 7:30 a.m. start time and held its parent-teacher conferences at 4 p.m., as before; several night-shift parents said they could not attend.
4Sample warning: fifty volunteers who saw an online form are a small, self-selected sample, and they answered from memory about the year before. The numbers describe these households only, and they cannot show that the warehouse caused the changes.
SVHS (invented scenario), Source 3: A warehouse comes to Lindell (invented case with invented data) (2026). Original passage written for this page.
Task: make a change chain for Lindell with four boxes: Source of change, Change in structure, Change in culture, and Part that has not changed yet. Write one piece of evidence from Source 3 in each box.
Closure5-10 minutes
Exit ticket: "Name one change in your community from the last ten years. What started it, what changed in how people live or work, and what custom or rule has not caught up yet?"
Teacher notes. (1) Park and Ogburn wrote in the 1920s. Park lists "master and servant" among intimate relationships, and both men describe the city and the past in the terms of their time; treat their judgments ("disintegrating," "maladjustment") as interpretations to examine, not facts. (2) Ogburn's forest example, summarized above, is told from the point of view of the settlers who cleared the land; students can ask whose uses of the forests the account leaves out. (3) The Census table uses the Bureau's urban definitions for each census year. (4) Religion appears only as an institution adjusting to change; the lesson takes no position on any belief.
Differentiation Strategies
For Struggling Students
Give a two-column chart (Structure, Culture) with one example from Source 1 already placed in each column
Pre-mark the sentence in Source 2, paragraph 1 that states the hypothesis, and have students restate it in ten words or fewer
Provide a change-chain frame: "Source of change: ___. Change in structure: ___. Change in culture: ___. Part that lagged: ___."
For Advanced Students
Use the Census table to find the decade with the largest rise in the urban share, then explain why a change in how the Census Bureau draws urban areas could affect that answer
Find a sentence in Source 1 where Park judges a change, rewrite it as a neutral description, and say what evidence would test his judgment
Explain whether Ogburn's terms independent and dependent variable fit social change, or whether changes in customs can also cause changes in technology
Assessment Guidance
What to Look For
Strong answers name a specific source of change, separate effects on structure from effects on culture, cite a quotation or a figure, and say what the evidence cannot show. Watch for students who treat every change as progress or as decline, who confuse a percentage-point change with a percent change, or who take an invented case or a self-selected sample as proof of a cause.
02
Classroom Activities
3 Activities
1
Structure or Culture? Ten Invented Changes
15 minPairs
Pairs sort ten invented change cards. For each card they write whether it is mainly a change in social structure, in culture, or both, and which source of change started it: technology, population, the economy, ideas spreading from other groups, or conflict.
The 10 Invented Cards
Invented: families in a valley town buy their first cars, and young people start driving to the next town for dances.
Invented: a mill town's population doubles in ten years as workers arrive from nearby farms.
Invented: a phone app lets neighbors lend tools, and fewer households own a lawn mower.
Invented: a school district moves from a six-day week to a five-day week.
Invented: a factory closes, and many families move to a city two hours away.
Invented: a greeting seen in films spreads among a town's teenagers.
Invented: a town's first supermarket opens, and three corner shops close.
Invented: workers at a city's largest employer organize, and the workday is shortened after a long dispute.
Invented: more couples in a town marry later, and weddings become smaller.
Invented: a new rail line lets people live in one town and work in another.
Debrief Questions
Which cards did pairs place in "both"? What made them hard to separate?
Which card shows one change setting off another?
Which card fits Park's account of primary and secondary relations in the city?
Teacher Note
The cards describe no real place. Accept any sorting that is argued from the card's wording. Push pairs to name the first change and then the effects.
2
Lag Hunt: Four Invented Cases
15 minGroups of 3
Each group draws one invented case, redraws Diagram 2 for it, and labels point a (the change that came first), point b (the adjustment that came later) and the period of lag between them. Groups then propose one way the lag could have been shortened and one reason people might resist that change.
