Calvary University
Faculty of Sociology
|
Calvary University
Faculty of Sociology |
|
Sociology — A Global Introduction 
2nd Edition
Brief DescriptionSociology: A Global Introduction is the most complete learning resource for any student of introductory sociology. Written in a lively and engaging way, the new edition of this popular text will excite and challenge students as well as encourage them to understand core topics, critiques of existing arguments and read further around the subject. Of particular significance is the book’s global perspective, looking at traditional and modern societies in a wider multicultural environment. Features
Contents
Companion Website:http://www.booksites.net/plummer Preface
Welcome to the second edition of a new sociology textbook First, Sociology: A Global Introduction aims to provide an introduction to all the main areas of study, the key concepts, the historical debates and basic approaches to the discipline. It assumes you know nothing about sociology; and thus it is not an advanced text. It sets its goals as opening up the field of enquiry for the very first time. If you wish to go further, there are suggestions at the end of each chapter for doing this, and a website has been designed to give you further links, readings, questions and food for thought. Second, the book provides a global and local introduction. Most textbooks focus upon one country. This textbook does have as a prime concern the UK, Europe and North America. But it also takes its orbit to be the world – increasingly it is impossible to understand one country in isolation from others. A recurrent theme through this book is that the modern world is becoming progressively globalised. Third, the book provides analyses of a number of newer topics that are not always included in introductory sociology textbooks. We have selected some issues that are becoming increasingly critical in the twenty-first century. These include the role of globalisation (Chapter 2); the new areas of body, emotions and identity (Chapter 7); the importance of age, children and the growing number of the elderly (Chapter 13); the importance of human rights regimes (Chapter 15); the rising (global) power of the mass media (Chapter 21); the significance of many countries outside the West that are facing poverty (Chapter 9); the importance of science, cyberspace and the new reproductive technologies (Chapter 22); the global significance of environmental hazards (Chapter 24); the sociological significance of AIDS (Chapter 20); and debates around postmodernity and the new kind of society that may be appearing in the twenty-first century (Chapters 2 and 25 in particular).
Finally, the book hopes to present all of this in a distinctly fresh and ‘user friendly’ way. There is a lot of material to digest, even in a book as introductory as this, so a number of tools have been provided to help study. These are outlined below.
The boxes. These are aimed at focusing you on specific issues. We believe, and hope you do too, that they provide handy tools for thinking and analysing. They come in six forms each identified by an icon.
In addition the book provides: Recognition of differences. Readers will encounter the diversity of societies. Although there is an emphasis on Europe and the USA in the book – the dominant Western cultures – there is also a concern with global issues and people from other cultures. There is also an inclusive focus on women and men. Beyond devoting a full chapter to the important concepts of sex and gender, the book mainstreams gender into most chapters, showing how the topic at hand affects women and men differently, and explaining how gender operates as a basic dimension of social organisation. Theoretically clear and balanced presentation. The discipline’s major theoretical approaches are introduced in Chapter 2. They are then systematically treated on the website and often reappear in later chapters. The text highlights not only the conflict, functional and action paradigms, but incorporates social-exchange analysis, ethnomethodology, cultural theory, sociobiology and developments in the newer postmodern theories where different voices can be heard. Students are also provided with an easy-to-understand introduction to important social theorists before they encounter their work in later chapters. The ideas of Max Weber, Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim appear in distinct sections. Emphasis on critical thinking. Critical-thinking skills include the ability to challenge common assumptions by formulating questions, identifying and weighing appropriate evidence, and reaching reasoned conclusions. This text not only teaches but encourages students to discover on their own recent sociological research. A short note on currency As currencies vary across all cultures and rates of exchange are constantly in a state of flux, the application of any particular unit of currency was a problem. However, the currencies used in our data sources were the pound sterling and the US dollar; for this reason these are the currencies adopted in this book. Sociology, computers and websites Computers and the new information technology are playing an increasingly prominent role in sociology. Currently, probably the most common uses for students are the following. Word processing (when you prepare your essays and projects) Research (when you need statistical techniques such as those discussed in Chapter 2) Searching various databases (the most common of which is probably your university library, when you retrieve information on books) Using electronic mail (e-mail) to talk to both lecturers and fellow students. Often this can be done via ‘discussion groups’ linking students and others with similar interests (such as wanting to find out more about postmodern culture, feminism or Marx), who then communicate via e-mail. Linking to websites. The World Wide Web is a system that helps you gain systematic access to all the information housed in the vast worldwide network of computer networks known as the Internet. It connects you to libraries, businesses, research centres, voluntary organisations, etc., all over the world. Problems with the Internet The trouble with the Internet is that it contains millions of bits of disconnected data. In order to make sense of it and find what you want, you will need a web browser such as ‘Netscape Navigator’ or ‘Internet Explorer’ which enables you to be more systematic in your searches. Every document on the Internet has a URL – a Uniform Resource Locator – or address. This is what you need to know when you start your search for sociology websites. Alternatively, you can search for relevant websites by entering one or more keywords on the home page of a ‘search engine’ such as Yahoo or Google. But once you are inside a web page, you can usually ‘click’ on a number of items, and you will find yourself rapidly transported to these items. (Technically, this is called