Sociology:A Down-to-Earth Approach: International Edition

Description

Features

• The author’s trademark “down-to-earth” approach is reflected in the many vignettes, boxes, and examples that are based on personal experience and field research. These first-person accounts provide a rich and compelling “insider’s” perspective on social life.
• Theoretically balanced, this text covers all major topics in an introductory course. Social change over time. An important theme in the text is the impact of social change--what society used to be like, how it has changed, and what the implications are for the present and future. A large number of graphs and tables are designed to illustrate social change over time.

New to this Edition

In this revision of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, there are over 60 new suggested readings, 350 new references, 300 new instructional photos, and 115 updated illustrations.

“By the Numbers: Then and Now” This new end-of-chapter features focuses on measures of social change.  Pulled from tables and figures in the chapter, this feature highlights some of the more dramatic changes over time. 

Chapter 1: The Sociological Perspective

• Women in Early Sociology: section includes “The Forgotten Sociologists,” a graphic that includes photos of Frances Perkins, Alice Paul and eight other women. 
• Suicide patterns: They are so consistent that we can predict the number of whites and African Americans who will commit suicide and the ways they will do so.

Chapter 3: Socialization

• Box: Cultural Diversity around the World: “Women Becoming Men: The Sworn Virgins”
• A new stage in the life course: The transitional older years (the period between retirement, averaging about age 63, and old age, beginning around age 75)

Chapter 4: Social Structure and Social Interaction

• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology:  “Looks: The Last Frontier for Socially Acceptable Discrimination?”

Chapter 5: How Sociologists Do Research

• Case Studies: new section added to Research Methods
  
• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology: “Gang Leader for a Day”
• Computer-Assisted Self-Interviewing

Chapter 6: Societies to Social Networks

• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology: “The Power of Cascades: When Errors Escalate”
• Box: Sociology and the New Technology: “Avatar Fantasy Life: The Fading Line of Reality”
• Replication of Milgram's obedience to authority experiments

Chapter 7: Bureaucracy and Formal Organizations

• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology: “Group Pranking: Escaping the Boredom of Bureaucracy?”

Chapter 8: Deviance and Social Control

• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology: “Shaming: Making a Comeback?” (such as, pink underwear for male prisoners and chain gangs for women prisoners)
• Citigroup as a career criminal
• On death row, those most likely to be executed are African Americans and Latinos who killed whites
• Figure 8.5: Who Gets Executed? Gender Bias in Capital Punishment

Chapter 9: Global Stratification

• The wealth of the new global superclass
• Figure 9.1: The Distribution of the Earth's Wealth
• Cracks in the global banking system

Chapter 10: Social Class in the United States

• Status symbols of the rich, such as $35,000 bottles of champagne
• Percentage of the poor made up of each racial-ethnic group (added to Figure 10.6: Race-Ethnicity and U.S. Poverty)

Chapter 11: Sex and Gender

• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology: “Women and Smoking: Let's Count the Reasons” (A humorous, but serious, look at historical changes in gender)
• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology: “Where are the Cheerleaders? (Male, That Is)”
• Box: Cultural Diversity in the United States: “Affirmative Action for Men?”
• Rwanda, the first country in the world to elect more women than men to its national legislature

Chapter 12: Race and Ethnicity

• Photo essay: Ethnic Work: Explorations in Cultural Identity
• The Techno Patriots, a group who monitor the U.S. border
• Institutional discrimination: the subprime mortgage debacle hits African Americans and Latinos the hardest
• Table 12.1: Race-Ethnicity and Mother/Child Deaths

Chapter 13: The Elderly

• Tuti Yusupova, perhaps age 128 and the world's oldest living person
• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology: “Do You Want to Live in a Nursing Home?”
• Green Houses and neighborhood support groups for the elderly

Chapter 14: The Economy

• Figure 14.1: Changes in the Medium of Exchange. (A timeline that shows the development of the medium of exchange.)
• The economic crisis that began in late 2008
• Box: Cultural Diversity Around the World: “When Capitalism Fails: Consequences for All of Us”
• Concentration of power and the global superclass
• Transcreation (when products designed originally for one audience are modified to match the tastes of an audience in another culture)

Chapter 15: Politics

• “Handlers” in U.S. politics bypass limits to political contributions
• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology: “How Can “Good” People Torture Others?”
• Box: Down-to-Earth Sociology: “Who Are the Suicide Terrorists? Testing Your Stereotypes”

Chapter 16: Marriage and Family

• The emerging equality in U.S. marriages (research by Morin and Cohn)
• Figure 16.1: Who Makes the Decisions at Home
  