The 4 Invented Cases
Cars become common in a town, but it installs no traffic signals for eight years.
Most residents bank online, but the town office still accepts only paper forms.
A town's population triples, but its town office stays open only two mornings a week.
Most families in a district now have two working parents, but school still ends at 2:30 p.m. with no after-school program.
Debrief
Ogburn calls the period between a and b a "maladjustment." Who in each case bears the cost of the lag, and who might prefer the old way?
Modification for Advanced Students
Find a case where the order is reversed: a change in customs or values that came first and pushed a change in technology. Explain whether Ogburn's hypothesis still fits.
3
A Century of Urban Growth: Reading the Census Table
15 minIndividual, then pairs
Students compute the change in the urban share for each decade from 1900 to 1990, find the largest and smallest decade changes, and write what each might have meant for Park's primary and secondary relations.
Steps
Subtract each census year's percent urban from the next one's to get nine decade changes.
Circle the largest and the smallest change. Then read the table caption and explain why one of them should be checked against the Census Bureau's urban criteria for that year.
Plan, on paper only, how you would compare two decades using the Census table and one other kind of public record, such as old city directories.
Answer Key for Step 1
Decade changes, in percentage points: 6.0, 5.6, 4.9, 0.4, 7.5, 5.9, 3.7, 0.1 and 1.5. The largest is 1940-1950 (7.5), the decade in which the urban criteria change should be checked; the smallest is 1970-1980 (0.1).
Teacher Note
Plans stay on paper. Students may name public records but do not contact anyone.
03
Diagrams & Visual Aids
2 diagrams
Diagram 1: Percent of the U.S. Population Living in Urban Areas, 1900-1990
U.S. Census Bureau, Table 1, Urban and Rural Population: 1900 to 1990 (the Census table above). Points are drawn to scale (2.5 px per percentage point, 60 px per decade); the shaded line marks half of the population.
Diagram 2: Ogburn's Cultural Lag
Drawn for this page from Ogburn's hypothesis in Source 2. The upper line is the part of culture that changes first (point a); the lower line is the dependent, adaptive part that changes later (point b). The space between a and b is the lag. The diagram shows the idea, not measured data.
04
Homework Assignment
~30 min
Homework: Tracing Social and Cultural Change
Directions: Part 1 uses Sources 1 and 3 and the Census table. Quote every source you use with its paragraph number. Part 2 asks you to explain and to plan on paper only: do not survey or interview anyone.
Part 1: Reading and Computing (Problems 1-3)
In Source 1, paragraph 2, Park describes how the growth of cities changed "primary" and "secondary" relations. Choose one present-day technology, such as video calls or delivery apps, and explain whether it moves a common relationship (for example, between a shop and its customers) toward primary or toward secondary relations. Quote Park in your answer.
Using the Census table, find how many times larger the urban population was in 1990 than in 1900, and the percent change in the rural population over the same years, each to one decimal place. Then compare the change in the rural population's number with the change in its share, and explain how both can be true at once.
Using Source 3, compute the percent of households with an adult working nights or weekends before and after the warehouse opened, and the change in percentage points. Explain how this change in work could connect to the change in shared dinners, and why the sample cannot show that it caused it.
Part 2: Explaining and Planning (Problems 4-6)
Plan, on paper only, a study of how one school custom (dances, clubs, or how students celebrate graduation) has changed, using old yearbooks from a school library. Name what you would count, which years you would compare, and one limit of yearbooks as evidence.
Choose a historical example of cultural lag that is not about current politics, such as early automobiles and traffic rules. Identify the material change, the part of culture that lagged, and the period of maladjustment, and explain who was affected.
Ogburn writes in Source 2, paragraph 1 that "It is desirable to reduce the period of maladjustment." Write one paragraph arguing for this view and one arguing that a slower adjustment can sometimes protect people. Use an invented or historical example in each.
