Social Movements: Understanding the Dynamics of Collective Action, Study notes of Introduction to Sociology

Download Social Movements: Understanding the Dynamics of Collective Action and more Study notes Introduction to Sociology in PDF only on Docsity! 1 © 2006 David Schweingruber Social Movements Dec. 4, 2006 http://www.iastate.edu/~soc.134 © 2000 David Schweingruber© 20 6 David Schweingru Individuals as cause of society Social movements: continuous, large-scale, organized collective action motivated by the desire to enact, stop, or reverse change in some area of society © 2000 David Schweingruber© 20 6 David Schweingru Types of social movements Alternative Social Movement Redemptive Social Movement Reform Social Movement Revolutionary Social Movement Limited Radical How much change? Specific Individuals Everyone Who is changed? © 2000 David Schweingruber© 20 6 David Schweingru Old vs. new social movements Old social movements: related to economic struggles between “haves” and “have-nots” E.g., labor movement, Grange movement New social movements: focus on non-economic quality of life issues and identities E.g., feminism, gay rights, peace movement, environmentalism, pro-choice/pro-life, animal rights © 2000 David Schweingruber© 20 6 David Schweingru Building a social movement  Ideology: members of a social movement share a belief system that justifies their action • Social movements attempt to reach people who share their ideology, convert people to their ideology, or manipulate existing ideology for new purposes  Social networks: people are recruited into social movement activities through friends and relatives  Resources: key resources include money, people and organizational strength  Political opportunity structure: some environments are more friendly than others for social movements