Course: Social Change (541) Semester: Autumn, 2022
Level: M.Sc.
ASSIGNMENT No. 2
Q.1 Describe the evolution process of family and the status of woman in Pakistan society.
Women in Pakistan make up 48.76% of the population according to the 2017 census of Pakistan. Women in Pakistan have played an important role throughout Pakistan’s history and they are allowed to vote in elections since 1956. In Pakistan, women have held high offices including that of the Prime Minister, Speaker of the National Assembly, Leader of the Opposition, as well as federal ministers, judges, and serving commissioned posts in the armed forces. Major General Shahida Malik, attaining the highest military post for a woman. Benazir Bhutto was sworn in as the first woman Prime Minister of Pakistan on 2 December 1988.
The status of women in Pakistan differs considerably across classes, regions and the rural/urban divide due to the uneven socioeconomic development and the impact of tribal and feudal social formations on lives of women in Pakistan. Gender Concerns International reports that the overall women’s rights in Pakistan have improved with increasing number of women being educated and literate.
However, Pakistan does face issues where woman are kept behind in the field of education. This is also associated with low government funding, less schools and colleges for women, and a low enrollment rate of women in educational institutions due to lack of awareness and women rights in certain areas. Cases of rape, honor killing, murder, and forced marriages in backward areas are also reported. All these issues are related to constraints due to a lack of education, poverty, a judicial system of Pakistan that is disrupted, the negligence of government authorities to implement laws and widespread underperformance of law enforcement agencies such as the Police.
Historically, Muslim reformers such as Syed Ahmad Khan tried to bring education to women, limit polygamy, and empower women in other ways through education. The founder of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was known to have a positive attitude towards women. After the independence of Pakistan, women’s
Q.2 Write short notes on the following:
a. Demographic transition
In demography, demographic transition is a phenomenon and theory which refers to the historical shift from high birth rates and high death rates in societies with minimal technology, education (especially of women) and economic development, to low birth rates and low death rates in societies with advanced technology, education and economic development, as well as the stages between these two scenarios. Although this shift has occurred in many industrialized countries, the theory and model are frequently imprecise when applied to individual countries due to specific social, political and economic factors affecting particular populations.
However, the existence of some kind of demographic transition is widely accepted in the social sciences because of the well-established historical correlation linking dropping fertility to social and economic development. Scholars debate whether industrialization and higher incomes lead to lower population, or whether lower populations lead to industrialization and higher incomes. Scholars also debate to what extent various proposed and sometimes inter-related factors such as higher per capita income, lower mortality, old-age security, and rise of demand for human capital are involved.
History
The theory is based on an interpretation of demographic history developed in 1929 by the American demographer Warren Thompson (1887–1973). Adolphe Landry of France made similar observations on demographic patterns and population growth potential around 1934. In the 1940s and 1950s Frank W. Notestein developed a more formal theory of demographic transition. By 2009, the existence of a negative correlation between fertility and industrial development had become one of the most widely accepted findings in social science.
The Jews of Bohemia and Moravia were the among the first populations to experience a demographic transition, in the 18th century, prior to changes in mortality or fertility in other European Jews or in Christians living in the Czech lands.
Q.3 Critically evaluate the educational revolution in light of Peter F. Druker reading and assess the educational/ curriculum measures adopted by Govt. of Pakistan.
When it comes to measuring student learning outcomes, you often hear critics refrain “you can’t fatten a cow by weighing him all the time,” in an attempt to say that you cannot truly educate students by spending all the time getting ready for testing and recording test scores. Of course not. But as the management guru Peter Drucker famously said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”
If you don’t measure, then how do you know how you are doing? How do you know if you are doing well? Or poorly? Without adequate information about learning outcomes, students, families, teachers cannot properly decide on what actions should be taken to improve learning outcomes. And improving cognitive skills is important for economic development.
In my experience visiting schools over the years, I have spoken to teachers who use assessment results to gauge their teaching and decide on allocating inputs. I have also been to schools where teachers have no test scores. How are they expected to make choices about what they do in the classroom without any information?
Q.4 Discuss the historical background of Land Reforms in Pakistan; to what extent you think these reforms have been effective agents of social change in Pakistan?
LAND reforms in Pakistan have a long and somewhat chequered history. The British had less of an interest in the matter as they relied on the support of several influential landlords. Although there had been some limited reforms in the years leading up to 1947, all major reforms date from the years after independence. Almost immediately the various provincial legislatures passed several statutes whereby the jagirdari systems were abolished and tenants protected. The major reforms, however, came in three stages: the first during Ayub Khan’s martial law in 1959; the second and third during Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto’s rule in the 1970s.
Ayub Khan’s government passed the first major piece of legislation concerning land reforms in Pakistan. This legislation was the West Pakistan Land Reforms Regulation 1959 (Regulation 64 of 1959). The salient features of this regulation included a ceiling on individual holdings. No one individual could own more than 500 acres of irrigated and 1,000 acres of unirrigated land or a maximum of 36,000 Produce Index Units (PIU), whichever was greater. It further allowed that land be redistributed amongst tenants and others. In addition, the regulation contained provisions which provided for security of tenants as well as for preventing the subdivision of land holdings.
Q.5 Discuss the theory of Modernization and Motivational Aspects of Development in light of Neil J. Smelser & Willbert E. Moore research.
Haferkamp is grateful to Angelika Schade for her fruitful comments and her helpful assistance in editing this volume and to Geoff Hunter for translating the first German version of parts of the Introduction; Smelser has profited from the research assistance and critical analyses given by Joppke.
1. Social Change and Modernity
Those who organized the conference on which this volume is based—including the editors—decided to use the terms “social change” and “modernity” as the organizing concepts for this project. Because these terms enjoy wide usage in contemporary sociology and are general and inclusive, they seem preferable to more specific terms such as “evolution” “progress,” “differentiation,” or even “development,” many of which evoke more specific mechanisms, processes, and directions of change. Likewise, we have excluded historically specific terms such as “late capitalism” and “industrial society” even though these concepts figure prominently in many of the contributions to this volume. The conference strategy called for a general statement of a metaframework for the study of social change within which a variety of more specific theories could be identified.