Rubric
Criterion
Full Credit (2 pts)
Partial Credit (1 pt)
No Credit (0 pts)
Analysis of change
Names the source of change and separates effects on structure and on culture
Effects named but structure and culture blurred
No source or effects named
Evidence
Quotations with source and paragraph numbers, or correct figures, support each claim
One claim unsupported
No evidence
Computation
Problems 2 and 3 correct with work shown, points kept apart from percents
One error
Several errors
Limits and balance
States what the data cannot show; both sides argued fairly; plans on paper only
One overclaim or one side thin
Treats an invented case or weak sample as proof
05
Quiz: 20 Questions
Interactive, with answers
Instructions
Sources 1 and 2 and the Census table are printed in Direct Instruction, and Source 3 in Independent Practice. Source 1 is used in Questions 1-7, 15, 16 and 20; Source 2 in Questions 8-10, 17 and 20; the Census table in Questions 11-13 and 18; and Source 3 in Questions 14, 17 and 19. Questions 1-14 are multiple choice; 15-20 are short answer.
Multiple choice: pick an option to check it. Short answer: write your answer, then reveal the model answer.
0 of 20 answered · 0 correct
Question 1 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which effect of new transportation and communication does Park name in Source 1, paragraph 1?
Answer: B
Park writes that they have been "multiplying the residence suburbs and making the department store possible." A reverses "concentrating traffic in the business districts"; C misreads "changed the whole character of retail trade"; D is not in the source.
Question 2 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 1, paragraph 2, what kind of relations replaced others as cities grew?
Answer: C
Park describes "the substitution of indirect" (secondary) relations for direct, face-to-face (primary) ones. A reverses the direction. B and D are not his terms.
Question 3 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 1, paragraph 3, what does Park mean when he says that intimate relationships are "practically inclusive" in the small community?
Answer: D
Park lists mother and child, kinsman and neighbor, minister, physician and teacher, and says that in the small community "they are practically inclusive": almost every relationship a person has is personal. B is too narrow, since neighbors and teachers are included; A and C are not in the source.
Question 4 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 1, paragraph 4, how does social control arise in a small community?
Answer: D
"Social control arises, for the most part spontaneously, in direct response to personal influences and public sentiment." Park adds that it is not "the formulation of a rational and abstract principle," which rules out A. B and C are not in the paragraph.
Question 5 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 1, paragraph 5, what happens to the moral order in a great city where the primary group is weakened?
Answer: A
Park writes that the intimate relationships of the primary group "are weakened and the moral order which rested upon them is gradually dissolved." B, C and D are not in the paragraph.
Question 6 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 1, paragraph 6, which institution has taken over some of the functions of the family?
Answer: C
"The school, for example, has taken over some of the functions of the family." A, the church, is the institution Park says has lost much of its influence. D appears in paragraph 1 as a result of new transportation, and B is not named.
Question 7 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 1, paragraph 7, why does Park say the church has lost much of its influence?
Answer: D
Park says the church "has lost much of its influence since the printed page has so largely taken the place of the pulpit in the interpretation of life." A, B and C are not in the source.
Question 8 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 2, paragraph 1, which part of culture does Ogburn call the independent variable in his example of industry and education?
Answer: A
"If the change in industry occurs first and the adjustment through education follows, industry may be referred to as the independent variable and education as the dependent variable." B and C reverse the order, and D contradicts the adjustment he describes.
Question 9 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to Source 2, paragraph 1, what does the length of the lag vary with?
Answer: B
Ogburn writes that "The extent of this lag will vary according to the nature of the cultural material." C confuses what starts a change ("some discovery or invention") with what sets the length of the lag, and A and D are not in the paragraph.
Question 10 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which of these would Ogburn, in Source 2, paragraph 2, classify as material culture?
Answer: C
Ogburn's material things "consist of houses, factories, machines, raw materials." Customs, beliefs and laws are among the "ways of using the material objects," which he places in the adaptive culture.
Question 11 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Using the Census table, by how many percentage points did the urban share of the U.S. population rise from 1900 to 1990?
