The human life course is filled with and subject to a wide range of personal difficulties, many of which are shared by others. Life events and processes such as birth, childhood, training for and entering an occupation, marriage, and procreation, growing older, death and dying are all subject to dilemmas, obstacles, and barriers. Social Problems across the Life Course offers accessible readings that examine the societal construction of social problems out of the personal troubles that peop...

More Americans recycle than vote. And most do so to improve their communities and the environment. But do recycling programs advance social, economic, and environmental goals? To answer this, three sociologists with expertise in urban and environmental planning have conducted the first major study of urban recycling. They compare four types of programs in the Chicago metropolitan area: a community-based drop-off center, a municipal curbside program, a recycling industrial park, and a linka...

Schnaiberg's concept of the treadmill of production is arguably the most visible and enduring theory to emerge in three decades of environmental sociology. Elaborated and tested, it has been found to be an accurate predictor of political-economic changes in the global economy. In the global South, it has figures prominently in the work of structural environmental analysts and has been used by many political-economic movements. Building new extensions and applications of the treadmill theor...