Sociology
Author: Steven E. Barkan
Publisher:
Published:
Total Pages:
ISBN-13: 9781936126538
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Decoding the Social World
Author: Sandra Gonzalez-Bailon
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2017-12-22
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 0262343460
DOWNLOAD EBOOKHow data science and the analysis of networks help us solve the puzzle of unintended consequences. Social life is full of paradoxes. Our intentional actions often trigger outcomes that we did not intend or even envision. How do we explain those unintended effects and what can we do to regulate them? In Decoding the Social World, Sandra González-Bailón explains how data science and digital traces help us solve the puzzle of unintended consequences—offering the solution to a social paradox that has intrigued thinkers for centuries. Communication has always been the force that makes a collection of people more than the sum of individuals, but only now can we explain why: digital technologies have made it possible to parse the information we generate by being social in new, imaginative ways. And yet we must look at that data, González-Bailón argues, through the lens of theories that capture the nature of social life. The technologies we use, in the end, are also a manifestation of the social world we inhabit. González-Bailón discusses how the unpredictability of social life relates to communication networks, social influence, and the unintended effects that derive from individual decisions. She describes how communication generates social dynamics in aggregate (leading to episodes of “collective effervescence”) and discusses the mechanisms that underlie large-scale diffusion, when information and behavior spread “like wildfire.” She applies the theory of networks to illuminate why collective outcomes can differ drastically even when they arise from the same individual actions. By opening the black box of unintended effects, González-Bailón identifies strategies for social intervention and discusses the policy implications—and how data science and evidence-based research embolden critical thinking in a world that is constantly changing.
Making the Social World
Author: John Searle
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2010-01-12
Total Pages: 399
ISBN-13: 0199745862
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThere are few more important philosophers at work today than John Searle, a creative and contentious thinker who has shaped the way we think about mind and language. Now he offers a profound understanding of how we create a social reality--a reality of money, property, governments, marriages, stock markets and cocktail parties. The paradox he addresses in Making the Social World is that these facts only exist because we think they exist and yet they have an objective existence. Continuing a line of investigation begun in his earlier book The Construction of Social Reality, Searle identifies the precise role of language in the creation of all "institutional facts." His aim is to show how mind, language and civilization are natural products of the basic facts of the physical world described by physics, chemistry and biology. Searle explains how a single linguistic operation, repeated over and over, is used to create and maintain the elaborate structures of human social institutions. These institutions serve to create and distribute power relations that are pervasive and often invisible. These power relations motivate human actions in a way that provides the glue that holds human civilization together. Searle then applies the account to show how it relates to human rationality, the freedom of the will, the nature of political power and the existence of universal human rights. In the course of his explication, he asks whether robots can have institutions, why the threat of force so often lies behind institutions, and he denies that there can be such a thing as a "state of nature" for language-using human beings.
Navigating the Social World
Author: Jeanette L. McAfee
Publisher: Future Horizons
Published: 2002
Total Pages: 392
ISBN-13: 9781885477828
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBecause of its unique focus on teaching the critical social skills that autistic children lack, this book has been cited by "Library Journal" as "Essential to All Collections."
Revealing Our Social World
Author: Mark Plume
Publisher:
Published: 2016-08-08
Total Pages: 520
ISBN-13: 9781516554164
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBased on over twenty years of classroom experience, Revealing Our Social World: An Introduction to Sociology is written with the teaching sociologist in mind. Humorous, accessible, and informal, the book introduces non-major students to the basic theories, concepts, and terms of sociology. Revealing Our Social World: A Brief Introduction to Sociology is organized into four sections, the first of which discusses the basics of the sociological perspective and imagination, along with the development of sociology as a discipline. In the second section the material examines how people fit into their social landscapes. This section features topics such as culture, socialization, groups, social institutions, and deviance. The third section addresses various forms of inequality, while the fourth examines the structure of "the daily grind" as it applies to marriage and family, religion, education, politics, and the economy. Each chapter lays out the basic elements of the topic using vivid cross-cultural examples and includes suggested readings, practical activities, and a section titled "There's an App for That." Revealing Our Social World: A Brief Introduction to Sociology is a fresh and engaging text for introductory sociology courses at the undergraduate level. Mark Plume earned his Ph.D. in sociology at the University of Southern California. Dr. Plume has been teaching sociology for more than twenty years and is currently a professor at Reynolds Community College, where he teaches traditional and on-line courses in introductory sociology, marriage and family, and cultural and physical anthropology. Dr. Plume also teaches sex and gender and research methods at Virginia Commonwealth University. His research interests include alcoholic families, gender, and social class. His most recent work examines millennials and their belief in the afterlife. He is a member of the American Sociological Association and the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Plume, his wife, and their miniature schnauzer make their home in central Virginia.
Understanding the Social World
Author: Russell K. Schutt
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2019-12-20
Total Pages: 449
ISBN-13: 1544358490
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe author is a proud sponsor of the 2020 SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award—enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop. Understanding the Social World: Research Methods for the 21st Century is a concise and accessible introduction to the process and practice of social science research. Fast-paced and visually engaging, the text crosses disciplinary and national boundaries, pays special attention to concern for human subjects, and focuses on the application of results. As it rises to the requirements of a world shaped by big data and social media, Instagram and avatars, blogs and tweets, the text also confronts the research challenges posed by cell phones, privacy concerns, linguistic diversity, and multicultural populations. The Second Edition discusses newly-popular research methods, highlights the fascinating work being conducted by contemporary social researchers, and includes enhanced tools for learning in the text and online. Included with this title: The password-protected Instructor Resource Site (formally known as SAGE Edge) offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides.
Cultures and Societies in a Changing World
Author: Wendy Griswold
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2012-01-10
Total Pages: 233
ISBN-13: 1452289409
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn the Fourth Edition of Cultures and Societies in a Changing World, author Wendy Griswold illuminates how culture shapes our social world and how society shapes culture. She helps students gain an understanding of the sociology of culture and explore stories, beliefs, media, ideas, art, religious practices, fashions, and rituals from a sociological perspective. Cultural examples from multiple countries and time periods will broaden students′ global understanding. They will develop a deeper appreciation of culture and society, gleaning insights that will help them overcome cultural misunderstandings, conflicts, and ignorance; equip them to be more effective in their professional and personal lives, and become wise citizens of the world.
Papyri and the Social World of the New Testament
Author: Sabine R. Huebner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2019-07-11
Total Pages: 209
ISBN-13: 1108470254
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExplores the socio-economic background of people in the New Testament using papyrological evidence from Roman Egypt.
The Social Construction of Reality
Author: Peter L. Berger
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2011-04-26
Total Pages: 313
ISBN-13: 1453215468
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA watershed event in the field of sociology, this text introduced “a major breakthrough in the sociology of knowledge and sociological theory generally” (George Simpson, American Sociological Review). In this seminal book, Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann examine how knowledge forms and how it is preserved and altered within a society. Unlike earlier theorists and philosophers, Berger and Luckmann go beyond intellectual history and focus on commonsense, everyday knowledge—the proverbs, morals, values, and beliefs shared among ordinary people. When first published in 1966, this systematic, theoretical treatise introduced the term social construction,effectively creating a new thought and transforming Western philosophy.
Investigating the Social World
Author: Russell K. Schutt
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2018-01-30
Total Pages: 729
ISBN-13: 1506361234
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis comprehensive and balanced text has been written so that the "doing" of social research is closely and consistently linked to important social issues by using real social data. End-of-chapter discussion questions, research proposal development exercises and SPSS exercises help measure and enhance students’ understanding.
