Pragmatist thought is central to sociology. However, sociologists typically encounter pragmatism indirectly, as a philosophy of science or as an influence on canonical social scientists, rather than as a vital source of theory, research questions, and methodological reflection in sociology today.In The New Pragmatist Sociology, Neil Gross, Isaac Ariail Reed, and Christopher Winship assemble a range of sociologists to address essential ideas in the field and their historica...

Pragmatist thought is central to sociology. However, sociologists typically encounter pragmatism indirectly, as a philosophy of science or as an influence on canonical social scientists, rather than as a vital source of theory, research questions, and methodological reflection in sociology today.In The New Pragmatist Sociology, Neil Gross, Isaac Ariail Reed, and Christopher Winship assemble a range of sociologists to address essential ideas in the field and their historica...

Social scientists seek to develop systematic ways to understand how people make meaning and how the meanings they make shape them and the world in which they live. But how do we measure such processes? Measuring Culture is an essential point of entry for both those new to the field and those who are deeply immersed in the measurement of meaning. Written collectively by a team of leading qualitative and quantitative sociologists of culture, the book considers three common subjects ...

Social scientists seek to develop systematic ways to understand how people make meaning and how the meanings they make shape them and the world in which they live. But how do we measure such processes? Measuring Culture is an essential point of entry for both those new to the field and those who are deeply immersed in the measurement of meaning. Written collectively by a team of leading qualitative and quantitative sociologists of culture, the book considers three common subjects ...

During the 1980s and 1990s, Brazil struggled to rebuild its democracy after twenty years of military dictatorship, experiencing financial crises, corruption scandals, political protest, and intense electoral contention. In the midst of this turmoil, Ann Mische argues in this remarkable book, youth activists of various stripes played a vital and unrecognized role, contributing new forms of political talk and action to Brazil's emerging democracy.Drawing upon extensive and rich ethno...

Across disciplines, critical thinking is praised, taught, and put into practice. But what does it actually mean to think critically? In this brief volume, sociologist Joel Best examines how to evaluate arguments and the evidence used to support them as he hones in on how to think in the field of sociology and beyond.With inimitable style that melds ethnographic verve with dry humor, Best examines the ways in which sociologists engage in fuzzy thinking through bias, faddish...

This open access book examines from a variety of perspectives the disappearance of moral content and ethical judgment from the models employed in the formulation of modern economic theory, and some of the papers contain important proposals about how moral judgment could be reintroduced in economic theory. The chapters collected in this volume result from the favorable reception of the first volume of the Virtues in Economics series and represent further contributions to the themes set out ...

Making Sense of Social Theory opens by carefully exploring what it means to follow the scientific method in a field like sociology. The book goes on to analyze sociology as a genuine science with a body of explanatory insights. Sociological theory is applied in ways that make its relevance and power apparent so that theory no longer stands divorced from real world research or practice. Making Sense of Social Theory clearly establishes the pertinence of sociology's great t...

This concise encyclopedia is the most complete international survey of sociology ever created in one volume.Contains over 800 entries from the whole breadth of the disciplineDistilled from the highly regarded Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, with entries completely revised and updated to provide succinct and up-to-date coverage of the fundamental topicsGlobal in scope, both in terms of topics and contributorsEach entry includes references and...

First published in 1999. Megan Boler combines cultural history with ethical and multicultural analyses to explore how emotions have been disciplined, suppressed, or ignored at all levels of education and in educational theory. FEELING POWER charts the philosophies and practices developed over the last century to control social conflicts arising from gender, class, and race. The book traces the development of progressive pedagogies from civil rights and feminist movements to Boler's own rec...

The things we do today may make life worse for future generations. But why should we care what happens to people who won't be born until after all of us are gone? Some philosophers have treated this as a question about our moral responsibilities, and have argued that we have duties of beneficence to promote the well-being of our descendants. Rather than focusing exclusively on issues of moral responsibility, Samuel Scheffler considers the broader question of why and how future generations ...

For the past twenty years, noted sociologist Andrew Abbott has been developing what he calls a processual ontology for social life. In this view, the social world is constantly changing—making, remaking, and unmaking itself, instant by instant. He argues that even the units of the social world—both individuals and entities—must be explained by these series of events rather than as enduring objects, fixed in time. This radical concept, which lies at the heart of the Chicago School ...