Social Community and Actions

Choose one example of community or social action, either from history or a current action. Analyse how effective or ineffective their methods of action are (or were) in achieving their goals. Use the Theories and concepts learned in class and through your readings to support your argument.

In sociology, social community or actions are referred as the act, which includes actions as well as the reactions of the agents or individuals. Max Weber mentions that an action is considered as social, if all the acting individuals take account of others behavior and orient that in their course. The term social also means the individual interaction within the society, and also covers the economic, ethical, cultural, and political aspects (Rengasamy, 2000). Siddiqui (1984) describes social action as the mass, which moves for the betterment through the propaganda as well as social legislation, and tries to bring the change in the client's social environment. Social action has certain assumptions, which are in the context of the current structure of power, the nature of the mechanism for social welfare delivery, growth of the economy, in context of the welfare state, human problems, and human rights (Homan, 2011).

Social action is not alien to the concept of India; rather it was attributed from the west. The social action history in India is back to the eighteen and nineteenth centuries, during that period all the reformers were fought against the various evil practices like child marriage, sati, devadasi system, as well as for widowhood practices for women of India (Siddiqui, 1984). During that period, Mahatma Gandhi along with his principles of non-violence used the social actions for enhancing or raising the women's status and of the status of Dalits and fought for bringing changes in the Indian social relationships.

The legacy of that period still continuous, because there are many voluntary, contemporary, along with many professional groups, who are joining their hands for opposing it, or for promoting the policies and programs of public, which impact the common people of the country (Rengasamy, 2000). Of late, in India, social welfare, discipline soon realizes that they wouldn't be able to create hurdles in the mass poverty area. Therefore, the social was conceived as the social work method, during the time of inadequacy of welfare measures resulted in the requirement in the starts of the current century in West and in India, it started in the 1960s (Twelvetrees, 1991). The essay discusses about the social actions in context of India and elaborates with the support of theories.

Social Community or actions

The character and nature of the Social action to a large extent is molt through the social systems, political culture and through countries constitutional framework, in which it is regulated or practiced.  Social action in India is considered as the practice, which helps in formulating the theory of social action and vice versa (Burgmann, 2003). But the manner in which most of the people perceived and practiced the Social action is determined through the ideological inclinations, value system, and historical settings of the different proponents.

One of the major hurdles in getting the clarity related to social action is the fact that it is widely used for defining the different sweep of practices, whose range starts through the violent protests, litigations of public interest, disobedience of civil, and lobbying (Burr, 2003). Through the process of advocacy encompasses or more than such components, which has mistaken the use of one Social Action component to Miss Woods of trees. The practice and concept of social action in India could be located easily through the various streams, firstly, through the history of various social and religious movement of reforms along with nationalist struggle for attaining the independence of India, next is the political culture dynamics along with prevailing social system within the country from the last 15 years, and the last one is various prevailing social action practices through the non-Party formation of politics, public interest groups, as well as social actions in India

The whole arena of the social actions started becoming functional as well as meaningful in context of the constitutional framework, operating political culture, and State character. In the context of India, the social action process could be understood in better terms through locating the political, historical, and social practices and through analyzing it in context of the framework of the parliamentary democratic constitution (Jokinen, 1999). In the history of India, there have been many efforts taken in context of social action issues, which are also associated with the degradation of the environment, women's rights, civil rights, tribal land alienation, Dalits and tribal's rights, installation of nuclear, policies related to drug and forest, mismanagement in working sector, child labor, along with many other issues.

Another was the change agent, whose main aim was to advance the social cause of the country and formulate the change strategy. They attempted to produce the cooperation within the targeted change through the sanctions of agency controlled, and developing the required behavior through the Authority. They also tried to bring the change through emotional, logical, as well as moral appeals (Siddiqui, 1984). And finally there was change target, who were individuals or a group of people, who took the change effort, these were: government, public, professionals, business, and media influencing channel.

Effectiveness or ineffectiveness of methods of action in achieving their goals
Advocacy Methods in the Indian Context

The effective method used in social action in context of India was advocacy method, which tried to bring effective efforts in the context of social action; other efforts were improvised method of non-violent protest as well as persuasion, mass mobilization, legislative advocacy, litigation in the public interest, media advocacy, and bureaucrats lobbying were continuously used for the purpose of building the effective argument of public (Singh, 1984).
Advocacy is considered as the political process formed by either individuals or by groups, whose aim is to influence the policies of public and allocate the resources within the economy, politics, institutions, and social system (Atkinson, 1999). Advocacy method is quite effective, as it includes various activities, such as public speaking, media campaigns, and publishing the research.