• Ideal family size (Gallup Polls since the 1930s)
• Figure 16.4: The Number of Children Americans Think Are Ideal
• Box: Sociology and the New Technology: “Rent-a-Womb: 'How Much for Your Uterus?'”
• The chances of divorce increase if a couple's first-born child is a girl
• Proposition 8 in California

Chapter 17:  Education

• Japan's low birth rate is leading to easier admission to college; the pool of students has shrunk and Japan's colleges have begun to compete for students.
• Cheating (reporting fake data) by high school administrators and how to solve this problem
• Avatars in distance learning

Chapter 18: Religion

• Opening vignette based on the Texas raid on Yearning for Zion Ranch
• Through the Author's Lens: Holy Week in Spain
• The Pope launched his own YouTube channel

Chapter 19:  Medicine and Health

• Harvard medical students protesting their professors' ties with drug companies
• Ghostwriting medical research
• Nicotine deaths increasing in China
• The Veterans' Administration is using down-and-out veterans to test drugs.
• Thinking Critically section: How Will Your Lifestyle Affect Your Health?
• Box: Sociology and the New Technology: “Making Virtual House Calls: Visiting Your Doctor Online”
• The Future of Medicine

Chapter 20: Population and Urbanization

• Biofuels as a threat to the world food supply
• Figure 20.8: Country of Origin of Unauthorized Immigrants to the United States
• Figure 20.11: The 20 Largest Cities in the World
• Table 20.3: Urbanization and Industrial Development
  
• New research indicating that gentrification draws middle-class minorities to the neighborhood and improves their incomes
• The end of “white flight”

Chapter 22: Social Change and the Environment

• Opening vignette about the transplantation of human organs from one person to another
• Russia's threat of a nuclear attack on Poland
• China's identity cards that include reproductive history to enforce its “one child” policy
• Box: Sociology and the New Technology: “Digital Intimacy: Twittering Along in the Digital Age”
• China's now emits more carbon dioxide than does the United States

Table of Contents

BRIEF TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Chapter 1: The Sociological Perspective

Chapter 2: Culture

Chapter 3: Socialization

Chapter 4: Social Structure and Social Interaction

Chapter 5: How Sociologists Do Research

Chapter 6: Societies to Social Networks

Chapter 7: Bureaucracy and Formal Organizations

Chapter 8: Deviance and Social Control

Chapter 9: Global Stratification

Chapter 10: Social Class in the United States

Chapter 11: Sex and Gender

Chapter 12: Race and Ethnicity

Chapter 13: The Elderly

Chapter 14: The Economy

Chapter 15:  Politics

Chapter 16:  Marriage and Family

Chapter 17: Education

Chapter 18: Religion

Chapter 19: Medicine and Health

Chapter 20: Population and Urbanization

Chapter 21: Collective Behavior and Social Movements

Chapter 22: Social Change and the Environment

COMPREHENSIVE TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Chapter 1: The Sociological Perspective

The Sociological Perspective

Origins of Sociology

Verstehen and Social Facts

Sexism in Early Sociology

Sociology in North America

Theoretical Perspectives in Sociology

Trends Shaping the Future of Sociology

Summary and Review

Chapter 2: Culture

What Is Culture?

Components of Symbolic Culture

Many Cultural Worlds

Values in U.S. Society

Cultural Universals

Technology in the Global Village

Summary and Review 

Chapter 3: Socialization

What Is Human Nature?

Learning Personality, Morality, and Emotions

Socialization into Gender

Agents of Socialization

Resocialization

Socialization Through the Life Course

Are We Prisoners of Socialization?

Summary and Review

Chapter 4: Social Structure and Social Interaction

Levels of Sociological Analysis

The Macrosociological Perspective: Social Structure

The Microsociological Perspective: Social Interaction in Everyday Life

The Need for Both Macrosociology and Microsociology

Summary and Review

Chapter 5: How Sociologists Do Research

What Is a Valid Sociological Topic?

Common Sense and the Need for Sociological Research

A Research Model

Research Methods

Gender in Sociological Research

Ethics in Sociological Research

How Research and Theory Work Together

Summary and Review

Chapter 6: Societies to Social Networks

Societies and Their Transformation

Groups Within Society

Group Dynamics

Summary and Review

Chapter 7: Bureaucracy and Formal Organizations

The Rationalization of Society

Working for the Corporation

Humanizing the Corporate Culture

Summary and Review

Chapter 8: Deviance and Social Control

What Is Deviance?

The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

Summary and Review

Chapter 9: Global Stratification

Systems of Social Stratification

Why Is Social Stratification Universal?

Comparative Social Stratification

How Did the World's Nations Become Stratified?

A Concluding Note

Summary and Review

Chapter 10: Social Class in the United States

What Is Social Class?

