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Sociology: The Core, 6/e

Michael Hughes, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Carolyn J. Kroehler
James W. Vander Zanden, The Ohio State University (Emeritus)

Preface

The education that students receive should allow them to live fuller, richer, and more fruitful lives. Such a goal is ultimately the bedrock upon which we build and justify our careers as educators and sociologists. Students today face the challenges presented by the transformation to an information and global economy, the growth of biotechnology and cloning, the ever-expanding human population, and the environmental problems associated with population growth. To understand and live in this rapidly changing social environment, they need a solid foundation in sociological concepts and perspectives.

Sociology encourages us to examine aspects of our social environment that we might otherwise ignore, neglect, or take for granted, and it allows us to look beneath the surface of everyday life. The introductory course in sociology gives students the opportunity to use this sociological imagination in understanding and mastering their social world, and Sociology: The Core provides the information they need to do so.

Providing the Core

A course in sociology should broaden students' horizons, sharpen their observational skills, and strengthen their analytical capabilities. Sociology: The Core aims to make the introductory course manageable for instructors and students alike. The sixth edition returns to the core concept with a tighter, more readable text that provides the essentials. Although it has fewer total pages, it retains all the major sections of the fifth edition, with streamlined feature boxes, figures that present data critical to an introductory text, and a stick-to-the-basics approach. It provides the core of sociology—the basic foundations of the discipline.

The coverage of many key topics in Sociology: The Core—theory, culture, socialization, groups, formal organizations, deviance, social stratification, race, gender, power, the family, religion, and social change—is equal to, and in many cases exceeds, that found in most other introductory textbooks. The functionalist, conflict, and interactionist perspectives are introduced in the first chapter and applied throughout the book. This helps students to develop a solid understanding of these major sociological perspectives and their contributions to the topics covered here, and it provides something for everyone in departments where all faculty members are required to use the same introductory textbook.

It would be presumptuous for any sociologist to program another sociologist's course. Instead, we hope that Sociology: The Core provides a solid resource—a common intellectual platform—that each instructor can use as a sound foundation in developing an introductory course. As a coherent presentation of sociological materials, a core text is an aid to pedagogy. Instructors can supplement the text with papers, readers, or monographs that meet their unique teaching needs. Likewise, students can use Sociology: The Core as a succinct source of information.

Bringing Students In

In Sociology: The Core, we seek to make sociology come alive as a vital and exciting field, to relate principles to real-world circumstances, and to attune students to the dynamic processes of our rapidly changing contemporary society. The study of a science can captivate student interest and excite their imagination. In this edition, we capitalize on students' desires to read about issues of interest to them with new feature boxes on campus rape, binge drinking, and gender-norm violations. Because students live and will work in an increasingly diverse and global world, we have increased coverage of global issues with a new box on income inequality within societies around the world and cross-cultural comparisons integrated in various chapters. We continue to emphasize issues of race, ethnicity, and gender as a regular part of most topics in sociology, incorporating data and studies where appropriate throughout the book.

Pedagogical Aids

In selecting pedagogical aids for the text, we decided to use those that provide the most guidance with the least clutter and to focus on those that students are most likely to actually use.

Chapter Outline

Each chapter opens with an outline of its major headings; this allows students to preview at a glance the material to be covered.

Cross-Reference Icons

Referrals to material in other chapters are highlighted with “cross-reference” icons that provide specific page references, making it easy for students and instructors to find such material.

Key Terms

The terms most essential to the core of sociology are set in boldface type and are defined as they are presented in the text. These key terms appear in the chapter summaries, again in boldface type to emphasize their importance and to reinforce the student's memory. At the end of each chapter, a Glossary lists the key terms included in the chapter and provides their definitions. All key terms appear in the index, along with an indication of where they are first defined.

Chapter Summary

Each chapter concludes with a Chapter in Brief summary that uses the same outline of major headings used in the chapter opener. The summary recapitulates the central points, allowing students to review what they have read in a systematic manner. The use of major headings allows students to return to the appropriate section in the chapter for more information. The Chapter in Brief includes all of the glossary terms, boldfaced to remind students that they are key terms.

Internet Exercises

Each chapter concludes with an Internet Connection that provides students with an opportunity to explore sociological data and information on the Internet and hone their critical thinking abilities.

Boxes

The sixth edition includes four types of boxes, all of which add to the concepts and theories discussed in the chapter in which they appear, and many of which add insights to other chapters as well.

Doing Social Research boxes focus on how social scientists approach various research problems; topics discussed have been chosen to illustrate or enhance the topics discussed in the chapter.

Sociology around the World boxes focus on sociological research that extends beyond the United States, on research done with subjects from outside the United States, on cross-cultural sociological research, and on illustrations of sociological concepts in a variety of cultural settings.

Issues in Focus boxes explore from a sociological perspective controversial research findings, current events, and themes of interest to students.

Students Doing Sociology boxes summarize the experience of students who were asked to think like sociologists: to interpret certain events with sociological concepts and principles or to perform sociological research.

Additional Students Doing Sociology boxes are available in the Instructor's Manual. Instructors may wish to use them to create their own classroom exercises or assignments.

Figures and Tables

The data presented in the figures and tables throughout Sociology: The Core are as up-to-date as possible—and as accessible as we could make them. The figures and tables feature a new, more user-friendly design. Whenever possible, we have created figures from published data instead of simply presenting percentages and numbers from statistical sources. In some cases, we have generated original analyses from publicly available data sets. Sources for figures and tables include the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Center for Health, the General Social Survey, the Statistical Abstract of the United States, and the Survey on Consumer Finances.

