Revealing Our Social World

Based on over twenty years of classroom experience, Revealing Our Social World: An Introduction to Sociology is written with the teaching sociologist in mind. Humorous, accessible, and informal, the book introduces non-major students to the basic theories, concepts, and terms of sociology. Revealing Our Social World: A Brief Introduction to Sociology is organized into four sections, the first of which discusses the basics of the sociological perspective and imagination, along with the development of sociology as a discipline. In the second section the material examines how people fit into their social landscapes. This section features topics such as culture, socialization, groups, social institutions, and deviance. The third section addresses various forms of inequality, while the fourth examines the structure of "the daily grind" as it applies to marriage and family, religion, education, politics, and the economy. Each chapter lays out the basic elements of the topic using vivid cross-cultural examples and includes suggested readings, practical activities, and a section titled "There's an App for That." Revealing Our Social World: A Brief Introduction to Sociology is a fresh and engaging text for introductory sociology courses at the undergraduate level. Mark Plume earned his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Southern California. Dr. Plume has been teaching sociology for more than twenty years and is currently a professor at Reynolds Community College, where he teaches traditional and on-line courses in introductory sociology, marriage and family, and cultural and physical anthropology. Dr. Plume also teaches sex and gender and research methods at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research interests include alcoholic families, gender, and social class. His most recent work examines millennials and their belief in the afterlife. He is a member of the American Sociological Association and the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Plume, his wife, and their miniature schnauzer make their home in central Virginia.

Revealing Our Social World: Fundamentals of Social Research explores the myriad reasons social scientists conduct research and how published findings have the power to inform laws and social policies, influence therapeutic practices, and develop social theory. The text underscores the importance of quality research and the use of the scientific method to avoid the pitfalls of casual observation. The text features five dedicated sections. Section I introduces foundational information about social research, defining its components, outlining the research process, speaking to ethical considerations, and demonstrating the connections between paradigms, social theory, and methods. In Section II, students learn the preparatory steps to take before conducting research in the field. Dedicated chapters cover probability sampling and sample design and qualitative research. Sections III and IV focus on quantitative and qualitative research design and analysis, respectively. The final section of the text explores big data, machine learning, audio, image, video, and social media analytics, and more. Providing students with a comprehensive and valuable introduction, Revealing Our Social World is an excellent resource for courses in social research.

Exploring Sociology: Readings for Introductory Sociology provides students with a carefully selected collection of articles that highlight the influence of social forces on all people regardless of culture, ethnicity, gender, tradition, or faith. The anthology provides readers an introduction to the study of sociology and underscores how our lives are shaped in large part by external forces. Section I familiarizes students with the sociological perspective and ways in which to think sociologically. Section II provides readers with an introduction to social science research methods through a field experiment that investigates handwashing in public bathrooms. In Section III, students learn about the concept of culture, and in Section IV, socialization, group behavior, and conformity. The reading in Section V demonstrates how behaviors usually classified as deviant can be normalized given the right social conditions. Section VI explores various types of inequalities, including class, race, and gender. The final section examines social institutions, including marriage, family, education, religion, the economy, and government, and shows how these institutions form the foundation of modern societies and guide our daily lives. Engaging and approachable, Exploring Sociology is an exemplary supplemental textbook for foundational courses in sociology.

Exploring Sociology: Readings for Introductory Sociology provides students with a carefully selected collection of articles that highlight the influence of social forces on all people regardless of culture, ethnicity, gender, tradition, or faith. The anthology provides readers an introduction to the study of sociology and underscores how our lives are shaped in large part by external forces. Section I familiarizes students with the sociological perspective and ways in which to think sociologically. Section II provides readers with an introduction to social science research methods through a field experiment that investigates handwashing in public bathrooms. In Section III, students learn about the concept of culture, and in Section IV, socialization, group behavior, and conformity. The reading in Section V demonstrates how behaviors usually classified as deviant can be normalized given the right social conditions. Section VI explores various types of inequalities, including class, race, and gender. The final section examines social institutions, including marriage, family, education, religion, the economy, and government, and shows how these institutions form the foundation of modern societies and guide our daily lives. Engaging and approachable, Exploring Sociology is an exemplary supplemental textbook for foundational courses in sociology.

Based on over twenty years of classroom experience, Revealing Our Social World: A Brief Introduction to Sociology is written with the teaching sociologist in mind. Humorous, accessible, and informal, the book introduces non-major students to the basic theories, concepts, and terms of sociology. Revealing Our Social World is organized into four sections, the first of which discusses the basics of the sociological perspective and imagination, along with the development of sociology as a discipline. In the second section the material examines how people fit into their social landscapes. This section features topics such as culture, socialization, groups, social institutions, and deviance. The third section addresses various forms of inequality, while the fourth examines the structure of "the daily grind" as it applies to marriage and family, religion, education, politics, and the economy. Each chapter lays out the basic elements of the topic using vivid cross-cultural examples and includes suggested readings, practical activities, and a section titled "There's an App for That." Revealing Our Social World is a fresh and engaging text for introductory sociology courses at the undergraduate level.