hypertext.) So many ‘web searches’ involve just jumping from one site to another. There are now a great many sociological websites. So where to start? A good number of them have been listed in http://sociology.wadsworth.com/lessons.html A word of warning There is a huge amount of sociological data on the Web, and although it can be very easy to access, it can also bring problems. Throughout this book, we will suggest websites, but we do so with some anxiety for the following reasons. Websites keep changing. There is no guarantee that a site will not be closed or its name changed. Even whilst preparing this book, we found a number that had ‘vanished’ and others that had opened for just a few weeks. The quality of websites is very variable: we have checked most of the sites listed in this book and they were ‘good’ at that time. But they change, and sometimes they can be the home page of one ‘crank’ who is really only listing his or her own private interests. So use carefully and critically. The usage of websites at key times can be very intensive. So a cardinal rule is to be patient! And, finally, note that accuracy matters. Do not change addresses from lower-case to capitals, or miss out slashes and points. The website address must be precise. Organisation of this text Part one introduces the foundations of sociology. Underlying the discipline is the sociological perspective, the focus of Chapter 1, which explains how this invigorating point of view brings the world to life in a new and instructive way. Chapter 2 spotlights some of the key sociological perspectives and suggests the importance of globalisation as an idea. Chapter 3 looks at some of the issues involved in the practice of sociology, and explains how to use the logic of science to study human society. It also provides a guide to planning research. Part two targets the foundations of social life. It may be useful to see this section as layered: society, culture, groups, interactions and biographies constitute the matrix of the social worlds we live in. Chapter 4 looks at the concept of society, presenting three time-honoured models of social organisation developed by Emile Durkheim, Karl Marx and Max Weber. It also looks at societies of the past and societies of the present. Chapter 5 focuses on the central concept of culture, emphasising the cultural diversity that makes up our society and our world. Chapter 6 offers coverage of groups and organisations, two additional and vital elements of social structure. Chapter 7 provides a micro-level look at the patterns of social interaction that make up our everyday lives. Part three offers a wide discussion of social inequality, beginning with three chapters devoted to social stratification. Chapter 8 introduces major concepts and presents theoretical explanations of social inequality. This chapter is rich with illustrations of how stratification has changed historically, and how it varies around the world today. Chapter 9 extends the analysis with a look at global stratification, revealing the extent of differences in wealth and power between rich and poor societies. Chapter 10 surveys social inequality in a number of Western countries, but mainly the UK, exploring our perceptions of inequality and assessing how well they square with research findings. Race and ethnicity, additional important dimensions of social inequality in both Europe and the rest of the world, are detailed in Chapter 11. The focus of Chapter 12, gender and sexuality, explains how societies transform the distinction of biological sex into systems of gender stratification, and looks at the ways sexuality is produced. Childhood and the ageing process are addressed in Chapter 13. Part four includes a full chapter on major social institutions and the practices that accompany them. Chapter 14 leads off investigating the economy, consumption and work, because most sociologists recognise the economy as having the greatest impact on all other institutions. This chapter highlights the processes of industrialisation and postindustrialisation, explains the emergence of a global economy, and suggests what such transformations mean. Chapter 15 investigates the roots of social power and looks at the modern development of social movements. In addition, this chapter includes discussion of the threat of war, and the search for peace. Chapter 16 looks at the control process, as well as some of the theories that explain why crime and deviance appear in societies. Chapter 17, on families, examines the many changes taking place around our personal ways of living together in the modern world, looking at some of the diversity of family life. Chapter 18, on religion, addresses the human search for ultimate meaning, surveys world religions, and explains how religious beliefs are linked to other dimensions of social life. Chapter 19, on education, traces the expansion of schooling in industrial societies. Here again, educational patterns in the United Kingdom are brought to life through contrasts with those of many other societies. Chapter 20, on health and medicine, shows how health is a social issue just as much as it is a matter of biological processes, and compares UK patterns to those found in other countries. It also considers a major case study: HIV/AIDS. Chapter 21, on mass media, looks at forms of communications in societies, focusing especially on the rise of the modern global media. Lastly, in Chapter 22, we look at the institution of ‘science’ and consider some of its most recent manifestations, including the Human Genome Project, the New Reproductive Technologies and the importance of computing and the World Wide Web. Part five examines important dimensions of global social change. Chapter 23 focuses on the powerful impact of population growth and urbanisation in Europe and throughout the world. Chapter 24 presents issues of contemporary concern by highlighting the interplay of society and the natural environment. Chapter 25 concludes the text with an overview of social change that highlights traditional, modern and postmodern societies. This chapter rounds out the text by explaining how and why world societies change, and by critically analysing the benefits and liabilities of traditional, modern and postmodern ways of life.
Maps A note on authorship John J. Macionis wrote the original first full US text. Macionis and Plummer produced the first European edition. Here, Ken Plummer has revised the second edition of this European volume, adding several new chapters, introducing many new sections and significantly modifying the original UK edition. Since sociology is a changing and conflictual discipline, neither author necessarily agrees with everything the other has written. But there is strong agreement that sociology is a lively and challenging discipline that should be presented in a lively and challenging way. We hope that this book succeeds in this aim. Copyright © Calvary University, 1998 All rights reserved. |