Photographs and Cartoons

Photographs and cartoons serve both to draw the students in and to illustrate important concepts and principles. The sixth edition includes new and bigger photos and some new cartoons. Photo captions tie the photographs to the text, and cartoons, in addition to adding a light touch to the text and reinforcing important ideas, make points that can't be made any other way.

References

The sixth edition of Sociology: The Core presents new data and references throughout, including major updates in race and ethnicity; gender inequality; welfare reform and poverty; crime; wealth and income; and more. It includes hundreds of new references to major sociological journals, books, government documents and data sets, and popular media, most to sources published in 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2001. Full citations appear at the end of the text.

Changes in the Sixth Edition

While the sixth edition retains all the core information of the fifth edition, there are a number of significant additions and enhancements. The sixth edition:

Strengthens the focus on gender stratification as a structural feature of society and adds a consideration of feminism in the sociological perspectives section of the gender chapter.
Includes a discussion of the new Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study in the deviance chapter and assesses the declining crime rate.
Updates the debate on marriage and the value of the traditional family in the family chapter.
Provides recent evidence on achievement in public schools in the United States and worldwide and a contemporary discussion of education as affected by school vouchers, private schools, and home schooling.
Updates the discussion of stratification with new wealth data from the 1998 Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances, and adds a box on income inequality around the world.
Includes the new data from the 2000 report on the Sexual Victimization of College Women from the National Institute of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics in the gender chapter.
Revises the discussion of social mobility to reflect differences in status attainment for women and African Americans.
Adds a new table on subcultural slang (featuring kitchen workers and kayakers) in the culture chapter.
Uses recent research findings on church attendance and on the importance of religion to individuals to illustrate the role religion plays in U.S. society.
Discusses the changing organization of health care in the United States and its effect on medicine.
Strengthens the presentation of race, ethnicity, and gender in political and economic power.
Incorporates all-new population pyramids, population data, and a focus on differential population growth in various parts of the world.
Emphasizes the technological and communications revolution in the social change chapter.
Includes a consideration of the effect of the Internet on organizations, including a discussion of virtual offices and virtual companies.
While retaining separate sections, strengthens the connections between the discussions of cities, population, and the environment.

Sociology: The Core was originally conceived and written by James W. Vander Zanden, and much of his work is retained in this sixth edition. However, he did not participate in this revision and is not responsible for any new material, changes, or additions in the sixth edition. Michael Hughes and Carolyn J. Kroehler are responsible for all of the revisions and changes in both the fifth and sixth editions.

Ancillary Materials

The sixth edition of Sociology: The Core is accompanied by a number of supplementary learning and teaching aids.

For the Student

Student Study Guide

For each chapter, the study guide offers major learning objectives; matching and multiple-choice practice test items to help students grasp the key concepts; short essay questions; a list of selected readings; and a list of related references and useful websites.

Student's Online Learning Center (OLC)

This is a Web-based, interactive study guide featuring URLs relevant to each topic, Internet exercises, chapter quizzes, chapter overviews, learning objectives, key-term flashcards, and more for each chapter. Please visit at www.mhhe.com/ hughes6.

PowerWeb

Available as an option. PowerWeb is a password-protected website developed by Dushkin/McGraw-Hill giving students:

Web links and articles.
Study tools—quizzing, review forms, time management tools, Web research.
Interactive exercises.
Weekly updates with assessment.
Informative and timely world news.
Material on how to conduct Web research.
Daily news feed of topic-specific news.
Access to the Northern Lights Research Engine.

For further information, visit the PowerWeb site at http://mhhe/NewMedia/dushkin/index. html#powerweb.

For the Instructor

Instructor's Manual

Each chapter in the Instructor's Manual offers techniques for reinforcing the material in the corresponding chapter in the text. Each offers a series of core quotes from the text, followed by a list of instructional objectives inferred from these quotes; focus questions; practice quizzes; suggestions for lectures and handouts; suggestions for projects, activities, and writing assignments, including critical thinking exercises, Internet exercises, and “Students Doing Sociology” boxes. There are also annotated lists of films/videos and reading resources.

Test Bank

The printed test bank offers 70 multiple-choice, 25 true-false, and 12 essay questions for each chapter. It is also available as a computerized test bank.

PowerPoint Slides

A collection of tables and figures from the text, augmented by a number of additional graphics provided by the authors, allows instructors to add visual content to their classes and Web sites.

Instructor's Online Learning Center (OLC)

Password-protected, the Instructor's OLC contains a variety of resources, activities, and classroom tips. The Instructor's Manual, PowerPoint slides, and more can be accessed electronically on this site, www.mhhe.com/hughes6.

PageOut

The Course Website Development Center. Designed for the professor just beginning to explore Web options, or the professor needing to save time and simplify this process. In less than an hour, even a novice computer user can create a course website with a template provided by McGraw-Hill (no programming knowledge required). PageOut lets you offer your students instant access to your syllabus, lecture notes, and original material. Students can even check grades on-line. And, you can pull any of the McGraw-Hill content from the Hughes OnLine Learning Center (OLC) into your website. PageOut also provides a discussion board where you and your students can exchange questions and post announcements, as well as an area for students to build personal Web pages. To find out more about PageOut, ask your McGraw-Hill representative for details, or fill out the form at www.mhhe.com/pageout.

PowerWeb

Available as an option. See the description under “For Students” above. For further information, visit the PowerWeb site at http://mhhe/New Media/dushkin/index.html#powerweb.

Videos

Please contact your McGraw-Hill sales representative to learn about videos that are available to adopters of McGraw-Hill introductory sociology textbooks.

2002 McGraw-Hill Higher Education
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