Although the Information Age is often described as a new era, its conceptual roots stretch back to the profound changes that occurred during the Age of Reason and Revolution. When Information Came of Age argues that the key to the present era lies in understanding the systems developed in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to gather, store, transform, display, and communicate information.

This book provides an introduction to core concepts in sociology. Accessibly written chapters illustrate the history and practice of sociological work. Recent areas of social science inquiry, e.g., globalization and the Internet are also covered. There are profiles of more than 70 notable sociologists. In addition, there is information on training and working as a sociologist. This book provides an introduction to core conepts in sociology. Written in a readable, accessible style, it uses a mix of both classic studies and current references to illustrate sociological concepts and to underscore their continuing relevance. It examines what sociology is, why sociology is important, and why we study it. It demonstrates how various social forces impact our lives and form our social experiences explaining that, when we understand these forces, we can better make sense of the world around us, better understand ourselves, and better participate in shaping the future for ourselves and for others. The book extends traditional applications of these core concepts by focusing on their application to globalization and the Internet. A series of biographical profiles highlight the careers of more than 70 notable sociologists as well as others, who have contributed to the field. There is a chapter devoted to careers in sociology. Each chapter has a list of additional print and nonprint resources.

Readings in Health, Medicine, and Society offers students carefully selected readings that provide them with a broad and well-rooted knowledge base in global and U.S. medical sociology. Unit I provides students with an overview of the field and examines select concepts and theoretical perspectives. Unit II illustrates the ways in which culture impacts health and health care systems. Unit III examines inequalities at the individual and societal levels. In Unit IV, students investigate how political and corporate structures impact people's health choices and behaviors. Unit V describes the key variables involved in the socialization of Western doctors, reviews the ways folk medicines differ from the Western paradigm, and illustrates an example of healing practices outside Western medicine. Unit VI provides a review of emerging medical technologies as they relate to sociology and offers a critical analysis of pharmaceutical technology. Unit VII critically examines the history of power building by U.S. doctors. The final unit offers a brief overview of the history of bioethics through a discussion of the Nuremburg Code, followed by an examination of patient autonomy and informed consent. Featuring a unique sociological perspective, Readings in Health, Medicine, and Society is an ideal resource for courses in medical sociology and public health.

Health and social care decisions, and how they impact a family, are often viewed from the perspective of the individual family member making them-for example, the role of the parent in surrogacy questions, the care of the elderly, or decisions that involve fetuses or organ donations. What About the Family? represents a concerted, collaborative effort to depart from this practice-it rather shows that the family unit as a whole is intrinsic and inseparable from patient's ethical decisions. This deeper level of thinking about families and health care poses an entirely new set of difficult questions. Which family members are relevant in influencing a patient? What is a family, in the first place? What duties does a family have to its own members? What makes an ethics of families distinctive from health care ethics, an ethic of care or feminist ethics is that it theorizes relationships characterized by ongoing intimacy and partiality among people who are not interchangeable, and remains centered on the practices of responsibility arising from these relationships. What About the Family? edited by bioethicists Hilde Lindemann, Marian Verkerk, and Janice McLaughlin, represents an interdisciplinary effort, drawing, among other resources, on its authors' backgrounds in sociology, nursing, philosophy, bioethics, and the medical sciences. Contributors begin from the assumption that any ethical examination of the significance of family ties to health and social care will benefit from a dialogue with the debates about family occuring in these other disciplinary areas, and examine why families matter, how families are recognized, how families negotiate responsibilities, how families can participate in treatment decision making, and how justice operates in families.

"Social networks are collections of individuals linked together by a set of relations. The linkage of social networks to people and business contexts as well as to critical government domains is important for the emerging information ecosystems of the knowledge society. Knowledge Networks: The Social Software Perspective concentrates on strategies that exploit emerging technologies for the knowledge effectiveness in social networks. This comprehensive book delivers an excellent mix of information for readers and is a must for those thirsty for knowledge on social networks and information systems."

What was once taboo - faith at work - is increasingly accepted in corporate America. From secretaries to CEOs, growing numbers of businesspeople today want to bring their faith to work. Yet they wrestle with how to do this effectively and appropriately in a pluralistic corporate setting. For help they turn not to their clergy, but to their peers and to a burgeoning cottage industry on spirituality at work. They attend conferences and seminars, participate in Bible study and prayer groups, and read books, blogs, and eNewsletters. They see their faith as a resource for ethical guidance and to help find meaning and purpose in their work.
In God at Work, David W. Miller looks at how this Faith at Work movement developed and considers its potential value for business and society. Done well, the integration of faith and work has positive implications at the personal level, as well as for corporate ethics and the broader economic sphere. At the same time, increasing expressions of religion and spiritual practices at work also present the threat of divisiveness and discrimination.
Drawing on the insights of theological ethics as well as the sociology of religion, Miller analyzes the history of the modern day Faith at Work movement from its roots in the late 19th century to its modern formulation and trajectory. He examines the diversity of its members and modes of expression, and constructs a new framework for understanding, interpreting, and critiquing the movement and its future. Miller concludes that workers and professionals have a deep and lasting desire to live a holistic life, to integrate the claims of their faith with the demands of their work. He documents the surprisingabdication of this field by church and theological academy and its embrace, ironically, by the management academy.
Offering compelling new evidence of the depth and breadth of spirituality at work, Miller concludes that faith at work is a bona fide social movement and here to stay. He establishes the importance of this movement, identifies the possibilities and problems, and points toward future research questions. God at Work is essential reading for business scholars and leaders, theologians and clergy, and anyone interested in the integration of faith and work.

