Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Social Science, 12/e
One of the main themes of Contemporary Society is that the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial order in the modern world is fraught with difficulties, as was the transition from an agricultural to an industrial order in an earlier era. Within this framework, we can observe the increasing fragmentation of the social order, which tends to lead people away from community and a common purpose and often invites conflict and disunity. At the same time, countervailing social forces are also at work, providing some stability, some shelter in the storm. Finally, societies are faced with the rapid and transformative power of information technology, a fact that propels separate groups of people into a global entity.
Table of Content
- Through the Lens of Science
- In the Beginning . . .
- Culture: Product and Guide to Life in Society
- Group Interaction: From Two to Millions
- Becoming a Person: The Birth of Personality
- Deviance and Criminality: The Need for Social Control
- The Great Divide: Ranking and Stratification
- Minority Status: Race and Ethnicity
- Minority Status: Age, Gender, and Sexuality
- From the Plow to the Computer: Change, Collective Behavior, and Social Movements
- Population, Urbanization, and Environment
- Pivotal Institutions: Marriage and the Family
- Pivotal Institutions: Religion and Education
- Government: The Institution and the Ideologies That Underlie It
- The Government of the United States of America
- Democracy in Action: We the People…
- The Economy: Concepts and History
- Principles of Economic Behavior: Microeconomics and Macroeconomics
- Nation Among Nations: Perspectives on International Relations
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Salient Features
- Draws upon sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, geography, history, psychology, and their related disciplines to give students an integrated overview of the social sciences.
- Provides a thorough overview of the concepts and research in each discipline, as well as current examples of how the discipline affects contemporary life.
- Emphasizes social and cultural change and how they impact the social order.
- Complete chapters are devoted to a number of basic concepts that underlie social behavior(some of which is based on biological facts): personality, group interaction, deviance, gender, sexuality, aging, minority status, stratification, and so on.
- Boxed features throughout the text provide historical and timely topics for class discussion. Some boxes are of the human interest variety, while others show how social scientists arrive at their conclusions.
- Chapter summaries serve as an excellent tool for focusing on the key concepts presented in each chapter.
- Includes a glossary of terms with succinct yet accessible definitions in each chapter.
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