Chapter 18
Human Agency: Individuals
and Groups in Society
Changing Social Structures
In Conflict and Order:
Understanding Society, 11th edition
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The Sociological Paradox:
Social Structure and Agency
• While society constrains what we do, it
does not determine what we do.
– Society is not a rigid entity, composed of
robots
– What people consider sacred, and therefore
unchangeable, is a social construction that
can be reconstructed
– Since social structures are created, they are
imperfect, always in need of reform or
transformation
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Social Movements
A social movement
is a collective attempt to
promote or resist change.
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Social Movements
• An ideology is a set of ideas that explains
reality, provides guidelines for behavior,
and expresses the interests of a group.
– It may be elaborate or it may be narrowly
aimed at one side or the other.
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Types of Social Movements
• Resistance movements
– Explicitly organized movements to either
resist change or they are reactionary in that
they seek to reverse changes that have
already occurred and restore “traditional
values”
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Types of Social Movements
• Reform movements
– Seek to alter a specific part of society and
commonly focus on a single issue
– Typically, there is an aggrieved group
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Types of Social Movements
• Revolutionary movements
– Seek radical change by going beyond reform
to seek to replace the existing social
institutions with new ones that conform to a
radically different vision of society
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The Life Course of
Social Movements
• Social movements move through
predictable stages.
• First Stage
– The movement must attract members.
– Usually there is some societal condition that
threatens or harms some segment of society.
• Second Stage
– Grievances become focused and leaders
emerge.
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The Life Course of
Social Movements
• Third Stage
– Resources are mobilized and a formal
organizational structure is developed.
• Fourth stage
– If the movement is successful, it becomes
integrated into society.
– This is the stage of institutionalization and a
common danger is goal displacement.
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Agency: Social Change
from the Bottom Up
• The Civil Rights Movement
– The civil rights movement did not begin in the
1960s, but rather from the time Blacks arrived
here as slaves.
– The civil rights movement is not the result of a
single event.
– It carries the cumulative effects of centuries of
mistreatment of Blacks by Whites and White
governments.
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Agency: Social Change
from the Bottom Up
• The Civil Rights Movement (continued)
– The civil rights movement came together in the
1950s, with the passage of the Supreme Court
decision desegregating the schools, the
outrage of the lynching of Emmitt Till, and the
Montgomery bus boycott.
– Economic boycotts and sit-ins were organized.
– The movement was partially successful, as
segregationist laws and practices were soon
abolished.
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Agency: Social Change
from the Bottom Up
• The Civil Rights Movement (continued)
– Racial equality has not yet been achieved,
however, as measured by wages, employment
opportunities, unemployment rates, poverty
rates, desegregated neighborhoods, and
differences in money spent on education.
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Agency: Social Change
from the Bottom Up
• Gender Equity in Sports
– Before 1970, U.S. sport was almost
exclusively for men and boys.
– However, as a consequence of court cases,
individual acts of courage by women pioneers
in sport, and the efforts of women’s
organizations, dramatic moves toward gender
equity in sports have been accomplished.
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Agency: Social Change
from the Bottom Up
• Gender Equity in Sports (continued)
– Archaic rules by athletic organizations
prohibiting girls from competition were
overturned.
– Legislation, most prominently Title IX, was
passed which gave impetus to greater
participation by girls and women in school
sports.
– Full gender equity, however, has not yet been
reached.
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Conclusion
• The theme of the last chapter is the
importance of human beings in constructing
and reconstructing society.
• Implications
– We do not have to be passive actors who
accept society’s institutional imperatives as
inevitable.
– The personal is political.
• Society’s structural arrangements are not
inevitable.
Copyright © Allyn and Bacon 2007