Contemporary Society - 11th edition

Summary: This best-selling text offers an integrated social science view of the world, emphasizing that social change is the pervasive reality of our era.

One of the main themes of Contemporary Society is that the transition from an industrial to a post-industrial order in the modern world is fraught with difficulties, as was the transition from an agricultural to an industrial order in an earlier human era. This framework also illustrates the increasing fragmentati ...show moreon of the social order, which leads people away from community and a common purpose to conflict and disunity.

Features

• Draws upon sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, geography, history, psychology, and their related disciplines to give students an integrated overview of the social sciences.
• Emphasizes social change and how it impacts the social order.
• Complete chapters are devoted to a number of basic concepts that underlie social behavior: personality, interaction, deviance.
• Boxed features throughout the text provide historical and timely topics for class discussion. Some boxes are of the human interest variety, while others show how social scientists arrive at their conclusions.
• Chapter summaries serve as an excellent tool for focusing on the key concepts presented in each chapter.
• Includes a glossary of terms with succinct yet accessible definitions in each chapter.

• New findings from astronomy and paleontology, that increase our knowledge about the age of the universe and of human beings, have been added to Ch. 2.The Personality chapter cites new studies that support the ideas that parent-infant bonding has a biological basis, and that peers are the most influential shapers of a young person's personality.
• The Deviance and Criminality chapter discusses some recent theories about ways to reduce neighborhood crime; the consequences of the dramatic increase in imprisonment as a tool to control crime in the U.S. over the past two decades; and the use of the death penalty.
• The section on social classes in the U.S. in the Stratification chapter has been rewritten to reflect the most current data on income and poverty.
• The Race and Ethnicity chapter discusses the narrowing income gap between whites and blacks; Mexican Americans as a distinct group of Latinos; and household income and job status among Jewish Americans.
• The Age/Gender/Sexuality chapter includes a new box on the consequences of declining birthrates in wealthier nations and the growing proportion of elderly citizens, and a new discussion of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
• Terrorism is discussed as a type of social movement in Ch. 10.
• The Democracy chapter questions the validity of the so-called ''red/blue'' divide among the American electorate, and includes a box on why so many Americans decline to participate in politics.
• Lists of useful websites, to help students do online research, have been added to every chapter.
• Supplements package now includes Themes of the Times for the Social Sciences, a collection of 30 articles from recent issues of the New York Times that can be packaged for fre, upon request, with the text.

Edition/Copyright: 11TH 06
Cover: Paperback
Publisher: Allyn & Bacon, Inc.
Published: 05/24/2005

View eBook Requirements

VitalSource Bookshelf Reader

---

Minimum system requirements:

• Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Mac OS X 10.3 or above
• At least 256 MB RAM, a 600 mHz processor, and 110 MB of hard drive space
• 1024x768 screen resolution or larger

Software requirements:

eTextbooks and eChapters can be viewed by using the free reader listed below.

• VitalSource Bookshelf eTextbook Reader

Be sure to check the format of the eTextbook/eChapter you purchase to know which reader you will need. After purchasing your eTextbook or eChapter you will be given instructions on where and how to download your free reader.

Download requirements:

Due to the size of eTextbooks, a high-speed Internet connection (cable modem, DSL, LAN) is required for download stability and speed. Your connection can be wired or wireless.

Being online is not required for reading an eTextbook after successfully downloading it. You must only be connected to the Internet during the download process.

User Help:

Click Here to access the VitalSource Bookshelf FAQ

Related materials for Contemporary Society »

Other Editions of Contemporary Society:

Contemporary Society - 12 edition

ISBN13: 978-0205578672