CHAPTER 16: SOCIAL CHANGE AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

  1. Explain macrochange and microchange (in social contents) and give examples of its positive and negative consequences.
  2. Discuss and give examples of the common characteristics of social change.
  3. Elaborate and give examples of the three main theories of social change (functionalism and evolutionary, conflict, and cyclical)
  4. Be able to engage in grounded discussion about whether societies with more complex social institutions and technology are more civilized than those with less complex institutions and technology
  5. Discuss, and support your discussion with examples, how social change, social conflict, racism, and SES are related.
  6. Relate the theory of social change proposed by Sorokin to today’s popular culture, social turmoil, and sexuality.
  7. Identify and explain the three major global theories of social change and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of each theory
  8. Define modernization.
  9. List the three general characteristics of modernization.
  10. Elaborate on and give examples of the social and economic consequences of modernization.
  11. Explain how Fernando Tonnies’ gemeinschaft and gesellschaft correlated with the societal development and social change of the United States in the last 100 years.
  12. Be able to debate the question, “As countries develop, change, and become more and more specialized and bureaucratized, do they come under greater and greater degrees of government management and control?”
  13. Be able to debate the question whether individuality is lost in a high-tech post-industrialized, modernized society and give supporting evidence for your position.
  14. Explain how social change can lead to personal and societal powerlessness.
  15. Define collective behavior and describe its characteristics.
  16. Describe the broad types of social movements (personal transformation, reform or radical social change, and reactionary).
  17. Discuss the relationship between increases in racial, ethnic, gender, and SES inequality as societies change socially, technologically, and economically.
  18. Explain how type of directedness relates to deviance.
  19. Discuss the relationship between cultural transformation, cultural diffusion, and religion, religious practices, and social inequity on a personal, national, and global level.
  20. Be able to explain the relationship between war, terrorism, and social change and give examples of these events since the Civil War in America (in 1861-1865) and the destruction of the Germany with the World War II.
  21. Discuss cyberspace, how it developed, and how it has contributed to continued social change.
  22. Identify the five characteristics of collective behavior and explain how they impede or further social change.
  23. Discuss the origin of social movements, the theories explaining the development of social movements, and the aspects that contribute to people mobilizing for social change.
  24. Define the difference between reform movement, radical movements, and reactionary movements.
  25. Briefly describe the political process theory and the internal and external factors associated with this process.
  26. Name two social structural theories and two individual level theories of social movement.