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Collective Behavior and Social Change:
Exercise 2 - Social movements
Instructions:
Read the passage and click on the correct answer. If wrong, try
again. Scroll down if you do not see the Answer box. Click
here to review the key terms for this exercise.
Social movements can also be reformative
or revolutionary.
Reformative social movements try to cause limited change for the whole
society. There are two types of reformative social movements: progressive
and reactionary. Progressive movements try to create change in a new
direction. For example, multiculturalism is a type of progressive
movement that encourages racial equality. Reactionary movements try
to keep things the way they are or try to go back to the way things
were. For example, the White Supremacist movement is a reactionary
movement that tries to keep up the old idea of White superiority.
Lastly, revolutionary social movements try to cause total change for
the whole society. A communist party, which seeks to change a society
from a democratic to a communist one, is an example of a revolutionary
movement because if a country became communist, the whole way of life
of its people would change.