The Scenario

Given your overwhelming passion for social justice and human rights, you are actively involved in a variety of social movements. You have decided to profile one of these movements in great detail in an effort to help movement organizers better understand their movement and help it grow.

Your Task

You need to select a social movement that you would like to profile. A social movement is "an organized activity in which people set out to encourage or discourage social change" (Macionis 2013). Examples of social movements include attempts to abolish the death penalty; the push for increased science, technology, engineering and math courses in school; the pro-life and pro-choice movements; gay rights; efforts to have contested illnesses recognized; and the push for environmental justice*. Once you have selected your movement, spend some time researching the movement using the web and/or the library. Additionally, you need to contact at least one participant in the social movement and conduct an informal interview. You might also consider participating in at least one event related to your social movement in order to collect ethnographic data based on your observations. The more research that you do and the more involved that you become, the better your profile will be. Your task is to utilize the research you conduct to develop a social movement profile that addresses all of the following:

1. Detailed description of the social movement's goals and tactics.
2. Detailed description of the research that you engaged in to learn about the movement.
3. What type of social movement is this (e.g. Alterative, Reformative, etc.)? Justify your response.
4. Is this social movement bureaucratic in any way? Why or why not? How so?
5. Did you encounter any examples of group conformity or groupthink?
6. Is this social movement in any way a response to modernity?
7. Which major theorist of modernity do you think would be most likely to join this social movement? Why?
8. What should movement organizers do next to increase their movement's effectiveness? Why?

*Please note that the list I've provided and the examples I've listed are by no means exhaustive. There are literally thousands upon thousands of social movements focused on all different types of issues and working in a myriad of ways. I encourage you to select something you genuinely feel passionate about as it will make this task both easier and more enjoyable.

Profile Guidelines

• Your profile must be well-written meaning it must utilize full sentences with proper grammar, spelling and punctuation.
• Your profile should be thorough, addressing all of the components detailed above.
• Your profile should demonstrate that you actively and thoroughly researched the social movement that you have profiled.
• Any sources that you utilize must be properly cited.
• Your profile should be attached as a PDF file.
• Your profile should be at least 1000 words.
• Your profile should demonstrate that you have a thorough understanding of the sociological approach to understanding groups, organizations, and social change.