Concept of social action
- 1. SOCIAL ACTION A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY GOMATHI.M GAYATRI.R
- 2. SOCIAL ACTION Social Action is one of the most controversial methods of social work practice that has brought about a lot of debate among the social work practitioners as it addresses and uses the conflict present in social system to realize the goal of social justice and empowerment. Social Action has been used to signify a wide range of primarily voluntary initiative to bring out change in social systems, processes and even structure
- 3. MEANING Social action is a method of social work used for mobilizing masses in order to bring about structural changes in the social system or to prevent adverse changes. In the Indian context, Social action is taken as a transformational practice to meet the objective of promoting well-being by bringing change in the arrangements in social system that lead to inequality and injustice, preventing people from realizing their full potential as self-determining agents. Mary Richmond was the first social worker to use the word ‘social action’ in 1922.
- 4. DEFINITION MARY RICHMOND has defined social action as “mass betterment through propaganda and social legislation”. This definition stresses on improving the condition of huge sections of population as an aim of social action with propaganda and social legislations as main strategies. BALDWIN (1966) defines social action as “an organized effort to change social and economic institutions as distinguished from social work or social service, the fields which do not characteristically cover essential changes in established institutions.
- 5. OBJECTIVES Mishra (1992) has identified following goals of social action: O Prevention of needs O Solution of mass problems O Improvement in mass conditions O Influencing institutions, policies and practices O Introduction of new mechanisms or programmes O Redistribution of power and resources O Decision-making O Effect on thought and action structure O Improvement in health, education and welfare
- 6. PRINCIPLES Considering Gandhian principle of mobilization as a typical example of the direct mobilization model of social action Britto (1984) brings out the following principles of social action: O Principle of Credibility Building O Principle of Legitimization O Principle of Dramatization O Principle of Multiple Strategies O Principle of Dual Approach O Principle of Manifold Programmes
- 7. PRINCIPLE OF CREDIBILITY BUILDING It is the task of creating public image of leadership, the organization and the participants of the movement as champions of justice, rectitude and truth. It helps in securing due recognition from the opponent, the reference- public and the peripheral participants of the movement. Credibility can be built through one or many of the following ways: Gestures of goodwill towards the opponent Example setting Selection of typical, urgently felt problems for struggles Success
- 8. PRINCIPLE OF LEGITIMIZATION Legitimization is the process of convincing the target group and the general public that the movement- objectives are morally right. Leaders of the movement might use theological, philosophical, legal-technical, public opinion paths to establish the tenability of the movement’s objectives. Legitimization is a continuous process.Following are the three approaches to legitimization: Theological and religious approach Moral approach Legal and technical approach
- 9. PRINCIPLE OF DRAMATIZATION Dramatization is the principle of mass mobilisation by which the leaders of a movement galvanize the population into action by emotional appeals to heroism, sensational news- management, novel procedures, pungent slogans and such other techniques. Almost every leader mobilising the masses, uses this principle of dramatization. The following are the techniques: Use of songs Powerful speeches Role of women Boycott Slogans
- 10. PRINCIPLE OF MULTIPLE STRATEGIES: There are two basic approaches to development: conflictual and non- conflictual. Taking the main thrust of a programme, one can classify it as political, economic or social. The basket principle indicates the adoption of a multiple strategy, using combined approaches and also a combination of different types of programmes. Zeltman and Duncan have identified four development strategies from their experience of community development. These have been framed for use in social action. They are: Educational strategy Persuasive strategy Facilitative strategy Power strategy
- 11. PRINCIPLE OF DUAL APPROACH Any activist has to build counter-systems or revive some unused system, which is thought to be beneficial to the mobilized public on a self-help basis without involving the opponent. This is a natural requirement consequent upon the attempt to destroy the system established/maintained by the opponents. This cooperative effort indicates that Gandhians adopted or attempted to a dual approach in their mobilization.
- 12. PRINCIPLE OF MANIFOLD PROGRAMMES This principle means developing a variety of programmes with the ultimate objective of mass mobilization. These can be broadly categorized into three parts: Economic Programs Social Programs Political Programs
- 13. The scope of social action is very vast and it is one of the most apt methods of social work practice even in today’s context as the approach of social work practice has shifted from charity to empowerment, the scope of social work has expanded enormously. The innovative approaches, participatory techniques, outreach, and holistic thinking are critically important in creating a better world, which is indeed the vision of social work profession.
- 14. It is important to understand the systems from the perspective of social work intervention which determines the scope of Social Action. They are: Change Agent System Client System Target System Action System
- 15. PROCESS The following steps forms part of Social Action. They are: O The Initiating set O The Legitimizers O The Diffusion set O Defining the need O Commitment to action O Goals O Means O Plan for action O Mobilizing and organizing resources O Launching the program O Carrying out the program O Final evaluation
- 16. CONCLUSION Thus it can be understood that the SOCIAL ACTION is effective method to involve people to analyse, understand and solve their own problem with or without external assistance .