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The object of this paper is to suggest a theoretical approach to the study of social development in developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Social development is regarded here as a radical transformation of economy and society, and as something which must be assessed in primarily human terms. After a critical examination of some conventional theories of modernization and social change, the paper goes on to suggest that a fruitful line of research is to view development as fundamental structural change. This would involve examination of social structural features in a society which encourage or hinder social development. Finally, specific empirical research is to be directed to identify agents as well as obstacles to social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the rank-dimensional approach to the analysis of social stratification has become increasingly prominent. One of its advocates, Johan Galtung, has made relations between nations his major point of empirical reference. The present paper applies rank-dimensional analysis to the deprived nations of Africa and Asia (or the so-called Third World) in an attempt to grasp the degree of rank homogeneity within the group and to relate its rank characteristics to the more privileged nations in the global system. This exercise demonstrates that there is a linear relationship between total rank and rank disequilibrium in the Afro-Asian group; a finding which has a number of significant theoretical ramifications. The major theoretical innovation in this connexion is the concept of rank divergence-defined as the degree to which a unit in a system of stratification diverges from the typical relational pattern holding between the unit's total rank and rank disequilibrium scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper emphasises the need to give priority to supporting institutions in. attempts at mobilising local initiative for development. This policy is thought to increase the immediate response to local mobilisation efforts and make initiatives more lasting. The establishment of supporting institutions will require the direction of a great part of the developmental efforts to reforming the government apparatus at regional and national level. However, because it will seldom be possible in make many successful reforms at higher levels at the same time, concentration of development efforts on a few sectors is in most cases the only realistic policy. This is apparently incompatible with a very comprehensive, multi-sectoral approach to local development. With regard to local communities, a policy which concentrates on a limited number of activities at a time is also likely to create better chances of active popular participation in and some local diversification of the development process, as opposed to pressing overall transformation efforts which may well result in apathy and a tendency to increased dependence on the government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The inordinate difficulty of finding information on this topic constrains the reviewer to begin by mentioning the most likely sources. The more important contributions in Anglophone and Francophone Africa, South East Asia and South West Pacific are described. Until the late fifties a mere handful of psychologists in very few developing countries identified talent and potential For numerous semi-skilled industrial occupations from seemingly inexhaustible pools of near illiterate manpower. Individual performance tests were adapted or devised to discriminate at the levels required and to reject people unlikely to cope with training. The quest for `culture free' and `culture fair' tests was shown to be irrelevant. In the sixties, with the explosion of primary education, a small number of psychologists set about the task of devising paper and pencil tests to select pupils for secondary schools or training institutions that required minimum educational standards. Low selection ratios enhanced the efficiency of the measures regardless of their bluntness. It seems clear that selection instruments will need continual refinement to adjust to the unstable standards of rapidly expanding educational systems. Different countries presented different problems. Recently Irvine, MacArthur, Vernon and the reviewer among others have become concerned with what tests actually measure in different cultures and how cultural factors contribute to variance in test performance. Alien technologies and alien social and economic systems have made dramatically different impacts on different traditional systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the author, it is appropriate, after concluding the book A Decade of Development, to take stock of where the study of development has taken sociologists and where it has gone wrong. That it has gone wrong is painfully obvious given the meager results of efforts to improve the quality of life in most third world countries as well as the attempts on the part of advanced capitalistic countries to enhance the life chances of their less-advantaged sectors. A portion of these mistakes may be attributed to methodological errors on the part of those engaged in the study of development. The present paper attempts to review some recent approaches to the study of development and suggest what future steps are needed to develop a clearer understanding of the issues and approaches to developmental concerns. The major approaches to the sociological study of development may be divided into two broad camps that roughly conform to the unit-ideas that form the foundations of sociology. These unit-ideas range from conservative to radical philosophical assumptions. In everyday terms these two broad camps are usually referred to as equilibrium models or conflict models.