With “Occupy Wall Street” taking hold in cities across the U.S., social movement scholars have been called upon to provide a framework through which to better understand organic uprisings. In my own conversation with a Knoxville reporter for WBIR-TV, I began to explain how social movements can emerge when “political opportunities” resonate with long-held perceptions of injustice. Though the demands for this burgeoning movement may be yet undefined (as is often the case early in a movement’s development), Wall Street protests nevertheless draw our attention to inequality and the presistant relevance of class in America.

View a soundbyte from my cameo as a social movement expert.

Read additional commentary by a scholar of social movements, David S. Meyer of the University of California at Irvine, online at the Washington Post.