SOC320 SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
| Course Code: | 2320320 |
| METU Credit (Theoretical-Laboratory hours/week): | 3 (3.00 - 0.00) |
| ECTS Credit: | 6.0 |
| Department: | Sociology |
| Language of Instruction: | English |
| Level of Study: | Undergraduate |
| Course Coordinator: | |
| Offered Semester: | Fall or Spring Semesters. |
Course Objectives
This course is a critically oriented survey of social movements as historical, political, and social formations that contest—and sometimes reproduce—power. We read classic and contemporary scholarship (from labor and peasant insurgencies to feminist, anti-racist, decolonial and climate mobilizations) through lenses of political economy, intersectionality, and contentious politics, attending to geographies from Turkey and the MENA to Europe and the Americas. Framed by “intense times”—authoritarian populism, polarization, austerity, war, digital disinformation, and ecological breakdown—the course asks how collective action emerges, organizes, and transforms institutions, and with what consequences. Students learn to connect theory to cases (e.g., Gezi, Arab Spring, 15M/Occupy, climate justice) and to evaluate both limits and emancipatory horizons of collective agency today.
Course Content
The critical analysis of social movements and collective actions which can be seen as crucial in the articulation of popular demands questioning established social orders. Currently dominant perspectives in the analysis of social movements and collective actions, collective behavior; resource mobilization; political process; and new social movements. Feminist, environmental, anti-nuclear, peace movement, anti-globalization movements. A special focus is placed on contemporary racism and ethnicity in Europe.
Course Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course students will be able to:
Identify and compare major theories of social movements (resource mobilization, political opportunity, framing, new social movements, emotions/culture, networks). Analyze how movements emerge, recruit, mobilize, sustain action, and transform politics. Situate movements historically and globally (including Turkey and the Middle East). Evaluate progressive and reactionary movements comparatively. Produce original research (midterm paper + a final research paper) and present findings.
Program Outcomes Matrix
| Level of Contribution | |||||
| # | Program Outcomes | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 1 | To correlate sociology and other social sciences | ✔ | |||
| 2 | To interpret knowledge produced by society from a sociological perspective | ✔ | |||
| 3 | To renew and improve their accumulation by following up-to-date publications and research programs in their fields | ✔ | |||
| 4 | To be open to occupational novelties in order to understand social change | ✔ | |||
| 5 | To produce original solutions within and outside the discipline and in interdisciplinary levels | ✔ | |||
| 6 | To know and implement the ethics of sociological research | ✔ | |||
| 7 | To be aware of social, environmental, and economic effects in the areas where sociological approaches are appropriated | ✔ | |||
| 8 | To use and transfer the accumulation of sociological knowledge in an interdisciplinary way | ✔ | |||
| 9 | To understand social structures and dynamics by correlating the past, the present and the future | ✔ | |||
| 10 | To connect social theories of knowledge and social practices | ✔ | |||
0: No Contribution 1: Little Contribution 2: Partial Contribution 3: Full Contribution