Gilkey's latest work takes the measure of the current American religious and cultural crisis, assesses recent theological responses to it, and shows how these illumine our understanding of the ongoing creationism controversy. Throughout, Gilkey articulates a faith- stance responsive to the contemporary world of radical pluralism and moral uncertainity - without retreating to simplistic dogmatism. Gilkey's vision of a "blue twilight" in which light fights with dark in religion and culture, stands as a stark reminder of what is at stake in the future of American religious life.

This unique edited volume by some of the leading scholars in the field, examines the importance, or non-importance, of the personalities of political leaders in determining the outcomes of democratic elections. The book argues, contrary to conventional wisdom, that relatively few voters are swayed by candidates' personal characteristics. Their findings imply that modern democratic pointers is not nearly as candidate-cent red and personality-orientated as is often supposed. They also suggest that parties' policies and their performance in office usually count for far more than the men and women they chose as their leaders.

Culture is essential to everything we do and is going to play a very significant role in the world of the future. In spite of this, most of us have only a hazy understanding of culture and do not realize how it will affect individual, institutional, community, national, and international affairs. This volume delves into the domain of culture--both as a concept and as a reality--and proposes a formulation of the world system of the future according to culture's highest and most enduring principles. The author draws on many disciplines--anthropology, sociology, philosophy, cosmology, history, economics, and the arts--to make his case that culture and cultures should be accorded a central position in global development and human affairs in the future.

Globalization has, within academic, political and business circles alike, become the buzz word of the 1990s, conjuring an ever growing diversity of associations, connotations and attendant mythologies. In this volume an array of international academics assess the contribution of the globalization thesis, in its various guises, to our understanding of social, political and economic change in contemporary societies. They expose, challenge and demystify many of the exaggerated and over-generalized claims made about globalization, whilst developing a distinctive "third wave" perspective on the world we inhabit and the processes currently reconfiguring it.

The popularization of the Internet, due in larger part to the advent of multifunctional cell phones, poses new challenges for health professionals, patients, and caregivers as well as creates new possibilities for all of us. This comprehensive volume analyzes how this social phenomenon is transforming long-established healthcare practices and perceptions in a country with one of the highest numbers of Internet users: Brazil. After an opening text that analyzes the Internet and E-Health Care as a field of study, the book comprises six parts. The first part introduces the emergence and development of the internet in Brazil, its pioneering experience in internet governance, digital inclusion, and online citizen participation. The second part is dedicated to internet health audiences by analyzing the cases of patients, the young, and the elderly seeking and sharing health information online, especially in virtual communities. The third part is dedicated to the challenges that the expansion of the internet in healthcare poses to all of us, such as the evaluation of the quality of health information available online and the prevention of the risks involved with online sales, cyberbullying, and consumption of prescription medicines. The fourth presents some innovative e-learning experiences carried out with different groups in Brazil, while the fifth part analyses some practical applications involving the Internet and health, including studies on M-Health, the Internet of things, serious games and the use of new information and communication technologies in health promotion. The last chapter analyses the future of healthcare in the Internet Age. The authors establish a critical and creative debate with international scholarship on the subject. This book is written in a direct and comprehensible way for professionals, researchers, students of communication and health, as well as for stakeholders and others interested in better understanding the trends and the different challenges related to the social phenomenon of the internet in health.

This timely study analyzes social, economic, political, provider, and patient factors shaping collective patient involvement in European health care from the postwar period to the present day. Examining representative countries England, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden, it documents the roles of providers and legislatures in facilitating consumer involvement, and the varied forms of patient input into hospital operations. These findings are compared and contrasted against the intent and ideals behind patient involvement to assess the effectiveness of implementation policy, strengths and drawbacks of patient participation, and patient satisfaction and outcomes. The book's conclusions identify emerging forms of patient participation and predict the impact of health policy on the future of European collective patient involvement. Included in the coverage: * Patient involvement: who, what for, and in what way? * The Netherlands: the legislative process to collective patient involvement * England: formal means of public involvement-a continuous story of discontinuity * Germany: Joint Federal Committee-the "Little Legislator" * Sweden: reasons for a late emergence of patient involvement * Lessons to be learned from implementing patient involvement The Evolution and Everyday Practice of Collective Patient Involvement in Europe will interest and inspire scholars and researchers in diverse fields, including social policy, sociology, political sciences, and nursing studies, as well as patient organizations, policymakers, and healthcare providers.

