The following project differs from others on this website in two ways: it is written from a sociological rather than an historical perspective, and it discusses scholarly interpretations rather than specific historical events. We hope that this summary of sociological interpretations of social movements will help visitors to the site bring larger theoretical questions to bear on the empirical evidence contained in the site's other projects.
We encouraged Professor Roth to write this essay about women and social movements because we feel that a theoretical discussion of social movements can inform our historical understanding of specific historical examples of women and social movements. We also believe that thoughtful consideration of the numerous examples in this website of women's participation in social movements can generate new theoretical perspectives.
Theory can illuminate empirical evidence and empirical evidence can illuminate theory. History and sociology complement one another as scholarly disciplines because both are concerned with social structures and with the interpretation of social action.
Yet these two disciplines also differ. Historians see their main task as the analysis of change over time and to do that they focus on the specific events in specific times and places. Sociologists seek generalizable explanations of social change, and base new generalizations on specific historical studies. Partly for these reasons historians tend to borrow generalizations from sociologists and apply them to specific contexts, while sociologists often build new generalizations on the basis of specific historical studies.
This project is designed to create interactions between the sociology and the history of women's participation in social movements. It has three dimensions. Third, it links with these documents, permitting viewers to evaluate connections between the documents and the issues raised in Professor Roth's essay.
