In the United States and Europe, membership and participation in Christian churches have steadily declined. When asked for their religious preference, increasing numbers say "none." This is especially the case for younger adults and the well-educated. A key reason is that many find the prayers, creeds, and liturgy--and the theology that underlie these--to be incomprehensible or unbelievable. But theology need not be unbelievable, and doctrine need not be doctrinaire. This book provides a n...

At a time when significant social status, economic resources, and political opportunities seem to become ever more unequally distributed and only available to a few, this book represents the first systematic effort in recent years to develop a sociological model of elites and non-elites. In outlining a new typology of economic, political, and cultural elites, as well as drawing attention to the important role of non-elites, this accessibly written book provides novel insights into the stru...

In Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids, Second Edition, award-winning sociologist Murray Milner tries to understand why teenagers behave the way they do. The first edition drew upon two years of intensive fieldwork in one high school and 300 written interviews about high schools across the country, where he argued that consumer culture greatly impacts the way our youth relate to one another and understand themselves and society. Milner now expands on that concept with a new year of field...

An updated and revised edition of the controversial classic—now more relevant than ever—argues that boys are the ones languishing socially and academically, resulting in staggering social and economic costs.Girls and women were once second-class citizens in the nation’s schools. Americans responded with concerted efforts to give girls and women the attention and assistance that was long overdue. Now, after two major waves of feminism and decades of policy reform, w...

Calls for renewed moral education in America's schools, offering dozens of programs schools can adopt to teach students respect, responsibility, hard work, and other values that should not be left to parents to teach.

“If you fear that cultural, political, and class differences are tearing America apart, read this important book.” —Jonathan Haidt, Ph.D., author of The Righteous MindWho will rule in the twenty-first century: allegedly more disciplined Asians, or allegedly more creative Westerners? Can women rocket up the corporate ladder without knocking off the men? How can poor kids get ahead when schools favor the rich?As our planet gets smaller, cultural conflicts ar...

Despite decades of effort to create fair classrooms and schools, gender bias is alive and well, and in some ways growing. School practices continue to send boys and girls down different life paths, too often treating them not as different genders but as different species. Teachers and parents often miss the subtle signs of sexism in classrooms. Through firsthand observations and up-to-the-minute research, Still Failing at Fairness brings the gender issue into focu...

Pundits and politicians often opine on the irrelevance of feminism and the women's movement today. Some commentators describe the state of feminism as "post-feminist," alongside equally questionable claims of Barack Obama's election as signaling a "post-racial" America. Modern Misogyny examines contemporary anti-feminism in a "post-feminist" era. It considers the widespread notion that the feminist movement has ended, in large part because the work of feminism has been completed. ...

Are today's young adults gender rebels or returning to tradition? In Where the Millennials Will Take Us, Barbara J. Risman reveals the diverse strategies youth use to negotiate the ongoing gender revolution. Using her theory of gender as a social structure, Risman analyzes life history interviews with a diverse set of Millennials to probe how they understand gender and how they might change it. Some are true believers that men and women are essentially different and should be so. ...

The Social Foundations Reader is meant for undergraduate and graduate students in introductory foundations of education classes. No other contemporary reader provides such a broad and yet critical view of the issues typically addressed in an introductory foundations course. Instead, most provide a generic and typically conservative perspective on schools and classrooms and do little to encourage students to consider the important roles of critical theory and social justice in the ...

The gaze of educational researchers has traditionally been turned "down" toward the experiences of communities deemed at-risk, presumably with the purpose of improving their plight. Indeed, theorizing about the relationship between education, culture, and society has typically emerged from the study of poor and marginalized groups in public schools. Seldom have educational researchers considered class privilege and educational advantage in their attempts at understanding inequality and fom...

When we talk about family values, like whether children need two parents, we are also talking about gender values, because a "yes" answer to this question might imply that only women with husbands should have children. In the same way, when we talk about gender issues, such as whether men should be paid higher wages than women, we are also talking about family issues, because a "yes" answer suggests that husbands should be the family breadwinner. In this...