This book explores the ways in which sociological arguments are constructed and presented, looking at what can be learned from the contrasting styles of sociologists working in different periods and theoretical traditions. Fundamental debates in the discipline are addressed, such as 'can sociology provide final answers?' and 'how far is detachment feasible or desirable?'. Finally, the book considers the practical significance which thinking about styles of argument has for all students of sociology.

This comprehensive handbook provides an overview of key theoretical perspectives, concepts, and methodological approaches that, while applied to diverse phenomena, are united in their general approach to the study of lives across age phases. In surveying the wide terrain of life course studies with dual emphases on theory and empirical research, this important reference work presents probative concepts and methods and identifies promising avenues for future research.

Included are sections on history and cross-national variability, normative structuring, movement through the life course, transitions in the life course, turning points, connections between life phases, methodology, and the future of the life course. A major reference work and a seminal text, it is essential reading for social scientists studying phases within the life course, social psychologists in sociology and psychology, demographers and academics in the field of the life course as well as students in these disciplines.

Participants from Couch-Stone Symposium 2014 have transformed their presentations into elegant papers for this collection. Chapters fall into three categorical themes, largely reflecting their position in the symposium but, more importantly, reflecting a natural progression in scope of symbolic interactionist work in music: moving from observations of the individual to observation of organizations to interdisciplinary observations of music from scholars in related disciplines.

Volume 27 of "Studies in Symbolic Interaction" emphasizes new developments in interactional theory and practice, as well as examples of post-modern ethnography and performance texts focused on border crossings and border performances. The volume also presents essays honoring Laurel Richardsons contributions to Symbolic Interaction and Communications, as well as the inaugural address in the "Peter M. Hall Lecture Series."

In this book, leading figures describe group deliberation in education and other practical enterprises of society. This volume encompasses a spectrum of angles on deliberation and views theory, research, and practice of deliberation in education and society. It displays actual cases as well as abstract concepts, and precepts along with principles. The book also illustrates a variety of methods and settings, and identifies the major topics and questions of deliberation.

The papers in this volume were presented in at the third conference of the European Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction (SSSI). The theme of the 2012 conference was "Conflict, Cooperation and Transformation in Everyday Life." The fifteen papers presented across this volume and volume 45 cover a diverse range of topics, which are divided into two main categories: 'Reflections on Methods' and 'Conflict and Cooperation', this volume focuses on the former. The central issue of the first four papers is how we navigate our emotional, analytical and political selves in the social worlds that we study. How do we relate to those we observe and interview? How do we deal with issues of power, suffering and politics? The following three papers provide a critical analysis of Geertz' 'Thick Description', perspectives on obesity in modern society and an analysis of the relationship between police officers and licensed marijuana coffeeshop owners in Rotterdam. Contributing authors to this volume and the next come from Belgium, Canada, Sweden, The US, The Netherlands and Germany, suggesting the thriving diversity of European SSSI in terms of its research themes and methods.

One Sunday in February 1987, protesters stood outside the Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst in Massachusetts, whose minister planned to hand out condoms during his sermon, dramatizing the need for the church to confront the AIDS crisis. The minister gave out nearly five hundred condoms as the audience exploded into applause. But he could not hang around to enjoy it; having received threats in advance of the service, he dashed out of the sanctuary immediately. Thus was the climate for religious AIDS activism in the mid-1980s. After the Wrath of God is the first book to tell the story of American religion and the AIDS epidemic. Anthony Petro shows how religious leaders and organizations posited AIDS as a religious and moral epidemic, and analyzes how this construction has informed cultural and political debates about public health and sexual morality. While most attention to religion and AIDS foregrounds the role of the Religious Right, this book examines the much broader-and more influential-range of mainline Protestant, evangelical, and Catholic groups that shaped public discussions of AIDS prevention and care in the U.S. The AIDS epidemic, Petro argues, effected a shift in Christian rhetoric regarding sexuality. Mainstream religious groups almost uniformly called for compassion for those afflicted with the disease. While the Christian Right focused on what not to do, an increasing number of mainstream religious leaders promoted instead a positive prescription for sex, one more readily taken up in public health endeavors and sex education curricula alike-a vision that informs debates over sexual morality to this day.

