Chapter 16 - Social Movements and Social Change

Question 1

Social Movement

Answer 1

Forms when people who want social change create an organization that is collaborative, organized and sustained and challenges authorities, powerholders or cultural beliefs and practises

Question 2

Protest

Answer 2

An individual or group act or challenging, resisting, or making demands towards social change

Often most visible part of social movements

Question 3

Beneficiary constituents

Answer 3

People who stand to benefit directly from the social change being sought.

Question 4

Conscience constituents

Answer 4

People who care about the cause but do not benefit directly from the changes

Question 5

Mobilizing

Answer 5

Means or spreading the word and bringing people together to support the goal of the social movement

Ex. the internet, social media

Question 6

Community-based organizing

Answer 6

Individual activists become involved in a movement because of an issue directly affecting their community

Question 7

Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF)

Answer 7

One of the oldest national community organizations in the US

Founded in 1940 by activist Saul Alinsky, the IAF was developed to foster and support community-based groups, by training local-level leaders and organizers so that they can make change in their local communities. Some of the organization’s work includes successfully advocating for a living wage for workers in Baltimore and New York City. West and Southwest IAF advocate to bring people out of poverty-level jobs and to provide educational opportunities for workers.

Question 8

Four Types of Movements

Answer 8

Alternative
Redemptive
Reformative Revolutionary

Question 9

Alternative social movements

Answer 9

Advocate for limited societal change but do not ask individuals to change their personal beliefs.

target a narrow group of people and focus on a single concern. Friends of Cats is an example of an alternative social movement. Their goal was to change animal control policy in their city.

Question 10

Redemptive social movements

Answer 10

Seek radical change in individual behavior

Ex. temperance movement in the 1800s advocated for individuals to stop drinking

Question 11

Reformative social movements

Answer 11

work for specific change across society. In working for an end to racism and racial injustice, the civil rights movement and the more recent Black Lives Matter movement fit this type of movement.

aimed to change one aspect of society

Can be conservative - ex, antimarriage equality, attempts to stop illegal immigration

Question 12

Revolutionary social

Answer 12

radical reorganization of society. The American Revolution is an example of a revolutionary social movement. The Communist Party in the United States and around the world challenges capitalism and government policies that exploit workers. It advocates for environmental protection, living wages for workers, the rights of labor unions, and shared ownership of resources.

Question 13

Conflict Theory

Answer 13

Conflict theorists focus on how social movements develop out of systematic inequality. According to conflict theorists, social movements arise when goods and services are distributed unevenly. One of the most well-known conflict theories used in the arena of social movements is resource mobilization.

Question 14

Resource mobilization

Answer 14

Focuses on the resources needed to mobilize and sustain a social movement

The presence of resources—followers, money, political connections, and so on—predicts whether a movement will be successful. Resource mobilization theorists believe all social movements need resources to mobilize, and without these resources, mobilization is much more difficult, if not impossible

focusing on resources does not help us understand how individuals and groups with little to no resources (poor people, marginalized people) form a successful social movement

Question 15

Symbolic Interactionist Theory

Answer 15

Focus on how people interactively construct meaning through shared symbols and language.

Theorize that collective behavior develops when established institutions no longer provide meaning that aligns with the views of a majority of its constituents

Ex. marriage as an institution between a man and a woman

Question 16

Social movement framing

Answer 16

Another way to understand social movements under symbolic interactionism

Focus on how social movements use images and language to frame their causes

leaders influence how people think about an issue by highlighting certain facts and themes while making other invisible

Question 17

Master frames

Answer 17

appeal nearly universally

ex. freedom, love

Question 18

Frame competition

Answer 18

when an organization uses another group’s frames to discredit or ridicule its position

Question 19

1848 - 1920 Women’s Movement

Answer 19

First wave

Suffrage movement

Right to vote

Question 20

Difference feminism

Answer 20

used images of women as caring, nurturing mothers to argue that women would bring an end to war and poverty if they could vote and serve office

Question 21

1960s and 70s feminist movement

Answer 21

2nd wave

after working in factories during WWII women expected to go back to being full time wives and mothers once the war ended

wave advocated for an end to gender discrimination in the workplace and reproductive right for women

Question 22

Social Movement Tasks

Answer 22

Identify an issue

Form a group - of both beneficiary and consciousness constituents that believe change is necessary

Create a strategy - Strategic research and planning

Mobilize resources - Constituents are every social movement’s most important resource. Other resources include money, access to media, and supplies. Organizations must assess what resources they have and organize to gain those they need.