Sociological Models of Social ClassConsequences of Social ClassSocial Mobility

Poverty

Summary and Review

Chapter 11: Sex and Gender

Issues of Sex and Gender

Gender Inequality in Global Perspective

Gender Inequality in the United States

Gender Inequality in the Workplace

Gender and Violence

The Changing Face of Politics

Glimpsing the Future-With Hope

Summary and Review

Chapter 12: Race and Ethnicity

Laying the Sociological Foundation

Theories of Prejudice

Global Patterns of Intergroup Relations

Race and Ethnic Relations in the United States

Looking Toward the Future

Summary and Review

Chapter 13: The Elderly

Aging in Global Perspective

The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

The Functionalist Perspective

The Conflict Perspective

Problems of Dependency

The Sociology of Death and Dying

Looking Toward the Future

Summary and Review

Chapter 14: The Economy

The Transformation of Economic Systems

The Transformation of the Medium of Exchange

World Economic Systems

The Functionalist Perspective on the Globalization of Capitalism

The Conflict Perspective on the Globalization
of Capitalism

Work in U.S. Society

Facing the Future: Implications of Global Capitalism

Summary and Review

Chapter 15:  Politics

Micropolitics and Macropolitics

Power, Authority, and Violence

Types of Government

The U.S. Political System

Who Rules the United States?

War and Terrorism: Ways to Implement Political Objectives

A New World Order?

Summary and Review

Chapter 16:  Marriage and Family

Marriage and Family in Global Perspective

Marriage and Family in Theoretical Perspective

The Family Life Cycle

Family Transitions in Later Life Diversity in U.S. Families

Trends in U.S. Families

Divorce and Remarriage

Grandchildren of Divorce

Two Sides of Family Life

The Future of Marriage and Family

Summary and Review

Chapter 17: Education

The Development of Modern Education

The Functionalist Perspective: Providing Social Benefits

The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective: Fulfilling Teacher Expectations

Summary and Review

Chapter 18: Religion

What Is Religion?

The Functionalist Perspective

The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

The Conflict Perspective

Religion and the Spirit of Capitalism

The World's Major Religions

Types of Religious Groups

Religion in the United States

The Future of Religion

Summary and Review

Chapter 19: Medicine and Health

Sociology and the Study of Medicine and Health

The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

The Functionalist Perspective

The Conflict Perspective

Historical Patterns of Health

Issues in Health Care

The Search for Alternatives

Summary and Review

 Chapter 20: Population and Urbanization

Population in Global Perspective

A Planet with No Space for Enjoying Life?

Population Growth

Urbanization

The Development of Cities

Models of Urban Growth

Alienation and Community

Urban Problems and Social Policy 

Chapter 21: Collective Behavior and Social Movements

Collective Behavior

Early Explanations: The Transformation of the Individual

The Contemporary View: The Rationality of the Crowd

Forms of Collective Behavior

Social Movements

Types and Tactics of Social Movements

Why People Join Social Movements

On the Success and Failure of Social Movements

Summary and Review

Chapter 22: Social Change and the Environment

How Social Change Transforms Social Life

Theories and Processes of Social Change

How Technology Changes Society

The Growth Machine Versus the Earth

Summary and Review

Epilogue

Glossary

Suggested Readings

References

Name Index

Subject Index

Author

James M. Henslin, who was born in Minnesota, graduated from high school and junior college in California and from college in Indiana. Awarded scholarships, he earned his Master's and doctorate degrees in sociology at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. After this, he was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health, and spent a year studying how people adjust to the suicide of a family member. His primary interests in sociology are the sociology of everyday life, deviance, and international relations. Among his numerous books is Down-to-Earth Sociology: Introductory Readings (Free Press), now in its twelfth edition. This book of readings reflects some of these sociological interests. He has also published widely in sociology journals, including Social Problems and American Journal of Sociology,

While a graduate student, Jim Henslin taught at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. After completing his doctorate, he joined the faculty at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, where he is Professor Emeritus of Sociology. He says, “I've always found the introductory course enjoyable to teach. I love to see students' faces light up when they first glimpse the sociological perspective and begin to see how society has become an essential part of how they view the world.”

Henslin enjoys reading and fishing. His two favorite activities are writing and traveling. He especially enjoys visiting and living in other cultures, for this brings him face to face with behaviors and ways of thinking that he cannot take for granted, experiences that “make sociological principles come alive.”

Reader Review(s)

It is very user-friendly with intriguing opening vignettes, comparative cultural experiences, and a written format that students enjoy. 

Denise Haskamp-Gebhardt

Central Methodist University

The students can relate well to the book, which makes learning easier for them. 

Jennifer R. Scroggins

The University of Tennessee

It is clearly written and has a good application of theoretical perspectives, concepts, and research. 

Sharon Bradwish Miller

College of DuPage