In the twentieth century, Americans have increasingly looked to the schools--and, in particular, to the nation's colleges and universities--as guardians of the cherished national ideal of equality of opportunity. With the best jobs increasingly monopolized by those with higher education, the opportunity to attend college has become an integral part of the American dream of upward mobility. The two-year college--which now enrolls more than four million students in over 900 institutions--is ...

The sociologist Daniel Bell was an uncommonly acute observer of the structural forces transforming the United States and other advanced societies in the twentieth century. The titles of Bell’s major books—The End of Ideology (1960), The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973), and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976)—became hotly debated frameworks for understanding the era when they were published.In Defining the Age, Paul Starr and...

The sociologist Daniel Bell was an uncommonly acute observer of the structural forces transforming the United States and other advanced societies in the twentieth century. The titles of Bell’s major books—The End of Ideology (1960), The Coming of Post-Industrial Society (1973), and The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism (1976)—became hotly debated frameworks for understanding the era when they were published.In Defining the Age, Paul Starr and...

Since the 1960s the number of highly educated professionals in America has grown dramatically. During this time scholars and journalists have described the group as exercising increasing influence over cultural values and public affairs. The rise of this putative "new class" has been greeted with idealistic hope or ideological suspicion on both the right and the left. In an Age of Experts challenges these characterizations, showing that claims about the distinctive politics and va...

Schools and Societies provides a synthesis of key issues in the sociology of education, focusing on American schools while offering a global, comparative context. Acknowledged as a standard text in its first two editions, this fully revised and updated third edition offers a broader sweep, stronger theoretical foundation, and a new concluding chapter on the possibilities of schooling. Instructors, students, and policymakers interested in education and society will find all quantit...

A leading expert challenges the prevailing gloomy outlook on higher education with solid evidence of its successesCrushing student debt, rapidly eroding state funding, faculty embroiled in speech controversies, a higher-education market disrupted by online competition—today’s headlines suggest that universities’ power to advance knowledge and shape American society is rapidly declining. But Steven Brint, a renowned analyst of academic institutions, has tracked nume...

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...

The authors propose a new theory of political behavior that re-invigorates the role of institutions—from laws and bureaucracy to rituals and symbols—as essential to understanding the modern political and economic systems that guide contemporary life.

The Profession and Practice of Adult Education is a timely book and an excellent introduction to the field. Drawing from an extensive volume of literature, it provides comprehensive coverage and a clear guide. Graduate students will benefit from it and practitioners will be kept abreast of changes that are occurring.--Peter Jarvis, professor of continuing education and senior research professor, University of Surrey, United Kingdom

Women increasingly make up a significant percentage of the labor force throughout the world. This transformation is impacting everyone's lives. This book examines the resulting gender role, work, and family issues from a comparative worldwide perspective. Working allows women to earn an income, acquire new skills, and forge social connections. It also brings challenges such as simultaneously managing domestic responsibilities and family relationships. The social, political, and economic im...

This book demonstrates that people's basic values and beliefs are changing, in ways that affect their political, sexual, economic, and religious behaviour. These changes are roughly predictable: to a large extent, they can be interpreted on the basis of a revised version of modernisation theory presented here. Drawing on a massive body of evidence from societies containing 85 percent of the world's population, the authors demonstrate that modernisation is a process of human development, in...

What is the impact of three decades of neoliberal narratives and policies on communities and individual lives? What are the sources of social resilience? This book offers a sweeping assessment of the effects of neoliberalism, the dominant feature of our times. It analyzes the ideology in unusually wide-ranging terms as a movement that not only opened markets but also introduced new logics into social life, integrating macro-level analyses of the ways in which neoliberal narratives made the...