social movement
a collaborative and sustained collective undertaking or campaign, usually initiated by a specific event, that generally seeks to implement or prevent social change. Social movements emerge and operate mainly outside accepted political institutions; they can be narrow in scope, targeting particular social concerns (e.g., teenage pregnancy), or they can address fundamental issues in society, such as the women’s liberation movement or the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Reformist movements seek the improvement of existing social institutions and practices, revolutionary movements seek large-scale revisions of the social order, reactionary movements oppose change, and communitarian movements strive to create harmonious living conditions in modern society. See also community action group; social action program.