Details

Sociology For Dummies


Sociology For Dummies


2. Aufl.

von: Jay Gabler

16,99 €

Verlag: Wiley
Format: EPUB
Veröffentl.: 10.02.2021
ISBN/EAN: 9781119772835
Sprache: englisch
Anzahl Seiten: 384

DRM-geschütztes eBook, Sie benötigen z.B. Adobe Digital Editions und eine Adobe ID zum Lesen.

Beschreibungen

<p><b>Understand how society works—and how to make it better</b><b><br /><br /></b>It’s impossible to exist in the contemporary world without being aware that powerful social forces, ideas, and movements—#MeToo, climate change, and Black Lives Matter to name just a few—are having far-reaching impacts on how we think and live. But why are they happening? And what are their likely effects? The new edition of <i>Sociology For Dummies</i> gives you the tools to step back from your personal experience and study these questions objectively, testing the observable phenomena of the human world against established theories and making usable sense of the results.<br /><br />In a friendly, jargon-free style, sociologist and broadcaster Jay Gabler introduces you to sociology’s history and basic methods, and—once you have your sociological lens adjusted—makes it clear how to survey the big questions of culture, gender, ethnicity, religion, politics, and crime with new eyes. You’ll find everything you need to succeed in an introductory sociology class, as well as to apply sociological ideas to give you extra insight into your personal and professional life. </p> <ul> <li>Get a working knowledge of Sociology 101</li> <li>Understand how human communities work</li> <li>Engage more deeply with debates on social justice, healthcare, and more</li> <li>Interpret and use sociological methods and research</li> </ul> <p>Whether you’re studying sociology at school or just want to gain deeper insight into our collective life, <i>Sociology For Dummies</i> gives you the tools to understand the mechanisms of the human world—and the knowledge to influence how they work for the better.     </p>
<p><b>Introduction</b><b> 1</b></p> <p>About This Book 2</p> <p>Foolish Assumptions 4</p> <p>Icons Used In This Book 5</p> <p>Beyond the Book 6</p> <p>Where To Go From Here 6</p> <p><b>Part 1: Getting the Basic Basics 7</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 1: Getting Your Head around Sociology </b><b>9</b></p> <p>Focusing Your Sociological Lens 10</p> <p>Defining sociology 10</p> <p>Knowing the history of sociology 10</p> <p>Doing sociology 11</p> <p>The Nuts and Bolts of Society 12</p> <p>Understanding culture 13</p> <p>Microsociology 13</p> <p>Understanding Differences Among People and Groups 14</p> <p>Social stratification 14</p> <p>Race and ethnicity 15</p> <p>Sex and gender 15</p> <p>Religion 16</p> <p>Crime, deviance, and social control 16</p> <p>How People Get Organized (Or At Least Try To) 17</p> <p>Organizations and networks 17</p> <p>Social movements and political sociology 17</p> <p>Urban and rural sociology 18</p> <p>Changes In Your Life, Changes In Your Society 18</p> <p>The life course 19</p> <p>Social change 19</p> <p><i>Sociology For Dummies, </i>for Dummies 20</p> <p><b>Chapter 2: Knowing Why Sociology Matters</b><b> 21</b></p> <p>Figuring Out What Sociology is 22</p> <p>Defining sociology 22</p> <p>Studying society scientifically 22</p> <p>Asking and answering sociological questions 25</p> <p>Discovering Where Sociology is “Done” 27</p> <p>Colleges and universities 27</p> <p>Think tanks and research institutes 27</p> <p>Nonprofit organizations 28</p> <p>Government 29</p> <p>Journalism and reporting 29</p> <p>Business and consulting 30</p> <p>Everyday life 31</p> <p>Recognizing How Sociology Affects Your Life and Your World 31</p> <p>Thinking about the social world in an objective, value-free way 32</p> <p>Visualizing connections across times and places 33</p> <p>Uncovering what really matters and what doesn’t 34</p> <p>Informing social policy 35</p> <p>Keeping a unique perspective for everyday problems 36</p> <p><b>Chapter 3: Conflict and Cooperation: The History of Sociology</b><b> 37</b></p> <p>So Who Cares about History? 