Explore the world of sociology through a defining feature of all societies: power.The Power of Sociology: Grasping Our Unequal World introduces students to sociology through the discipline’s primary concern: the causes and consequences of social inequality, and at its core, power. The central organizing principle of social life, power is relevant to every reader and fundamental to all major sub-areas of sociology. Authors Gudmundur Oddsson, Jenny M. Stuber...

2021 Choice Outstanding Academic TitleAs a major, public flagship university in the American South, so-called “Diversity University” has struggled to define its commitments to diversity and inclusion, and to put those commitments into practice. In Diversity Regimes, sociologist James M. Thomas draws on more than two years of ethnographic fieldwork at DU to illustrate the conflicts and contingencies between a core set of actors at DU over what dive...

The Souls of Jewish Folk argues that late nineteenth-century Germany’s struggle with its “Jewish question”—what to do with Germany’s Jews—served as an important and to-date underexamined influence on W.E.B. Du Bois’s considerations of America’s anti-Black racism at the turn of the twentieth century. Du Bois is well known for his characterization of the twentieth century’s greatest challenge, “the problem of the color line.” This proposition gained prominence in the conception of D...

As globalization expands, more than goods and information are traded between the countries of the world. Hattery, Embrick, and Smith present a collection of essays that explore the ways in which issues of human rights and social inequality are shared globally. The editors focus on the United States' role in contributing to human rights violations both inside and outside its borders. Essays on contemporary issues such as immigration, colonialism, and reparations are used to illustrate how t...

For decades, stand-up comedy has been central to the imbrication of popular culture and political discourse, reshaping the margins of political critique, and often within the contexts of urban nightlife entertainment. In Working to Laugh: Assembling Difference in American Stand-Up Comedy Venues, James M. Thomas (JT) provides an ethnographic analysis of urban nightlife sites where this popular form of entertainment occurs. Examining the relationship between the performance, the venue, and t...

Affective Labour explores four distinct landscapes in order to demonstrate how collective feelings are organized by social actors in order to both reproduce and contest hegemony. Utilizing a variety of methods, including participant observation, in-depth interviews across field sites, and content analysis of mass media, Correa and Thomas demonstrate the centrality of affective labor in enabling and constraining prevailing norms and practices of race, citizenship, class, gender, and sexuali...

A step-by-step guide to transforming student learning with value-added analysisValue-added analysis is the most robust, statistically significant method available for helping educators quantify student progress over time. This powerful tool also reveals tangible strategies for improving instruction. Built around the work of Battelle for Kids, this bookprovides a field-tested continuous improvement model for using value-added information to increase student...

Politics, Society, and the Media is the first comprehensive political sociology of the media to be published in Canada. Paul Nesbitt-Larking draws upon a range of disciplines, including cultural and media studies, political economy, social theory, and political science to provide an analysis of the relationship between power and representation in Canada.The framework for the book presents a model of the mutual interaction between politics and the media. Attention is focuse...

In 1996, the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, a grassroots advocacy organization, won a historic legal victory against the city’s Metropolitan Transit Authority. The resulting consent decree forced the MTA for a period of ten years to essentially reorient the mass transit system to better serve the city’s poorest residents. A stunning reversal of conventional governance and planning in urban America, which almost always favors wealthier residents, this decision is also, for renowned urban the...

Do you have what it takes to succeed in your career?The secret of success is not what they taught you in school. What matters most is not IQ, not a business school degree, not even technical know-how or years of expertise. The single most important factor in job performance and advancement is emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is actually a set of skills that anyone can acquire, and in this practical guide, Daniel Goleman identifies them, expla...

Radicalizing Learning calls for a total rethinking of what the field of adult education stands for and how adult educators should assess their effectiveness. Arguing that major changes in society are needed to create a more just world, the authors set out to show how educators can help learners envision and enact this radical transformation.Specifically, the book explores the areas of adult learning, training, teaching, facilitation, program development, and research. Each...

Research and real-life examples that "lucidly connect some of the divisive social issues confronting us today to that thing we call 'the law'" ( Law and Politics Book Review).Law and society is a rapidly growing field that turns the conventional view of law as mythical abstraction on its head. Kitty Calavita brilliantly brings to life the ways in which law is found not only in statutes and courtrooms but in our institutions and interactions, while inviting ...