Answer: A
75.2 - 39.6 = 35.6 points. B is the 1900 share and C the 1990 share, each read alone; D adds the two shares instead of subtracting.
Question 12 of 20 · Multiple Choice
According to the Census table, what was the first census year in which more than half of Americans lived in urban areas?
Answer: B
In 1920 the urban share was 51.2%, above half for the first time; in 1910 (A) it was 45.6%. C and D are later years in which the share was already above half (56.1% and 64.0%).
Question 13 of 20 · Multiple Choice
Which statement about the rural population from 1900 to 1990 does the Census table support?
Answer: B
Rural people rose from 45,997,336 to 61,656,386, while the rural share fell from 60.4% to 24.8% (100 - 75.2), because the urban population grew much faster. A assumes that a falling share means a falling number.
Question 14 of 20 · Multiple Choice
In Source 3, by how many percentage points did the share of households eating dinner together on most weekdays fall?
Answer: C
31 of 50 is 62% and 19 of 50 is 38%, so the share fell by 62 - 38 = 24 points. A subtracts the counts (31 - 19), B is the after count, and D is the percent decrease (12 / 31 = 38.7%), not a change in points.
Question 15 of 20 · Short Answer
Using Source 1, paragraphs 5 and 7, explain how a change in social structure in the great city changed the family and the church. Quote Park.
Model answer: In the city, "parents and children are employed out of the house and often in distant parts of the city" and the population is "unstable," so the family spends less time together and its primary bonds weaken. The church, which also rested on these local ties, "seems at present to be in process of readjustment to the new conditions." A change in where people work and live changed what the family and the church can do. Rubric: 1 point for the structural change, quoted; 1 point for the effect on the family; 1 point for the effect on the church.
Question 16 of 20 · Short Answer
Park calls the influences of city life "disintegrating" in Source 1, paragraph 6, but in the same paragraph he describes a new community spirit. Is Park describing decline or reorganization? Argue one side with evidence and answer the strongest point on the other side.
Model answer (one possible position): Mostly reorganization. Park says the old "moral order" is "gradually dissolved," but he also says that around the public school "something like a new neighborhood and community spirit tends to get itself organized," and that the church is "in process of readjustment." Old forms weaken while new ones form. The strongest point for decline is his own word "disintegrating" and his claim that primary relationships are "weakened"; but a weaker old form is not proof that people have less community overall. Either position can earn full credit. Rubric: 1 point for a clear position; 1 point for two quotations; 1 point for answering the other side fairly.
Question 17 of 20 · Short Answer
Apply Ogburn's hypothesis of cultural lag (Source 2) to Lindell (Source 3). Identify the change that came first, one part of the adaptive culture that has adjusted, and one part that is lagging.
Model answer: The first change is in the economy and work: "a large warehouse opened and hired about 900 workers, many of them on night and weekend shifts." Parts that adjusted: a grocery store stays open "until midnight," and two congregations "added Sunday evening services." A lagging part: the school district kept its 7:30 a.m. start time and 4 p.m. conferences "as before," and "several night-shift parents said they could not attend." In Ogburn's terms this is a maladjustment between a changed part and a dependent part. Rubric: 1 point for the first change; 1 point for an adjusted part; 1 point for a lagging part with evidence.
Question 18 of 20 · Short Answer
The Census table shows both counts and shares. Explain why a sociologist studying the change in American social structure from 1900 to 1990 needs both, using one figure of each kind, and name one limit of the table.
Model answer: The share shows how the pattern of where people lived changed: the urban share rose from 39.6% to 75.2%. The count shows the size of each group: the urban population grew from 30,214,832 to 187,053,487, about six times larger, while the rural count also grew. Shares alone would hide that rural communities still gained people; counts alone would hide that the country as a whole became mostly urban. Limit: the Census Bureau redraws urban areas after each census using its criteria, so part of a change can come from the definition, and the table does not show how people's relationships changed. Rubric: 1 point for a share with its meaning; 1 point for a count with its meaning; 1 point for a limit.
