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...

“Accessible and authoritative . . . While we may not have much power to eradicate our own prejudices, we can counteract them. The first step is to turn a hidden bias into a visible one. . . . What if we’re not the magnanimous people we think we are?”—The Washington PostI know my own mind.I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way.These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji an...

A Book of the Year in The Economist and Daily MailA Barack Obama 2024 Summer Reading List Pick'One of the most important non-fiction books of the year' - Sunday TimesBoys are 50% more likely than girls to fail at all three key school subjects: maths, reading and scienceIn the US, the wages of most men are lower today than they were in 1979, while women's wa...

A "powerful and provocative" inquiry into the relationship between societies' inequality and their citizens' health, happiness and well-being (Lisa Berkman, Harvard School of Public Health).Comparing the United States with other market democracies, and one American state with another, this book presents irrefutable evidence that inequality is a driver of poor health, social conflict, and violence. Pioneering social scientist Richard Wilkinson addresses the growing ...

This influential book describes the knowledge and skills educators need to recognize and combat the bias and inequity that undermine educational engagement for students experiencing poverty. This edition features revisions based on new research and lessons from the author’s professional development work, including the dangers of “grit” and deficit perspectives.“A must-read for educators in schools of all kinds. This accessible, highly relevant book empowers teachers with tools they...

How the science of unselfish behavior can promote law, order, and prosperityContemporary law and public policy often treat human beings as selfish creatures who respond only to punishments and rewards. Yet every day we behave unselfishly—few of us mug the elderly or steal the paper from our neighbor's yard, and many of us go out of our way to help strangers. We nevertheless overlook our own good behavior and fixate on the bad things people do and how we can stop th...

In Violence Against Women, award-winning author Walter S. DeKeseredy offers a passionate but well-documented sociological overview of a sobering problem. He starts by outlining the scope of the challenge and debunks current attempts to label intimate violence as gender neutral. He then lays bare the structural practices that sustain this violence, leading to a discussion of long- and short-term policies to address the issue. DeKeseredy includes an examination of male complicity an...

"Ethics, Aging and Society...is the first major work in ten years to critically address issues and methodologies in aging and ethics...This well-organized volume begins theoretically and offers new ways of thinking about ethics that can handle the complexities and realities of aging in particular social contexts."--Choice"This new research-based book, by experts in the field of ethics, is excellent and much-needed...I challenge you toconsider reading this ...

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic TitleTypically residing in areas of concentrated urban poverty, too many young black men are trapped in a horrific cycle that includes active discrimination, unemployment, violence, crime, prison, and early death. This toxic mixture has given rise to wider stereotypes that limit the social capital of all young black males.Edited and with an introductory chapter by sociologist Elijah Anderson, the essays in ...

Over half of all births to young adults in the United States now occur outside of marriage, and many are unplanned. The result is increased poverty and inequality for children. The left argues for more social support for unmarried parents; the right argues for a return to traditional marriage.In Generation Unbound, Isabel V. Sawhill offers a third approach: change ""drifters"" into ""planners."" In a well-written and accessible survey of the impact of family structure on ch...

The health care industry in the U.S. is peculiar. We spend close to 18% of our GDP on health care, yet other countries get better results—and we don't know why. To date, we still lack widely accepted answers to simple questions, such as "Would requiring everyone to buy health insurance make us better off?" Drawing on behavioral economics as an alternative to the standard tools of health economics, author Douglas E. Hough seeks to more clearly diagnose the ills of health care today....

Anomie, strain and subcultural theories are among the leading theories of crime. Anomie theories state that crime results from the failure of society to regulate adequately the behavior of individuals, particularly the efforts of individuals to achieve monetary success. Strain theories focus on the impact of strains or stressors on crime, including the inability to achieve monetary success through legal channels. And subcultural theories argue that some individuals turn to crime because th...