38</p> <p>Thinking about Society before There Was Sociology 39</p> <p>People are the same everywhere you go except when they aren’t 39</p> <p>Pre-sociologists: People with ideas about society 40</p> <p>Political and industrial revolution: Ready or not, here it comes 41</p> <p>The Development of “Sociology” 43</p> <p>Figuring out life with positivism 43</p> <p>Common themes of early sociologists 43</p> <p>Sociology: The most ambitious science 44</p> <p>Sociology’s Power Trio 46</p> <p>Karl Marx 47</p> <p>Emile Durkheim 49</p> <p>Max Weber 51</p> <p>Sociology in the 20th Century 53</p> <p>Sociology in America: W.E.B Du Bois and the Chicago School 53</p> <p>Mass society: Are we, or are we not, sheep? 54</p> <p>The Power Elite: Marx’s revenge 56</p> <p>Sociology Today 58</p> <p><b>Chapter 4: Understanding the Research Methods: You Can’t Put Society in a Test Tube</b><b> 59</b></p> <p>Performing Sociological Research 60</p> <p>Asking your question 60</p> <p>Checking the literature 62</p> <p>Operationalizing your question and find your data 63</p> <p>Analyzing your data 65</p> <p>Step 5: Interpreting your results 65</p> <p>Getting to Know the Research Methods 67</p> <p>Getting quantitative data 68</p> <p>Gathering qualitative data 72</p> <p>Choosing hybrid methods 73</p> <p>Preparing For Potential Pitfalls 75</p> <p>Using inappropriate data 75</p> <p>Getting overzealous 75</p> <p>Overlooking relevant information 78</p> <p>Misusing statistics 79</p> <p>Making mistakes just plain oops! 80</p> <p><b>Part 2: Seeing Society Like a Sociologist 83</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 5: Getting Some Culture: How Socialization Works</b><b> 85</b></p> <p>Understanding What Culture is — and Isn’t 86</p> <p>Defining “culture” 86</p> <p>Breaking down structure 87</p> <p>Does culture matter? 89</p> <p>Studying Culture: Makin’ It and Takin’ It 91</p> <p>Other angles on culture 91</p> <p>The production and reception of culture 93</p> <p>Culture, information, and the news 94</p> <p>Paddling the “Mainstream” 95</p> <p>Subculture 96</p> <p>Microcultures 97</p> <p>Socialization: Where You Connect in Culture 99</p> <p>Nature vs nurture: Social psychology 100</p> <p>You are who other people think you are 101</p> <p>Culture Paradox: Pulling Us Together and Pushing Us Apart 103</p> <p>Uniting through culture 103</p> <p>Dividing because of culture 104</p> <p><b>Chapter 6: Studying Sociology at Its Smallest: Microsociology</b><b> 105</b></p> <p>Grasping the Paradox of Society 106</p> <p>Social facts: What your society says about you 106</p> <p>Adaptation and frustration 109</p> <p>Understanding Why People Make Rational — and Irrational — Choices 110</p> <p>Making rational choices — or, at least, trying 111</p> <p>Making bad decisions (we’ve all been there) 114</p> <p>Getting How Symbolic Interactionism Works 119</p> <p>Play ball! The rules of the game 120</p> <p>Stop frontin’: Switching roles, changing frames 122</p> <p><b>Part 3: Equality and Inequality in Our Diverse World 125</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 7: Social Stratification: We’re All Equal, But Some of Us Are More Equal Than Others</b><b> 127</b></p> <p>Excavating the Social Strata 128</p> <p>Understanding social inequality 128</p> <p>Grappling with the perennial debate: Is inequality necessary? 131</p> <p>Recognizing the Many Means of Inequality 134</p> <p>Income and wealth: Making money (or inheriting it) 134</p> <p>Occupation: Landing in the labor force 135</p> <p>Innate ability: Capitalizing on your skills 137</p> <p>Motivation: Getting out of bed in the morning 137</p> <p>Social connections: Knowing the right people 139</p> <p>Credentials: Carrying the right cards 140</p> <p>Education: Learning the ropes 141</p> <p>Specialized knowledge: Knowing what others don’t 142</p> <p>Bias and discrimination: Being limited by others’ lack of imagination 143</p> <p>Considering Global Inequality 144</p> <p><b>Chapter 8: Race and Ethnicity: What Others See, Who We Are</b><b> 147</b></p> <p>Race: Real in Its Consequences 148</p> <p>Knowing the difference between race and ethnicity 148</p> <p>Grasping the complexities of life in color 152</p> <p>Debunking the myth of the “model minority” 154</p> <p>Putting whiteness in the spotlight 155</p> <p>Considering Individuals and Institutions 158</p> <p>Racial discrimination: Conscious and unconscious 158</p> <p>How racism becomes institutionalized 160</p> <p>Understanding Immigration in a Changing World 161</p> <p>Crossing borders, keeping ties 162</p> <p>Immigration today 163</p> <p><b>Chapter 9: Sex and Gender: Beyond the Binary</b><b> 167</b></p> <p>Biology is Not Destiny 