Please note: This assignment is not meant to serve as anything like a quiz or test. There are no ‘wrong’ answers to the following questions. Please use this space to take stock of, and to organize your initial impressions and thoughts. We will then have opportunities throughout the quarter via discussion boards to further develop our ideas with each other in light of our readings. Please aim for approximately one concise paragraph per response. If you would like more space, by all means feel free to keep writing!
1.) Which factors/variables are related to/help explain large-scale social changes in:
Ideas and Ideologies
Behaviors and Actions
Values and Meanings
2.) Are some factors or variables more important than others when researching and explaining social change? Yes? No? If yes, which ones? If no, why not?
3.) a.) Are large-scale social changes/movements determined? Inevitable? If so, why?
b.) Are there identifiable patterns or trends in history that help explain (and perhaps ‘predict’) social changes and movements? If so, what sorts of socio-historical patterns and trends seem significant?
c.) Is history rather random and sporadic? Are social changes and movements relatively specific/idiosyncratic and therefore difficult to describe/explain in terms of trends/patterns? If so, why?
4.) How and why would comparing two or more historical cases, events, processes, etc. help us make better sense of social change?
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