In recent years, debates over culture and education have entered the public consciousness as never before. Politicians, bureaucrats, and scholars have credited these endeavors with the capacity to influence matters ranging from public morality to national productivity. Trend examines points at which art and learning intersect in both traditional and nontraditional settings and offers a variety of alternatives for the construction of a new cultural pedagogy. He argues that we need to redefine concepts like "art," "literature," and "education," to integrate them more fully into our lives. On one hand, Trend uses a critical approach to examine how cultural work and pedagogy intersect within a range of discourses such as Marxist, feminist, deconstructionist and postcolonial. Yet on the other, he focuses on the use of specific examples of cultural practice within and outside the classroom to emphasize the importance of action as well as philosophy to bring about social change. Trend provides a theoretical overview of the ideological battles over texts and their discursive contexts and then analyzes how cultural education has evolved in such settings as the school, the university, and the community. He concludes with a discussion of pedagogy and democracy which suggests a range of possible resolutions.

Peter Trudgill looks at why human societies at different times and places produce different kinds of language. He considers how far social factors influence language structure and compares languages and dialects spoken across the globe, from Vietnam to Nigeria, Polynesia to Scandinavia, and from Canada to Amazonia. Modesty prevents Pennsylvanian Dutch Mennonites using the verb wotte ('want'); stratified society lies behind complicated Japanese honorifics; and a mountainous homeland suggests why speakers of Tibetan-Burmese Lahu have words for up there and down there. But culture and environment don't explain why Amazonian Jarawara needs three past tenses, nor why Nigerian Igbo can make do with eight adjectives, nor why most languages spoken in high altitudes do not exhibit an array of spatial demonstratives. Nor do they account for some languages changing faster than others or why some get more complex while others get simpler. The author looks at these and many other puzzles, exploring the social, linguistic, and other factors that might explain them and in the context of a huge range of languages and societies. Peter Trudgill writes readably, accessibly, and congenially. His book is jargon-free, informed by acute observation, and enlivened by argument: it will appeal to everyone with an interest in the interactions of language with culture, environment, and society.

This special volume of "Studies in Law, Politics, and Society" takes up a subject of an enormous import for law and legal scholarship, Guilt. At the center of our belief in law is the hope and expectation that law can differentiate the guilty from the innocent. But as the articles in this volume show law's relationship to guilt is more complex and vexed than that. Law constitutes us as guilty subjects and law itself is a guilty subject. The articles in this volume explore law's guilt about literature, various domains in which bodies of guilt appear, and historical perspectives on the subject of guilt. Taken together they exemplify the way interdisciplinary scholarship opens up new questions and new avenues of inquiry about the social and cultural life of law.

The American court system is making increasing use of sociologists as expert witnesses. From toxic torts to religious cults and brainwashing, sociological knowledge is becoming increasingly more commonplace in the legal arena. This edited volume is a collection of the experiences of sociologists who have appeared as expert witnesses in a variety of court cases. Many of the cases covered in this book revolve around central issues of murder, self-defense, religious cults, battered women, child pornography, environmentalism, and homelessness. This volume is unique in its breadth of topics and contributions.

Deploying an original 'Social Evolution Paradigm' (SEP) and drawing from anthropology, evolutionary biology, and international relations, this book advances a sweeping account of the systemic transformation of international politics. More specifically, the book shows how the nasty and brutish Hobbesian/offensive realism world many of us take for granted had evolved from an Eden-like paradise; how the Hobbesian world had self-transformed into a more peaceful defensive realism world from 1648 to 1945; and how some regions of the post-1945 world have become more rule-based and peaceful. The book critically engages with all the key grand theories of international politics and provides neat solutions to some of the 'great debates' between those theories, from offensive realism to defensive realism, neoliberalism, the English School, and constructivism. This book is essential reading for scholars and students of international politics and of interest to those working in anthropology, sociology, political science, and social sciences in general.

"The stories people tell about themselves are interesting not only for the events and characters they describe but for something in the construction of the stories themselves. The ways in which individuals recount their histories-what they emphasize and omit, their stance as protagonists or victims, the relationship the story establishes between teller and audience-all shape what individuals can claim of their own lives. Personal stories are not merely a way of telling someone (or oneself) about one's life; they are the means by which identities may be fashioned."-from the Introduction In this provocative book, psychologists, anthropologists, and sociologists analyze interviews with a range of subjects-a minister who uses the death of his son to reaffirm his identity as a man of God, women who have given up their children at birth for adoption and who blame society for their action, Holocaust survivors, a victim of marital rape, and many others. Together these studies suggest a new way of thinking about autobiographical narratives: that these life stories play a significant role in the formation of identity, that the way they are told is shaped (and at times curtailed) by prevalent cultural norms, and that the stories-and at times the lives to which they relate-may be liberated from their psychic and social constraints if the social conditions of story telling can be critically engaged. Presenting a wide range of life stories, these studies demonstrate how "telling one's life" has the potential to clarify or mystify one's commitments and to animate or encumber one's future development.