168</p> <p>Distinguishing between sex and gender 168</p> <p>Understanding the sex and gender spectrum 169</p> <p>Changing Ideas of Femininity and Masculinity 171</p> <p>The history of feminism 172</p> <p>Rethinking masculinity 175</p> <p>#MeToo and a new reckoning 177</p> <p>Intersectionality: Race and Gender 180</p> <p><b>Chapter 10: Getting Religion: Faith in the Modern World</b><b> 183</b></p> <p>Understanding Religion in History 184</p> <p>Karl Marx on religion: Opium of the people 184</p> <p>Émile Durkheim on religion: Progressing from specific rules to common principles 185</p> <p>Weber on religion: A switchman on the tracks 188</p> <p>Religion in Theory and in Practice 189</p> <p>Religious ideas, ideology, and values 189</p> <p>The important role of religious organizations 191</p> <p>Faith and Freedom in the World Today 194</p> <p>Shopping for God 194</p> <p>Belief, action, and everything in between 197</p> <p><b>Chapter 11: Crime and Deviance: Who’s in Control?</b><b> 201</b></p> <p>Knowing the Difference between Deviance and Crime 202</p> <p>Understanding Why People Commit Crimes 204</p> <p>Theory one: Are criminals bad people? 204</p> <p>Theory two: Are criminals driven to it? 205</p> <p>Accepting crime as normal 206</p> <p>Breaking Down the Social Construction of Crime 208</p> <p>Writing laws that make sense to a society 208</p> <p>Enforcing the law 210</p> <p>Looking Beyond Crime and Punishment 212</p> <p>Rethinking policing 213</p> <p>Examining the effects of America’s high incarceration rate 216</p> <p>Considering whether punishment works 216</p> <p>Tallying the high costs of incarceration 217</p> <p><b>Part 4: All Together Now: The Ins and Outs of Social Organization 219</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 12: Knowing What Works (and Doesn’t): Sociology and Organizations</b><b> 221</b></p> <p>Recognizing the Corporate Conundrum 222</p> <p>Understanding Weber’s Big Idea About Organizations 224</p> <p>Getting That People Are More Than Cogs in a Machine 226</p> <p>Rational systems: Bureaucracy at its purest 227</p> <p>Natural systems: We’re only human 229</p> <p>Open systems: The whole wide world of work 231</p> <p>Seeing Society as a Network 234</p> <p>Connecting individuals to their society 234</p> <p>The strength of weak ties 235</p> <p>Gathering insights from network analysis 237</p> <p>Exploring the New World of Work 238</p> <p><b>Chapter 13: Getting into It: Political Sociology </b><b>241</b></p> <p>Government: Governing and Being Governed 242</p> <p>Understanding government as a social institution 242</p> <p>Knowing what causes political revolution 244</p> <p>Sharing (or Not Sharing) Power in Society 247</p> <p>Conflict models: Everyone for themselves 247</p> <p>Pluralist models: Fair is fair 250</p> <p>Social Movements: Working for Change 253</p> <p>Getting off the ground 253</p> <p>Mobilizing supporters 256</p> <p>Understanding why social movements succeed — or fizzle 259</p> <p>Going Viral: How Social Media Transforms Social Movements 261</p> <p><b>Chapter 14: Recognizing Why Density and Demographics Matter</b><b> 263</b></p> <p>Studying Sociology in the City 264</p> <p>Feeling lonely in a crowd: The paradox of social life 264</p> <p>Observing street corner society 267</p> <p>Changing Neighborhoods Through History 269</p> <p>Recognizing the relevance of neighborhoods 269</p> <p>Understanding how and why neighborhoods change 271</p> <p>Studying the rise of the suburbs 274</p> <p>The upper class, the lower class, and the underclass 276</p> <p>Considering City and Country 279</p> <p>Who are cities for? 279</p> <p>Small towns, high hopes 281</p> <p><b>Part 5: Sociology and Your Life 285</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 15: Exploring Family and the Life Course as Social Constructs</b><b> 287</b></p> <p>The Social Construction of Age 288</p> <p>The “invention” of childhood 288</p> <p>The new senior citizens — and the new young adults 290</p> <p>Running the Course of Life 292</p> <p>Demographics and life transitions 292</p> <p>The changing role of education 294</p> <p>Taking Care: Health Care and Society 296</p> <p>Deciding what counts as “healthy” 296</p> <p>Organizing and distributing health care 299</p> <p>Families Past and Present 301</p> <p>The way we never were 301</p> <p>The family today 304</p> <p><b>Chapter 16: Understanding Social Change</b><b> 307</b></p> <p>Understanding How and Why Societies Change 308</p> <p>Marx: If it’s not one revolution, it’s another 308</p> <p>Durkheim: Increasing diversity 310</p> <p>Weber: Into the iron cage 312</p> <p>Forecasting the Future of Society 314</p> <p>Globalization: Does the future hold cooperation or conflict? 