- SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
A)A social movement is an organized group that acts consciously to promote or resist change through collective action.
B)Social movements are more likely to develop in industrialized societies than in preindustrial societies; diversity and a lack of consensus contribute to demands for social change.
C)Social movements are more likely to emerge when people view their problems as public issues that cannot be solved without a collective response.
D)Social movements make democracy more available to excluded groups.
E)Most social movements rely on volunteers to carry out their work. Women have been strongly represented in both membership and leadership of many grassroots social movements.
F)Types of social movements
i)Reform movements
a)These seek to improve society by changing some specific aspect of the social structure.
b)Members usually work within the existing system.
c)Examples include labor movements, animal rights movements, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, and the disability rights movement.
d)Some of these movements arise to change responses to stigmatized groups (e.g., civil rights and gay rights movements).
ii)Revolutionary movements
a)These seek to bring about a total change in society.
b)These movements do not attempt to work within the existing system, but rather to remake the system itself.
c)Revolutionary movements range from utopian groups to radical terrorists.
d)Terrorism is the calculated, unlawful use of physical force or threats of violence against persons or property in order to intimidate or coerce a government, organization, or individual for the purpose of gaining some political, religious, economic, or social objective.
iii)Religious movements
a)These seek to produce radical “inner change” in individuals and typically are based on spiritual or supernatural belief systems.
b)Fundamentalist religious groups that seek to convert nonbelievers are an example of this.
c)Some religious movements are millenarian; these groups forecast that the “end” is near and assert that a change in behavior is imperative.
iv)Alternative movements
a)These seek limited change in some aspect of people's behavior (e.g., a movement that attempts to get people to abstain from drinking alcoholic beverages).
b)New Age movements, vegetarianism, and yoga are often grouped here.
v)Resistance movements
a)These seek to prevent or to undo change that already has occurred.
b)Virtually all social movements previously discussed face resistance from one or more reactive movements.
c)Examples include radical anti-abortionists.
- SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORIES
A)Relative deprivation theory
i) This theory asserts that people who suffer relative deprivation are likely to feel that a change is necessary and to join a social movement in order to bring about that change.
ii) Relative deprivation refers to discontent one feels when comparing achievements with those of similarly situated people, and finding that one has less than they do.
iii) These movements are most likely to occur when an upswing in standard of living is followed by decline, so that people experience unfulfilled rising expectations.
B)Valueadded theory suggests that six conditions are necessary and sufficient to produce social movements when they combine or interact in a particular situation:
i)Structural conduciveness
ii)Structural strain
iii)Spread of a generalized belief
iv)Precipitating factors
v)Mobilization for action
vi)Social control factors
C)Resource mobilization theory focuses on the ability of a social movement to acquire resources (money, time and skills, access to the media, etc.) and mobilize people to advance the cause.
i) This theory assumes that participants in social movements are rational people.
ii) Another assumption is that participants have some degree of economic and political resources to use in the movement.
iii) Newer perspectives based on resource mobilization theory emphasize the ideology and legitimacy of movements as well as material resources.
D)Social constructionist theory: frame analysis
i) Theories based on symbolic interactionist perspective focus on the importance of the symbolic presentation of a problem to participants and the public.
ii) Social constructionist theory is based on the assumption that social movements are an interactive, symbolically defined, and negotiated process that involves participants, opponents, and bystanders.
iii) Goffman’sFrame Analysis, which suggests that our interpretation of the particulars of events and activities is dependent on the framework from which we perceive them, is a major influence on this theory.
iv) Various realities may be simultaneously occurring among participants engaged in the same set of activities.
v) Sociologists have identified at least three ways in which grievances are framed: diagnostic framing, prognostic framing, and motivational framing.
vi) Frame alignment occurs in social movements in four distinct processes: frame bridging, frame amplification, frame extension, and frame transformation.
vii) Frame analysis has been criticized for its ‘ideational biases’ – according to McAdam, frame analyses of social movements focuses on ideas and expression and neglects other factors like movement tactics, mobilizing structures, and changing political opportunities.
E)Political opportunity theory
i) To political opportunity theorists, social protests are directly related to the political opportunities that potential protestors and organizers believe exist within the political system at any given time.
ii) This theory assumes that social protests that take place outside of mainstream political institutions are intertwined with those that occur inside of these institutions.
iii) People choose those options for collective action that are most readily available to them and those that produce the outcome most favorable to their cause.
iv) Rioting in urban areas is more likely to occur when activists believed that conventional routes to protest were blocked, and less likely to occur in cities that provided opportunity for legitimate protest.
v) Political opportunity theory highlights the importance of the degree of openness of the political system.
F)New social movement theory
i) New social movement theory looks at collective actions and the manner in which those actions are based on politics, ideology, and culture.
ii) Itincorporates sources of identity, including race, class, gender and sexuality, as resources of collective action and social movements.
iii) Examples of new social movements:
a) Ecofeminism
b) Environmental justice movements
iv) These movements are also concerned with environmental racism, or the belief that a disproportionate number of hazardous waste facilities are placed in low-income areas populated primarily by people of color.