Question 19 of 20 · Short Answer
Explain why the survey in Source 3 cannot show that the warehouse caused the fall in shared dinners, and describe, on paper only, a better way to study the question.
Model answer: The fifty households chose to answer an online form, so they may differ from other households (for example, families with more time or stronger feelings about the change). They answered from memory about the year before, which can be inaccurate. Other changes happened at the same time, so the warehouse is only one possible cause. A better plan would choose households at random across town, ask the same questions before and after a change, and compare households with and without a night-shift worker, with anonymous answers. Rubric: 1 point for self-selection; 1 point for memory or other causes; 1 point for a workable improved plan.
Question 20 of 20 · Short Answer
Compare Park (Source 1) and Ogburn (Source 2). What does each identify as a starting point of social change, and how does each describe what happens afterward?
Model answer: Both start with material change. Park begins with "Modern methods of urban transportation and communication," which changed the city's "social and industrial organization" and then people's habits. Ogburn says change starts "through some discovery or invention" in one part of culture. Afterward, Park focuses on relationships: primary bonds weaken and institutions readjust. Ogburn focuses on timing: dependent parts of culture lag behind, creating "a maladjustment." Rubric: 1 point for each author's starting point; 1 point for each author's account of what follows; 1 point for a clear comparison.
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Frequently Asked Questions
10 Questions
What does D2.Soc.10.9-12 mean?
D2.Soc.10.9-12 asks high school students to analyze how social structures and cultures change. Students explain what starts a change, how it moves through relationships, institutions and customs, and why some parts change later than others.
What is the difference between social structure and culture?
Social structure is the pattern of relationships, roles and institutions, such as where people live and how work is organized. Culture is a group's shared way of life: its objects and technology and its customs, values and rules. A change often touches both.
What is cultural lag?
Cultural lag is the delay between a change in one part of culture and the adjustment of a part that depends on it. William F. Ogburn described it in 1922: material conditions often change first, and customs, laws and institutions catch up later.
What causes social change?
Sociologists usually point to several sources: new technology, changes in population such as the growth of cities, changes in the economy, ideas spreading from other groups, and conflict between groups. A single change usually has more than one source.
How is D2.Soc.10.9-12 different from D2.Soc.9.9-12?
D2.Soc.9.9-12 explains what institutions do in society; D2.Soc.10.9-12 analyzes how structures and cultures change over time. This lesson uses institutions as one of the things that change.
What are primary and secondary relations?
Primary relations are direct, personal and face-to-face, as in families and close neighborhoods. Secondary relations are indirect and impersonal, formed for a purpose, such as between a clerk and a customer. Robert E. Park's 1925 essay asks how the growth of cities affected both kinds.
Is social change the same as progress?
No. Analyzing change means describing what changed and why, not judging it. Park and Ogburn both used judgment words such as "disintegrating" and "maladjustment"; students should treat those as interpretations to test.
What is the difference between a percentage point and a percent change?
A percentage point is the difference between two percents, such as 45.6% to 56.1% (10.5 points). A percent change compares the change with the starting value. Mixing them up is a common error with Census data.
How can teachers assess D2.Soc.10.9-12?
Give students a source or an invented case and ask them to name the source of change, trace effects on structure and on culture, identify any lag, and state what the evidence cannot show. The rubric here scores those four parts.
Do students collect data for this lesson?
No. Students plan studies on paper only, such as comparing old yearbooks or public records, and they do not survey or interview anyone.
07
Related Standards
6 standards
These standards connect to D2.Soc.10.9-12: prerequisites to review first, parallel standards at the same level, and next steps that build on it.
Analyze why the distribution of power and inequalities can result in conflict
Lesson coming soon
Standard text: National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS), The College, Career, and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards: Guidance for Enhancing the Rigor of K-12 Civics, Economics, Geography, and History (Silver Spring, MD: NCSS, 2013). NCSS was not involved in the production of this lesson and does not endorse it.
