Distinguishing between Social Change and Social Movements: It is important to distinguish between social change in general and social movements.
Social change is continuous and ongoing
. … Social movements are directed towards some specific goals. It involves long and continuous social effort and action by people.
(i)
Social change is continuous and ongoing
. It indicates Sum total of countless individual and collective action gathered across time and space. (ii) Social movements are directed towards some specific goals. It Involves long and continuous social effort and action by people.
movement is a necessary condition of social change, on the contrary, social change
can take place independently of social movements through the operation of impersonal forces and factors
. Nor does it mean that it is invariably change-promoting, it can be, equally, change-resisting.
Social movement,
a loosely organized but sustained campaign in support of a social goal
, typically either the implementation or the prevention of a change in society’s structure or values. Although social movements differ in size, they are all essentially collective.
A social movement is a
loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal
, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out, resist or undo a social change. … They represent a method of social change from the bottom within nations.
- The Reformation.
- The abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
- The Civil Rights movement.
- The feminist movement.
- The LGBTQ+ rights movement.
- The green movement.
Summary. There are numerous and varied causes of social change. Four common causes, as recognized by social scientists, are
technology, social institutions, population, and the environment
. All four of these areas can impact when and how society changes.
Social movements are purposeful, organized groups, either with the goal of
pushing toward change, giving political voice to those without it, or gathering for some other common purpose
. Social movements intersect with environmental changes, technological innovations, and other external factors to create social change.
Social movements are broad alliances of people who are connected through their shared interest in social change. Social movements can
advocate for a particular social change
, but they can also organize to oppose a social change that is being advocated by another entity.
Because social movements have played such important roles in shap- ing human history, social scientists have studied them and come up with a number of explanations for why they develop. One approach is to explain why
people are or become discontented with a particular condition or pattern of behavior
.
- 5 Types of Social Movements. Reform movements, Revolutionary movements, Religious movements, Alternative movements, Resistance movements,
- Reform Movements. …
- Revolutionary Movements. …
- Religious Movements. …
- Alternative Movements. …
- Resistance Movements. …
- Reform Movement Example. …
- Revolutionary Movement Example.
- agitation.
- resource mobilization.
- organization.
- institutionalization.
- decline/death.
Scope: A movement can be either
reform or radical
. A reform movement advocates changing some norms or laws while a radical movement is dedicated to changing value systems in some fundamental way.
- Technology.
- Population.
- War and conquest.
- Diffusion.
- Values and beliefs.
- Physical environment.
The four stages of social movement development are
emergence, coalescence, bureaucra- tization, and decline
. The Decline stage can result from several different causes, such as repression, co-optation, success, failure, and mainstream.
The old social movements clearly saw
reorganisation of power relations
as a central goal. … So the ‘new’ social movements were not about changing the distribution of power in society but about quality-of-life issues such as having a clean environment.