There is a moral to this book, a bit of Confucian wisdom often ignored in social network analysis: "Worry not that no one knows you, seek to be worth knowing."
This advice is contrary to the usual social network emphasis on securing relations with well-connected people. Neighbor Networks examines the cases of analysts, bankers, and managers, and finds that rewards, in fact, do go to people with well-connected colleagues. Look around your organization. The individuals doing well tend to be affiliated with well-connected colleagues.
However, the advantage obvious to the naked eye is misleading. It disappears when an individual's own characteristics are held constant. Well-connected people do not have to affiliate with people who have nothing to offer. This book shows that affiliation with well-connected people adds stability but no advantage to a person's own connections. Advantage is concentrated in people who are themselves well connected.
This book is a trail of argument and evidence that leads to the conclusion that individuals make a lot of their own network advantage. The social psychology of networks moves to center stage and personal responsibility emerges as a key theme. In the end, the social is affirmed, but with an emphasis on individual agency and the social psychology of networks. The research gives new emphasis to Coleman's initial image of social capital as a forcing function for human capital.
This book is for academics and researchers of organizational and network studies interested in a new angle on familiar data, and as a supplemental reading in graduate courses on social networks, stratification, or organizations. A variety of research settings are studied, and diverse theoretical perspectives are taken. The book's argument and evidence are supported by ample appendices for readers interested in background details.

Multicultural education has become one of the most widely discussed concepts in education today. Yet, at the same time, it is also one of the most misunderstood. Now, teachers, students and other interested parties can turn to the Dictionary of Multicultural Education to further their knowledge and understanding of this increasingly popular educational practice. As the authoritative reference work on this subject, the Dictionary includes detailed descriptions of more than 100 key words and phrases that are commonly used in the discussion of multicultural education at both the local school and national levels. Each entry begins with a simple, clear description of a concept or term and moves to a more in-depth discussion, using illustrative examples to bring the concept alive. Also included are brief biographical profiles of scholars, theoreticians and practitioners who have emerged as leaders in this field.

The remarkably diverse writings of Zygmunt Bauman range across a large number of issues in sociology, politics, history, and cultural studies. This is the first collection of Bauman's writings to cover the entire breadth of his work, and includes a summarizing essay and commentary by editor Peter Beilharz.

Beginning with Bauman's early English-language work on socialism, the "Reader" proceeds through "Legislators and Interpreters" to Bauman's defense of a sociology of the postmodern. The editor has also selected essays from Bauman's preeminent works on the Holocaust and on globalization. The book includes a new extensive interview, anticipating some of Bauman's forthcoming work.

The theories behind contemporary sociology were imported from Europe and first taught in American colleges in the late 1880s. Rooted in the soil of late feudal society, the received theories of current academic sociology simply cannot flourish in the democratic environment of modern America. This volume represents the author's effort to rethink the way sociologists approach both their discipline and the study of society and culture in the United States. The end product of this exercise is a distinctly American sociology.

Joint fact-finding is a cooperative venture and communication among the participants is critical to success. Analysts have begun to recognize this and have started to adjust their craft to reflect the communicative character of their work. Non-analysts usually judge experts' opinions by their value, effectiveness, and legitimacy rather than soundness of the conclusions. Accordingly, experts must recognize the importance of these non-scientific criteria, and learn to communicate better with their non-expert colleagues. Practically, this means explaining the rationale and implications behind their findings in an easily digestible way. Andrews uses real cases to illustrate his argument that analysts should marry process to analysis, spread information, reason inductively, broaden their analytic scope, put analytic results into lay terms, and constantly seek out feedback on their work.

Technical specialists who perform analysis in public settings can turn to Andrews's book for ideas about how to do their jobs more effectively. Scholars interested in the connection between expertise and the process of social learning will find his case study approach useful. Beginning with an analysis of the motivations and concepts at work in the process of joint fact finding, Andrews assesses the challenges analysts face from those who hire them and from their non-expert colleagues. He then illustrates his remarks with case studies of projects that have failed and succeeded. The book concludes by summing up the mistakes learned and elements that make for successful joint fact finding.

For three fascinating, disturbing years, writer Patricia Hersch journeyed inside a world that is as familiar as our own children and yet as alien as some exotic culture--the world of adolescence. As a silent, attentive partner, she followed eight teenagers in the typically American town of Reston, Virginia, listening to their stories, observing their rituals, watching them fulfill their dreams and enact their tragedies. What she found was that America's teens have fashioned a fully defined culture that adults neither see nor imagine--a culture of unprecedented freedom and baffling complexity, a culture with rules but no structure, values but no clear morality, codes but no consistency.

Is it society itself that has created this separate teen community? Resigned to the attitude that adolescents simply live in "a tribe apart," adults have pulled away, relinquishing responsibility and supervision, allowing the unhealthy behaviors of teens to flourish. Ultimately, this rift between adults and teenagers robs both generations of meaningful connections. For everyone's world is made richer and more challenging by having adolescents in it.