The research and theoretical contributions of international and multidisciplinary scholars have advanced our understanding of the role of play in evolution and behavior. The diverse articles in this volume range from theoretical and conceptual advances, scientific investigations, to discourse about applied issues and different dimensions of play. The authors provide excursions into the adaptive, cultural, and social significance of play. The databased papers fall into four categories: the role of age, gender, and ethnicity in play participation, social-cognitive connections to play, fighting and play fighting, and play and process in adulthood. Play is defined as behavior that is not necessary to survival and yet is undertaken voluntarily as a method by which to improve the quality of life. This study, addressing the definition, role, and characteristics of play, falls within the research of education, psychology, anthropology, sociology, leisure studies, and primatology. The play of humans and nonhumans takes a variety of forms and serves multiple purposes within mental and emotional states of being. The motivation and impact of play behavior varies with the type of play performed. The studies included in this volume address simple games, more complex creative activities, the emotional implications of play throughout adult life, and the role of play in human social construction.

"Tie a Knot and Hang On" is an analysis of mental health care work that crosses the borders of diverse sociological traditions. The work seeks to understand the theoretical and empirical linkages between environmental pressures and activities and how these intersect with organizations and individuals. The work draws upon a research tradition that sees the issue of mental health care in terms of institutional pressures and normative values. The author provides a description and a sociological analysis of mental health care work, emphasizing the interaction of professionally generated norms that guide the "emotional labor" of mental health care workers, and the organizational contexts within which mental health care is provided. She concludes with a discussion of emerging institutional forces that will shape the mental health care system in the future. These forces are having greater impact than ever before as managed care comes to have a huge fiscal as well as institutional impact on the work of mental health professionals. Scheid's book is a brilliant, nuanced effort to explain the institutional demands for efficiency and cost containment with the professional ethics that emphasize quality care for the individual. The book is essential reading for those interested in mental health care organizations and the providers responding to these seemingly larger, abstract demands. The work offers a rich mixture not just of the problems faced by mental health care personnel, but the equilibrium currently in place u an equilibrium that shapes the theory of the field, no less than the activities of its practitioners. "Teresa L. Scheid" is associate professor of sociology, at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She has published widely in the area, including major essays in "Sociology of Health and Illness, Sociological Quarterly, Perspectives on Social Problems," and "The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science."

Several substantive areas within political sociology are examined in this volume of the series that explores the state of political sociology at the beginning of the 21st century. The collection offers works that show significant advances in the study of the social roots of all things 'political' in society. As in prior volumes, this collection demonstrates the richness of both theoretical and methodological studies in political sociology. The authors brought together in this volume teach students of political sociology the continued significance of questions related to public policy, public opinion, civil society, voting and social movements. The readings offer important summaries of prior work in the field, and in some cases construct an important synthesis of current research. These will help us better prepare a broader research agenda in the study of social movements, public policy, racism, and the civil sphere.The volume also presents important questions about methodological issues. The collection includes examples of current discussion related to the qualitative study of protest movements, and the importance of a comparative-historical approach. The chapters also show how the tools of the field are currently expanding our understanding of important areas of political sociology, such as public policy response to business behavior and the politics of crime. In many ways, this volume offers an assessment of the many conceptual and research debates that characterize political sociology at century's beginning. The results of these collective assessments, regardless of theoretical orientation, offer proof that political sociology is alive and well.

The rise and decline of great powers remains a fascinating topic of vigorous debate. This book brings together leading scholars to explore the historical evolution of world systems through examining the ebb and flow of great powers over time, with particular emphasis on early time periods. The book advances understanding of the regularities in the dynamics of empire and the expansion of political, social and economic interaction networks, from the Bronze Age forward. The authors analyze the expansion and contraction of cross-cultural trade networks and systems of competing and allying political groupings. In premodern times, theses ranged from small local trading networks (even the very small ones of hunting-gathering peoples) to the vast Mongol world-system. Within such systems, there is usually one, or a very few, hegemonic powers. How they achieve dominance and how transitions lead to systems change are important topics, particularly at a time when the United States' position is in flux. The chapters in this book review several recent approaches and present a wealth of new findings.