314</p> <p>Digital communication: Protecting privacy and freedom in an always-online era 316</p> <p>Climate change: The unequal effects of a warming world 318</p> <p>Exploring Sociology of the Future! 320</p> <p>Social science will be more important than ever 320</p> <p>Too much information? A good problem to have if you’re a sociologist 322</p> <p>Will sociology continue to exist? 323</p> <p><b>Part 6: The Part of Tens 325</b></p> <p><b>Chapter 17: Ten Sociology Books That Don’t Feel Like Homework</b><b> 327</b></p> <p>W.E.B Du Bois: <i>The Souls of Black Folk (1903) </i>328</p> <p>Erving Goffman: <i>The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959) </i>328</p> <p>Randall Collins: <i>Sociological Insight (1982) </i>329</p> <p>Arlie Hochschild: <i>The Second Shift (1989) </i>329</p> <p>Patricia Hill Collins: <i>Black Feminist Thought (1990)</i> 330</p> <p>Evelyn Nakano Glenn (editor): <i>Shades of Difference (2009) </i>330</p> <p>Annette Lareau: <i>Unequal Childhoods (2003)</i> 331</p> <p>Lorena Garcia: <i>Respect Yourself, Protect Yourself: Latina Girls and Sexual Identity (2012)</i> 332</p> <p>Matthew Desmond: <i>Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City (2016)</i> 332</p> <p>Suk-Young Kim: <i>K-pop Live (2018) </i>333</p> <p><b>Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Use Sociological Insight in Everyday Life</b><b> 335</b></p> <p>Thinking Critically About Claims That “Research Proves” One Thing or Another 336</p> <p>Being Aware of Unprovable Assertions About Society 336</p> <p>Understanding Barriers to Effective Communication 337</p> <p>Knowing the Difference Between the Identity You Choose and the Identities Others Choose For You 338</p> <p>Understanding Art: If It Seems Confusing, That’s Exactly the Point 339</p> <p>Being Smart About Relationship-Building 340</p> <p>Staying Safer in a Pandemic 341</p> <p>Learning How to Mobilize a Social Movement 342</p> <p>Running Your Company Effectively 342</p> <p>Thinking Critically About What You Read and Hear 343</p> <p><b>Chapter 19: Ten Myths About Society Busted by Sociology</b><b> 345</b></p> <p>With Hard Work and Determination, Anyone Can Get What They Deserve 346</p> <p>Our Actions Reflect Our Values 347</p> <p>We’re Being Brainwashed by the Media 348</p> <p>Understanding Society is Just a Matter of “Common Sense” 348</p> <p>Race Doesn’t Matter Any More 349</p> <p>Immigration Equals Invasion 350</p> <p>Bureaucracy is Dehumanizing 351</p> <p>People Who Make Bad Choices Are Just Getting the Wrong Messages 351</p> <p>Society Prevents Us From Being Our “True Selves” 352</p> <p>There is Such a Thing as a Perfect Society 353</p> <p>Index 355</p>
<p><b>Jay Gabler, PhD</b> is a writer and editor living in Minneapolis. He has authored or coauthored several books and sociological research studies, including Reconstructing the University. He works as a digital producer at The Current (a service of Minnesota Public Radio) and holds three graduate degrees from Harvard University.</p>
<p><b>Explore how humans interact in a world of constant change</b> <p>Although we each live different lives, we’re all dancing to the same social tune. Climate change, political protests, Black Lives Matter—these movements are shaping society today. Why are they happening? How are they changing us? How can we create the world we want? <i>Sociology For Dummies</i> will help you untangle these big questions and train yourself to think like a sociologist. It’s a perfect study-buddy for your intro to sociology class, or you can let it be your professor if you’re sociology-curious. Learn to understand the patterns in the world around you! <p><b>Inside…<BR> <ul> <li>Equality and diversity in the 2020s</li> <li>Why groups do what they do</li> <li>How sociologists do research</li> <li>Meet the big names in sociology</li> <li>Culture, social mores, and values</li> <li>Who’s responsible for change?</li> <li>Learn how organizations work</li> <li>Better understand your life</li> </ul> </b>

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