Last Updated on August 29, 2026 by Karl Thompson
The short answer:
- Modernity is the industrial era itself. Modernism is the set of ideas that came with it.
- Postmodernity is the society said to have replaced it. Postmodernism is the theory that describes it.
- Late modernity is the argument that postmodernity never happened — we are still in modernity, just a more intense version of it.
So the pairs work the same way each time. The word ending in -ity names a period of history. The word ending in -ism names a way of thinking about it. Getting that one distinction right will stop most of the confusion.
This page sets out each comparison in turn, with tables you can revise from, and links to the fuller notes on each theory. It is written for A-level sociology students, where these terms come up in Theory and Methods and again in every topic that asks about social change.
Modernity vs modernism: what’s the difference?
Modernity is a period and a social condition. It refers to the industrial capitalist societies that developed in Europe from the late eighteenth century onwards, characterised by science, rationality, a belief in progress, industrialisation, secularisation and the nation state.
Modernism is the intellectual and cultural movement that went with it. It values reason and science, believes in universal truths, and holds that society can be improved through knowledge — what postmodernists would later call a grand narrative.
The founding sociologists were all modernists writing about modernity. Marx, Weber and Durkheim disagreed about almost everything else, but all three believed society could be studied scientifically and understood systematically.
| Modernity | Modernism | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A historical era and social condition | A cultural and intellectual movement |
| Key features | Industrialisation, capitalism, rationality, the nation state, secularisation | Belief in progress, science, universal truths |
| Associated with | Marx, Weber, Durkheim | Enlightenment thinkers, functionalists |
For how the era itself changed, see from modernity to postmodernity.
Postmodernity vs postmodernism: what’s the difference?
Postmodernity is the social condition said to have emerged from the mid to late twentieth century: globalisation, consumerism, media saturation, diversity, and the decline of traditional institutions.
Postmodernism is the theory that responds to it. It questions truth, progress and science, and emphasises relativism, fragmentation and scepticism towards any universal explanation.
The distinction matters in an exam because you can accept one without the other. A sociologist can agree that society has changed enormously — that postmodernity is real — while rejecting the postmodernist conclusion that sociology should give up on general explanation. That is exactly the late modernist position below.
| Postmodernity | Postmodernism | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A social condition after modernity | A cultural and theoretical response |
| Key features | Globalisation, consumer culture, media saturation, decline of tradition | Rejection of grand narratives, relativism, fragmented identities |
| Associated with | Bauman, and partially Beck and Giddens | Lyotard, Baudrillard, Foucault, Derrida |
For the theory in full, see postmodernism: an introduction.
Modernism vs postmodernism in sociology
This is the comparison examiners come back to most, because it structures the whole modernity-postmodernity debate. It is worth learning as a set of contrasts rather than as two separate lists.
| Modernism | Postmodernism | |
|---|---|---|
| Knowledge | Objective truth exists and science can find it | Knowledge is relative and socially constructed |
| Grand narratives | Marxism, functionalism and Enlightenment thought can explain society | Distrusts all grand narratives; emphasises fragmentation |
| Culture | Order, rational design, a clear line between high and popular culture | Blurred boundaries, parody, pastiche, mixing of styles |
| Identity | Stable, based on class, gender, nation and occupation | Fluid and multiple, shaped by media and consumption |
| Society | Industrial, organised by the nation state, progressing through science | Globalised, media-saturated, consumerist, sceptical of progress |
| Key thinkers | Durkheim, Marx, Weber, the functionalists | Lyotard, Baudrillard, Foucault |
The three arguments behind the table
Knowledge. Modernists hold that there is a real social world and that careful research gets us closer to understanding it. Lyotard argued that the big explanatory stories — Marxism, Christianity, Enlightenment science — have simply lost credibility, and that no single account can claim to explain everything anymore.
Reality. Baudrillard went further, arguing that media images have become more real to us than what they represent. Where a modernist would ask whether a media account is accurate, Baudrillard’s argument is that the question has stopped making sense.
Power. Foucault argued that knowledge and power are inseparable — that what counts as truth in any society reflects who has the authority to define it. That cuts against the modernist idea of neutral, objective science.
HOWEVER, the standard criticism is worth remembering: if no grand narrative can explain society, that claim is itself a grand narrative. Postmodernism also gives little basis for saying any social arrangement is better or worse than another, which is a problem for a discipline that grew up wanting to improve things.
See criticisms of postmodernism for the full set.
Late modernity vs postmodernity: the key debate
This is the distinction students most often get wrong, and it is a straightforward disagreement once you see it.
Both sides agree that society has changed dramatically. They disagree about what the change means.
Postmodernists say the change was a break. Industrial society has been replaced by something different enough that the old theories no longer apply.
Late modernists say the change was an intensification. The same modern processes — industrialisation, rationalisation, capitalism, globalisation — are still running, just faster and with wider consequences. Modernity has not ended; it has sped up.
| Postmodernity | Late modernity | |
|---|---|---|
| The claim | Modernity has ended | Modernity has intensified |
| Sociology’s job | Grand theories no longer work | Grand theories still work, and are needed more than ever |
| Change | A break with the past | Continuity, accelerated |
| Science and reason | No longer trustworthy | Still central, but now producing new risks |
| Key thinkers | Lyotard, Baudrillard, Derrida | Giddens, Beck, Bauman |
Anthony Giddens argues that individuals now construct their own identities reflexively, constantly revising who they are — but under conditions they did not choose, which is a recognisably modern argument about structure.
Ulrich Beck argues that the defining feature of the present is manufactured risk: dangers like climate change and nuclear accident are produced by our own technology rather than by nature, and cannot be fully controlled.
Zygmunt Bauman describes liquid modernity, in which bonds and institutions that were once solid have become fluid and provisional. Bauman is placed in both camps by different textbooks, and that ambiguity is itself worth knowing — it is a good illustration of how hard the two positions are to separate cleanly.
For the late modernist case against postmodernism in full, see critical responses to postmodernism.
One term you can mostly set aside: late modernism refers to the continuation of modernist styles in art and architecture into the later twentieth century. It has almost nothing to do with the sociological argument above, and it is not examinable.
Key thinkers linked to each term
- Modernity — Marx, Weber, Durkheim
- Modernism — Enlightenment philosophers, functionalists
- Postmodernity — Bauman, and partially Beck and Giddens
- Postmodernism — Lyotard, Baudrillard, Foucault, Derrida
- Late modernity — Giddens, Beck, Bauman
Why these distinctions matter in the exam
Getting the terms right is not pedantry — it changes what an answer can argue.
A student who treats postmodernity and postmodernism as the same thing cannot make the most useful move available: accepting that society has changed while disagreeing about what follows. That move is the whole late modernist position, and it is what turns a description of postmodernism into an evaluation of it.
The modernity-postmodernity argument is also one of the three debates that most Theory and Methods essays are built on, alongside consensus versus conflict and structure versus action. Any question about social change, identity, the family or the media can be answered through it.
Signposting and Related Posts
This page has been written for students studying Theory and Methods as part of the AQA’s A-level sociology course.
Going deeper: From modernity to postmodernity · Postmodernism: an introduction · Critical responses to postmodernism · Criticisms of postmodernism
Applied to topics: postmodern perspectives on the family and postmodernism and education.
To see how this fits with the other perspectives, see my sociological theories page.
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