Organize actions - Specific actions, or tactics, might include protesting, marching, boycotting, and so on.

Gaining power and success

Question 23

Feminist

Answer 23

committed to gender equality

Question 24

1990s Feminism

Answer 24

third wave

focused on inclusiveness and intersectionality

drew from a diverse group of women to advocate around various issues, including sexual violence, gat rights and reproductive justice

riot grrrls - developed out of the feminist hardcare punk music scene

Question 25

Riot grrls

Answer 25

developed out of the hardcore punk music scene

Activists, musicians, and writers in the movement covered everything from body-positive messages to surviving sexual violence.

Question 26

Marginalization of members

Answer 26

Social movements can limit participation by marginalizing some members within the organization. For example, despite playing important roles in civil rights efforts, women were marginalized in the civil rights movement

often assigned clerical work instead of on-the-ground organizing work.

Question 27

Civil Right Movement Succeses

Answer 27

the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin;

the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which made it illegal for states and local governments to block individuals from voting and created a system to monitor states and counties with low voter turnout among minorities; and

the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which prohibits discrimination in renting, selling, or financing housing based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Question 28

Women’s Movement Victories

Answer 28

Equal Pay Act of 1963 and the 1973 Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade, granting women legal access to abortion. T

he women’s movement also became an influential part of mainstream political institutions.

Started as an organization targeting politicians for social change, the National Organization for Women now has hundreds of thousands of members, chapters in every state

Question 29

Repression

Answer 29

takes place when people and/or institutions with power use that power to control or destroy a movement.

Question 30

Countries that can protests

Answer 30

Russia, the Ukraine, and Egypt.

Question 31

Co-optation

Answer 31

Can happen when the leadership of the movement begins to identify with the targets of social change and starts to work more for them than for the original movement goals.

Social movements can also end up taking on the values and actions they are trying to change. For example, the environmental movement seeking corporate responsibility in growing and selling coffee found its language of “fair trade” co-opted by some coffee sellers to appeal to a high-end niche consumer, without much concern about whether the coffee was actually fairly traded.

watered down or changed

Question 32

The Stonewall riots on June 28, 1969.

Answer 32

During the 1950s and 1960s, it was illegal for bars to serve gays and lesbians, and they could lose their liquor licenses for letting gay people congregate. The riots broke out in the Stonewall

Inn, a bar in New York City frequented by gay men and lesbians. Police raids on known gay and lesbian bars were commonplace, but when police raided the Stonewall Inn, patrons decided they had enough and fought back

The riots served to galvanize the gay and lesbian community to organize into activist groups and push for equal treatment.

The following year, to commemorate the anniversary of the riots, gay and lesbian rights activists held a march in New York City running from Greenwich Village up Fifth Avenue to Central Park. This was the first Pride March, now an annual event

Question 33

Independent power

Answer 33

Francis Fox Piven’s (2006)

Helps explain how social change can come from the organized efforts of relatively poor and powerless individuals because of the ties that bind institutions and individuals together. Individuals are connected to one another through institutions that organize our lives

Question 34

Participatory Action Research (PAR)

Answer 34

starts with the idea that people are the experts in their own lives and can participate in the research process. Instead of the typical model of a researcher coming into a community to study it, the people who live in that community participate in the research process and help produce the knowledge collectively

especially useful technique in disadvantaged communities where members may not trust outsider researchers and are more likely to talk to one another.