Understanding Social Movements and Social Change 4219-AW228
This course focuses on social change and the history of social movements in the United States after II WW.
Students will get a chance to get acquainted with key concepts and theoretical traditions in social movement
research, based on the cases such as the Civil Rights Movement, women’s movement, racist and populist
movements, Occupy, Black Lives Matter and online mobilizations, including alt-right and #metoo campaign. We
will look closely at different concepts and approaches to social change and discuss how citizens can influence
such changes. To this end the students will get acquainted with concepts such as civil disobedience, political
opportunity structures, framing, collective identity, emotion work, and media cultures. Emphasis will be placed
on the constructionist school, which analyzes the role of culture for the movements’ emergence and
developments, and looks at how these movements change culture and society. Readings include works of
historians and social and political scientists, such as Deborah B. Gould, Arlie R. Hochschild, Ronald F. Inglehart
and Pippa Norris, Michael Kazin, Myra Marx Ferree, Aldon Morris, and Michael Kazin. An interdisciplinary focus
helps to understand the origins and effects of ongoing social change, highlighting the material and cultural
origins of grievances, the processes cementing the sense of solidarity, or the role of narratives and emotions in
bringing about social change. We will be using not only academic texts but also music videos, documentaries
and texts from popular media.
Type of course
elective monographs
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Upon completing this course a student:
KNOWLEDGE:
- knows and understands the history of social movements in US after II WW,
- knows and understands key concepts in social movement theory (e.g. power, resource mobilization, political
opportunity structure, framing, collective identity, emotion work);
- has an understanding of how social change emerged in the cultural and historical context of the US.
SKILLS
- is able to critically examine public debates on hot issues, taking into account the specificity of the US social
and political context;
- can locate most important areas of disagreement between political positions in some of the key public
debates;
- is able to formulate and present the history of movement-driven social change in the American society after II
WW.
COMPETENCES:
- is open to conflicting opinions concerning the effects that social movements had on contemporary American
society and politics;
- is able to engage in the debate based on the knowledge of the history of social movements;
- is able to formulate and defend his/her opinion with respect of other views.
Assessment criteria
1. Class attendance, participation - 30%
2. Final test (30 minutes) - 70%
Bibliography
Best, Heinrich and John Higley (2019) Introduction, in: Heinrich Best and John Higley, eds. The Palgrave
Handbook of Political Elites, Palgrave McMillan: London.
Barkan, Steven E. (2016) Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, Comprehensive Edition v2.0.
FlatWorld. Chapters 14.1 Power and Authority and 14.3 Theories of Power and Society.
Göhler, Gerhard (2009) Power to and power over, in: Stewart R. Clegg and Mark Haugaard eds, The SAGE
Handbook of Power, Sage: London, 27-39.
Kazin, Michael (2016) Trump and American Populism. Foreign Affairs 95 (6): 17–24.
Mudde, Cas (2018) How Populism Became the Concept That Defines Our Age. The Guardian, November 22,
2018, sec. World news.
Costanza-Chock, Sasha. 2012. Mic Check! Media Cultures and the Occupy Movement, Social Movement Studies,
11:3-4, 375-385
Garza, Alicia. 2016. A herstory of #BlackLivesMatter Movement, in: Are All the Women Still White?: Rethinking
Race, Expanding Feminisms, Janell Hobson ed. State University of New York Press: New York, 23-28.
Gould, Deborah. 2009. Politics: Emotion and ACT UP's Fight against AIDS. University of Chicago Press (chapter
8).
Hochschild, Arlie Russel. 2016. Strangers in Their Own Land, New York: The New York Press (Part 3. The Deep
Story and the People in it).
Inglehart, Ronald F., and Pippa Norris. 2016. “Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and
Cultural Backlash.” SSRN Scholarly Paper. Rochester, NY. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2818659.
Marx Ferree, Myra. 2010. Resonance and radicalism: feminist framing in the abortion debates of the United
States and Germany, Readings on Social Movements. Origins, dynamics, and outcomes, Doug McAdam & David
A. Snow, eds. New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 346-370.
Morris, Aldon. 1999. A Retrospective on the Civil Rights Movement: Political and Intellectual Landmarks.
Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 25, 517-539.
Staggenborg, Suzanne (2008) “The Protest Cycle of the 1960” in: Social Movements edited by S. Staggenborg.
Oxford University Press: Oxford, 43-53.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: