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SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Wrong way to social change
Training Handout
Not "quite" the same as applied sociology
Where the pure science is chemistry, its practical applications are in chemical
engineering. Where the pure science is physics, the practical applications
are in civil engineering.
We might be predisposed to extrapolate and say that where the pure science is sociology,
the practical applications should be called Social Engineering.
No
A farmer can tell you that if you want a wheat plant to grow upwards, you
do not mechanically pull it upwards.
You provide it with sunlight, water, some minerals and good soil, and it will grow
–– organically –– from within.
Pulling from the top is mechanical, crude, rough, and ineffective. Social engineering
is like that.
A social institution
such as a community grows from within in an organic manner.
You can provide stimulus in the form of your mobilization interventions, but
it develops itself.
Using force, such as the "villigization" attempts during the erstwhile Mengistu regime
in Ethiopia (forced concentration of dispersed rural groups into nucleated
settlements) belong to the category of actions called social
engineering.
Encouraging communities to become stronger, develop their capacity, is one of many practical applications
of sociology, but it should not be called social engineering.
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