Social Movements

Define social movements (2 pts)

State an example of a social movement; identify what type of a movement it is and Why ? (3 pts).

Example:

A social movement is when a large group of people are dissatisfied about things such as social and political issues and organize to either promote or resist social change. There are four types of social movements in the world. There is the artistic movements, independence movements, revolutionary movements, and religious/spiritual movements.
An example of a social movement is the African-American Civil Rights Movement in 1954. The Civil Rights movement changed many African Americans lives for the better. Without this movement in place, African American people would not be able to vote or be treated as equals and not as the minority.

Example 2:

A social movement is “a large group of people who are organized to promote or resist some social change” (636). There are four types of social movements identified by Aberle and two identified by the author of the textbook. The four defined by Aberle are alterative, reformative, transnational, and redemptive. Alterative social movement is “a social movement that seeks to alter only some specific aspects of people and institutions” (637). A reformative social movement is “a social movement that seeks to reform some specific aspect of society” (637). A transnational social movement is “a social movement that seeks to change society totally, to transform it” (637). A redemptive social movement is one that “seeks to change people and institutions totally, to redeem them” (637). According to the author, the other two types of social movement are transformative and metaformative. Transformative social movements are ones that “social movements whose emphasis is on some condition around the world, instead of on a condition in a specific country; also known as new social movements” (638). Metaformative social movement “a social movement that has the goal to change the social order not just of a country or two, but of a civilization, or even of the entire world” (638).

An example of a reformative social movement is the “no straws please” movement that is going around right now. It is an attempt to get everyone involved in no longer using plastic straws because it is bad for the environment. It is trying to reform a specific aspect of society. Little changes like no longer using plastic straws in addition to other things such as using recyclable bags lead to the bigger picture of a better environment.

You can use the page numbers from the examples but please don’t copy and paste the sentences.