Social movements and collective action (SACE Stage 2 Society and Culture)

Syllabus dot point

“Analyse how social movements form, organise and use collective action to bring about social change in Australian society.”

6 min readUpdated 2 Jun 2026

Quick answer

A social movement is an organised, sustained effort by a large group of people to bring about or resist social change. Movements form when people share a grievance, develop a sense that change is possible, and organise to act collectively. They use tactics ranging from protest, petitions and campaigns to lobbying, civil disobedience and online mobilisation. Movements succeed when they build broad support, frame their cause persuasively, and shift public opinion and policy, though they often face resistance and may achieve only partial change. Social movements are a key agent of social change in democratic societies such as Australia.

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What this dot point is asking
What a social movement is
Why movements form
Tactics of collective action
How movements succeed or fail
Australian examples
Connection to the rest of the course
Assessment-style questions

What this dot point is asking

You must define social movements, explain why they form and how they organise, analyse their tactics and outcomes, and assess them as agents of change, with Australian examples.

A social movement is more than a single protest or organisation. It is a sustained, organised effort by many people who share a goal of changing, or resisting change to, some aspect of society. Movements have a shared identity and grievance, a degree of organisation, and a sense of purpose that lasts over time. They sit between spontaneous crowds and formal institutions, mobilising ordinary people to pursue change outside or alongside official channels.

Social movement

A social movement is a sustained, organised collective effort by a large number of people who share a common goal of promoting or resisting social, cultural or political change.

Why movements form

Movements arise from a combination of conditions. There must be a shared grievance, a sense that something is unjust or needs to change. There must be a belief that change is possible and that collective action can achieve it. And there must be the resources to organise, such as networks, leadership, communication and sometimes money. When grievance, opportunity and organisation come together, scattered discontent becomes an organised movement. The absence of any of these helps explain why some grievances never become movements.

Framing turns grievance into mobilisation

A movement must frame its cause in a way that persuades people the problem is serious, unjust and solvable, and that they should act. Successful framing connects the issue to widely shared values, such as fairness or rights, which is why the way a movement defines its cause is central to whether it grows.

Tactics of collective action

Movements use a range of tactics to pursue change.

Public protest such as marches and rallies to demonstrate support and attract attention.
Petitions and campaigns to show the scale of feeling and pressure decision-makers.
Lobbying and negotiation to influence policy through formal channels.
Civil disobedience, deliberately breaking rules to draw attention to injustice.
Online mobilisation, using social media to organise, spread messages and coordinate quickly.

Movements usually combine tactics, and digital technology has made organising faster and cheaper than ever.

How movements succeed or fail

Movements achieve change by shifting public opinion, gaining media attention, building alliances and pressuring those with power, until reform becomes politically necessary. They face resistance from groups whose interests are threatened and from inertia in institutions. Many movements achieve partial rather than complete success, or change attitudes before they change laws. Evaluating a movement means looking at what it actually changed, not just its visibility.

Evaluating a movement's real outcomes

Take the movement

The Australian environmental movement.

List the immediate (legislative) outcomes

Some policy wins and some defeats; full demands often not met.

List the wider outcomes

Shifted public attitudes to conservation and climate, set new items on the political agenda, and built lasting organisations and networks.

Reach the evaluative conclusion

Judged only on full demands the movement looks partial, but assessing the full range of outcomes, including attitude and agenda change, shows substantial influence. Evaluating across this range, not just legislative wins, is what the dot point rewards.

Common mistake

Do not judge a social movement only by whether it achieved its full demands. Movements often produce gradual or partial change, shift the terms of debate, or lay groundwork for later reform. Strong answers assess a range of outcomes, including changes in public attitudes and the agenda, not only immediate legislative wins.

Australian examples

Australian history is shaped by social movements. The campaign for Aboriginal rights, including the 1967 referendum, changed both attitudes and the constitution. The women's movement transformed law and workplaces over decades. The environmental movement has shaped policy and public attitudes to conservation and climate. The marriage equality campaign mobilised broad support and led to legal change in 2017. Each shows the process of forming, framing, organising and pressuring for change.

Connection to the rest of the course

This dot point deepens social change and continuity by focusing on movements as a key agent of change, and connects to power and authority, since movements challenge how power is used. It links to the media and technology, the tools movements use to mobilise. Social movements are excellent subjects for the folio, group activity and external investigation, since the group activity itself involves planning a form of collective social action.

Assessment-style questions

Questions on this dot point, each with a worked answer, written by ExamExplained. Society and Culture has no written exam, so use them to check your understanding before your assessment tasks.

Practice8 marks

Source: an account of a recent environmental campaign describes how it used social media to organise rallies, framed its cause around fairness to future generations, and shifted some public opinion but achieved only partial policy change. (a) Identify two tactics of collective action in the source. (b) Using sociological concepts, explain how framing helped the movement grow. (c) Suggest one reason the movement achieved only partial change.

Show worked answer →

This is a source/data analysis item marked on knowledge, analysis and evaluation.

(a) Two tactics (2 marks): Online mobilisation (using social media to organise) and public protest (rallies). Petitions or lobbying would also be creditable if present.
(b) Role of framing (4 marks): Framing presents a cause as serious, unjust and solvable and connects it to widely shared values. By framing the issue around fairness to future generations, the movement linked it to a value most people accept, persuading more people the problem mattered and that action was justified, which helped it grow. Naming framing, shared values and mobilisation earns the marks.
(c) Partial change (2 marks): Movements meet resistance from groups whose interests are threatened and from institutional inertia, so they often shift attitudes or the agenda before, or instead of, achieving full legislative change.

Practice12 marks

Analyse how social movements form, organise and pursue change, and evaluate the claim that a movement should be judged a success only if it achieves its full demands. Use Australian examples.