The Eighth Edition of Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology inspires students to develop their sociological imaginations, to see the world and personal events from a new perspective, and to confront sociological issues on a day-to-day basis. The consistent application of the Social World Model across chapters helps encourage the practice of using three levels of analysis, and to view sociology as an integrated whole, rather than a set of disparate subjects.

There are few more important philosophers at work today than John Searle, a creative and contentious thinker who has shaped the way we think about mind and language. Now he offers a profound understanding of how we create a social reality--a reality of money, property, governments, marriages, stock markets and cocktail parties. The paradox he addresses in Making the Social World is that these facts only exist because we think they exist and yet they have an objective existence. Continuing a line of investigation begun in his earlier book The Construction of Social Reality, Searle identifies the precise role of language in the creation of all "institutional facts." His aim is to show how mind, language and civilization are natural products of the basic facts of the physical world described by physics, chemistry and biology. Searle explains how a single linguistic operation, repeated over and over, is used to create and maintain the elaborate structures of human social institutions. These institutions serve to create and distribute power relations that are pervasive and often invisible. These power relations motivate human actions in a way that provides the glue that holds human civilization together. Searle then applies the account to show how it relates to human rationality, the freedom of the will, the nature of political power and the existence of universal human rights. In the course of his explication, he asks whether robots can have institutions, why the threat of force so often lies behind institutions, and he denies that there can be such a thing as a "state of nature" for language-using human beings.

Finalist for the 2020 Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction | One of Time Magazines's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 | Longlisted for the 2020 Porchlight Business Book Awards "An entertaining quest to trace the origins and implications of the names of the roads on which we reside." —Sarah Vowell, The New York Times Book Review When most people think about street addresses, if they think of them at all, it is in their capacity to ensure that the postman can deliver mail or a traveler won’t get lost. But street addresses were not invented to help you find your way; they were created to find you. In many parts of the world, your address can reveal your race and class. In this wide-ranging and remarkable book, Deirdre Mask looks at the fate of streets named after Martin Luther King Jr., the wayfinding means of ancient Romans, and how Nazis haunt the streets of modern Germany. The flipside of having an address is not having one, and we also see what that means for millions of people today, including those who live in the slums of Kolkata and on the streets of London. Filled with fascinating people and histories, The Address Book illuminates the complex and sometimes hidden stories behind street names and their power to name, to hide, to decide who counts, who doesn’t—and why.

Navigating the social world requires sophisticated cognitive machinery that, although present quite early in crude forms, undergoes significant change across the lifespan. This book will be the first to report on evidence that has accumulated on an unprecedented scale, showing us what capacities for social cognition are present at birth and early in life, and how these capacities develop through learning in the first years of life. The volume will highlight what is known about the discoveries themselves but also what these discoveries imply about the nature of early social cognition and the methods that have allowed these discoveries -- what is known concerning the phylogeny and ontogeny of social cognition. To capture the full depth and breadth of the exciting work that is blossoming on this topic in a manner that is accessible and engaging, the editors invited 70 leading researchers to develop a short report of their work that would be written for a broad audience. The purpose of this format was for each piece to focus on a single core message: are babies aware of what is right and wrong, why do children have the same implicit intergroup preferences that adults do, what does language do to the building of category knowledge, and so on. The unique format and accessible writing style will be appealing to graduate students and researchers in cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, and social psychology.

Our Social World: Condensed, by Jeanne H. Ballantine, Keith A. Roberts, and Kathleen Odell Korgen, inspires you to develop your sociological imaginations, to see the world and personal events from a new perspective, and to confront sociological issues on a day-to-day basis. The award-winning author team organizes the text around the "Social World" model, a conceptual framework that demonstrates the relationships among individuals (the micro level); organizations, institutions, and subcultures (the meso level); and societies and global structures (the macro level). The use of the Social World Model across chapters (represented in a visual diagram in the chapter openers) helps you to develop the practice of using three levels of analysis, and to view sociology as an integrated whole, rather than a set of discrete subjects. The Condensed version is adapted from Our Social World: Introduction to Sociology. The Sixth Edition of the Condensed version is made approximately 30% shorter than the full edition by removing selected boxes, editing the main narrative, and combining four chapters into two (Family/Education, and Politics/Economics).