First Published in 2016. The global struggle for human rights has been, fundamentally, a struggle by oppressed groups against the structures of their oppression. As such, sociological work into the experiences of women, racial and ethnic minorities, children, LGBTQ communities, the mentally ill, and others helps us understand the promises and challenges of pursuing human rights. This book presents the fundamental insights gleaned from the scholarship on groups in society for the study of, ...

Children’s rights appear universal, inalienable, and indivisible, intended to advance young people’s interests. Yet, in practice, evidence suggests the contrary: the international framework of treaties, procedures, and national policies contains fundamental contradictions that weaken commitments to children’s real-world protections.Brian Gran helps us understand what is at stake when children’s rights are compromised. This insightful text grounds readers in core theories and key da...

Independent children’s rights institutions (ICRIs) have been established across the world. Endorsed by the UN, they are independent of their governments and endowed with legal powers. Yet we know little about how ICRIs function. How do they work? What impacts their success? What objectives do ICRIs seek to achieve?The contributors to this edited collection provide first-hand experiences in directing, working for, and studying ICRIs and detail their unique, in-depth accounts of fact...

Institutions--like education, family, medicine, culture, and law--, are powerful social structures shaping how we live together. As members of society we daily express our adherence to norms and values of institutions as we consciously and unconsciously reject and challenge them. Our everyday experiences with institutions not only shape our connections with one another, they can reinforce our binding to the status quo as we struggle to produce social change. Institutions can help us do hum...

As sociologists deepen their examinations of human rights in their teaching, research, and thinking, it is essential that such work is conducted in a manner that is both mindful and critical of the knowledge we are building upon in sociology and human rights. As the authors of this volume reveal, creating sociological knowledge that examines human rights for the expansion of human rights is something that sociologists are well equipped to undertake, whether through the us...

How do people work together to advance human rights? Do people form groups to prevent human rights from being enforced? Why? In what ways do circumstances matter to the work of individuals collectively working to shape human rights practices?Human society is made of individuals within contexts—tectonic plates not of the earth’s crust but of groups and individuals who scrape and shift as we bump along, competing for scarce resources and getting along. These movements, large and smal...

Long the province of international law, human rights now enjoys a renaissance of studies and new perspectives from the social sciences. This landmark book is the first to synthesize and comprehensively evaluate this body of work. It fosters an interdisciplinary, international, and critical engagement both in the social study of human rights and the establishment of a human rights approach throughout the field of sociology. Sociological perspectives bring new questions to the interdisciplin...

The COVID-19 pandemic is having far-reaching political and social consequences across the globe. Published in collaboration with the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP), this book addresses the greatest social challenges facing the world as a result of the pandemic.The authors propose public policy solutions to help refugees, migrant workers, victims of human trafficking, indigenous populations and the invisible poor of the Global South.

British social reformer Robert Owen once declared that "man is the creature of circumstances." A century and a half later, his famous words still ring true. While many adopt a fatalist approach, believing that their lot in life is inevitable, in fact a number of highly complex social factors determine the outcome of our socioeconomic status and integration into society. It may seem unfair, but the conditions into which we are born largely determine the various courses that our lives take. In...

Featuring a collection of original chapters by leading and emerging scholars, The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Sociology presents a comprehensive and balanced overview of the major topics and emerging trends in the discipline of sociology today.Features original chapters contributed by an international cast of leading and emerging sociology scholarsRepresents the most innovative and 'state-of-the-art' thinking about the disciplineIncludes a general introdu...

Whether a student, an instructor, a researcher, or just someone interested in understanding the roots of sociology and our social world, The Cambridge Handbook of Sociology, Volume 1 is for you. This first volume of the Handbook focuses on core areas of sociology, such as theory, methods, culture, socialization, social structure, inequality, diversity, social institutions, social problems, deviant behavior, locality, geography, the environment, and social change. It also explains how socio...

Discover why LGBT voters support conservative political platforms that don’t benefit the LGBT communityRecent studies show that the vast majority of the LGBT community considers itself politically liberally. Yet nearly 25% of all LGBT voters helped re-elect George W. Bush in 2004who are these people and why did they make that choice? Gay Conservatives examines why conservative LGBTs join political groups and support political candidates that not only don’t favor policies that benef...