Social Movements

by Suzanne Staggenborg

Social movements around the world have used a wide variety of protest tactics to bring about enormous social changes, influencing cultural arrangements, public opinion, and government policies. In this book, the author explores key theoretical issues in the study of social movements through a series of case studies. The aboriginal rights movement, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian rights movement, the environmental movement, and the global justice movement are studied. The author describes and analyzes social movements in terms of their strategies and tactics, the organizational challenges they faced, and the role the mass media and counter-movements played in determining their successes and failures.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, History, Politics, School, Academic

173 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

Reviews

[Terri Lynn · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author might have been able to make this book more dry and boring but I honestly don't see how. The problem I see with many textbooks is that writers think they need to include all of the gobbledygook and terminology of their field without bothering to include anecdotes and examples. I have seen texts where the authors are literally on fire about their subject and have the ability to sweep readers along.Suzanne Staggenborg is NOT one of those. Oh goodness, my daughter found me asleep at my desk tonight having dozed off while reading this with my hand clutching it at my place. My sweetie pie of a husband, recognizing a boredom inspired nap, had placed a pillow under my head as I slumped on my arms, glasses off, clutching this awful book. I lived through the civil rights, women's liberation, and Vietnam protest years during my childhood as the daughter of activist parents so I love this subject but this author seems to have thrown together some terminology she thinks people need to know with no interesting stories or examples and tossed it out there to an unwary public.

[taylor]

this course is almost over 😛🤙🏼

[Izabella Britten · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is packed full of information. I mean it is an amazing resource. I read it for my social change and social movements class and it gave me a lot of information for my papers and discussions. Truly an interesting read it covers pretty much any social movement that you would want to learn about. I like how it reviews the information it covers without being too repetitive. There is a lot of stuff crammed into this book but they way it is laid out is very helpful I probably would not have read it if it were not for the class but overall it taught me a lot!

[Lily Keefauver · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of information on Social movement theories/concepts: Resource mobilization, political process, Collective behavior, New Social movements, SMs, SMOs, and SMIs. Also details origins and histories of large social movements such as LGBT movement, Women's liberation, Civil Rights, Right Wing Countermovements, and the environmental movement. Informational

[Drick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short book that gives and introduction to the Sociology sub-field of social movements. The author does a good job of introducing basic theories and concepts regarding social movements and gives a good analysis of five social movements: women's, gay rights/liberation,, environmental, New Right and the global justice movements. What is odd is that she does not go deeply into the two most important movements (in my view)in the last 50 years: the Civil Rights movement and the anti-war/militarism movement. For what it covers it is an excellent book, but those are glaring omissions.