Module overview
In this module you will be able to examine a variety of organisations involved in social change, such as governmental and non-governmental organisations, voluntary organisations, social movement organisations and charitable organisations. You will be helped to understand how these movements and organisations are located in their historical and spatial context, why people join such organisations, how they are financed and hat effects they have.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcomes
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Integrate insights from social movement theory with those from other relevant sub-disciplines within Sociology.
- Take responsibility for representing particular arguments/evidence.
- Knowledge and understanding of different organisational structures and strategies.
- Knowledge and understanding of resource-management such as recruitment and fund-raising.
- Engage critically with competing sociological theories about the emergence, organisation and impact of social change organisations (social movement organisations, non-profit organisations, third sector organisations, non-governmental organisations).
- Develop collaborative study and research abilities.
- Knowledge and understanding of different types of social change organisations organizations.
- Produce a sustained argument using diverse data.
- Evaluate wider sociological claims through the applied study of particular fields of practice.
- Articulate views and arguments in sustained seminar discussions.
- Produce succinct summary overviews of complex material.
- Knowledge and understanding of the impact of non-profit organisations on various levels (personal, social, political).
- Analyse and evaluate competing perspectives on a topic.
Syllabus
Topics to be covered within the SOCI3074 module will include: The national and international context of social change organizations; goals, tactics and strategies; resource mobilisation and accountability, professionalisation processes; regulation, policing and repression; mutual aid and prefigurative politics; outcomes of social change organisations (individual level, culture, legislative change). We will explore these issues in a wide range of contexts including climate change, gender equality, development and humanitarianism, movements for racial equality such as Black Lives Matter.
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
This course will be delivered through weekly lectures and bi-weekly seminars.
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Seminar | 22 |
| Independent Study | 128 |
| Total study time | 150 |
Resources & Reading list
Textbooks
Donatella della Porta and Mario Diani (eds>) (2015). The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jon Dean (2020). The Good Glow. Charity and the Symbolic Power of Doing Good. Bristol: Policy Press.
Snow, D.A., Soule, S., Kriesi, HP , McCammon, H. (eds) (2019). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Wiley.
Sarah S. Stroup and Wendy H. Wong (2017). The Authority Trap. Strategic Choices of International NGOs. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Sabine Lang (2013). NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Silke Roth and Clare Saunders (2023). Organising for Change. Social Change Makers and Social Change Organisations. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Zyenep Tufekci (2007). Twitter and Tear Gas. The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Assessment
Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Response papers | 30% |
| Coursework | 70% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Response papers | 30% |
| Coursework | 70% |
Repeat
An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Response papers | 30% |
| Coursework | 70% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External