Concepts based on full-blown collective intentionality (aboutness), viz., we-mode intentionality, are central for understanding and explaining the social world. The book systematically studies social groups, acting in them as a group member, collective commitment, group intentions, beliefs, and actions, especially authority-based group attitudes and actions. There are also chapters on cooperation, social institutions, cultural evolution, and group responsibility.

This is the first systematic book-length examination of the meaning and influence of world opinion. Using media content analyses, survey data, documentary evidence, and comparative theory, it analyzes how world opinion influences the construction of national identity, the growth of global markets, and the emergence of an imagined international community to rival the influence of the nation-state. Using newspaper content analyses, survey research data, documentary evidence, and comparative theory, this book examines the meaning, influence, and structure of world opinion in the emerging international order. It begins by analyzing the construction of individual identity in the presence of the Other and then describes the influence of opinion processes upon this construction at all levels, including familial, religious, national, and ethnic. Subsequent chapters deal with the effects of a global public on the construction of individual identity and the role of world opinion in this process; the definition of world opinion and its component parts; the effects of world opinion on nations' behavior in times of crisis; the role world opinion plays in the construction of national identity and the manner in which this prompts a resurgence of nationalism in the post-Cold War era; the relationship between world opinion and the global market; the search for an attentive public to link elites and mass publics in world opinion; and the appearance of an imagined international community in the post-Cold War era based around the concept of world opinion. The final chapter discusses the effects of world opinion on our vision of history and evaluates the significance of the nation-state in an international environment increasingly governed by global forces and world public opinion. A major study for researchers, scholars, and students involved with international relations, public opinion, and international communications.

Although there are many pamphlets and monographs that cover specific aspects of the European Community, the literature seems to lack a single, scholarly reader that gives a complete account of the many dimensions of European integration. This volume, written by a distinguished group of international specialists, seeks to fill this void by pulling together a broad collection of papers focusing on the political, sociological, and economic issues surrounding the European Union. Beginning with a historical look at the genesis, evolution, and theoretical interpretation of the historical process of European integration, the book goes on to analyze the socio-economic structure of the European community and the social forces operating within it. Students and scholars will find this a valuable, flexible, and versatile text for manifold courses in the social sciences; policymakers and general readers will find this a highly informative and readable evaluation of the current state of the European Union.

While scholarship on the education of youth behind bars has largely focused on boys, more than one in three youth arrests in the USA is female, and Girls Behind Bars sets out to address this imbalance. The book offers autobiographies, life-stories, and counter-stories in order to challenge simplistic generalizations and empirical prescriptions. Girls Behind Bars provides the educational community with critical perspectives that examine empiricist epistemologies and positivist methodologies that label certain groups of girls as delinquent and mark them for punitive and corrective treatment behind bars. Sharma opens up the discussion on girls' gender, desire, and sexuality by offering a language for these issues absent in educational discourse. Finally, the book supports calls for educators and practitioners in their desire to envision and create transformative spaces that enable young girls behind bars to reclaim their education. Including a foreword by William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, this important and powerful book gives voice to a neglected, silenced, and misrepresented population - young girls behind bars.

This volume of "Studies in Law, Politics, and Society" presents a diverse array of articles by an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars. Their work spans the social sciences, humanities, and law. It examines new perspectives on political relationships, politics and legal reform, and law and the family. The articles published here exemplify the exciting and innovative work being done in interdisciplinary legal scholarship.

The contributions to this series consist of original research papers from an international community of specialists on race and ethnic relations. The purpose of this series is to explore recent theoretical and empirical developments in the field.
*Contains original research from international authors who are specialists in race and ethnic relations
*Explores recent theoretical and empirical devleopments in the field
*Oriented towards graduate students and scholars in sociology who focus on race and ethnic relations

This book is a selection of edited papers, most of which were initially presented at an international conference held under the auspices of the Ad Hoc Committee on Housing and the Built Environment of the International Sociological Association. It represents a relevant sample of the literature on recent developments in and current research on housing and neighborhoods. It focuses attention on the nature of housing and urban research at present and gives a sense of the directions in which the field is evolving.