Faculty Books
Faculty Books
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2018 Social Networks and the Life Course Edited by Duane Alwin, Diane Felmlee, and Derek Kreager This volume engages the interface between the development of human lives and social relational networks. It focuses on the integration of two subfields of sociology/social science--the life course and social networks. Research practitioners studying social networks typically focus on social structure or social organization, ignoring the complex lives of the people in those networks. At the same time, life course researchers tend to focus on individual lives without necessarily studying the contexts of social relationships in which lives are embedded and “linked” to one another through social networks. |
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2017 Contract Workers, Risk, and the War in Iraq In 2003, just before the start of the US invasion of Iraq, military planners predicted that the mission’s success would depend on using diverse sources for their workforce. While thousands of US troops were needed to secure victory in the field, large numbers of civilian contractors – many from poor countries in Africa and Asia – were recruited to provide a range of services for the occupying forces. In Contract Workers, Risk, and the War in Iraq Kevin Thomas provides a compelling account of the recruitment of Sierra Leonean workers and their reasons for embracing the risks of migration. In recent years US military bases have outsourced contracts for services to private military corporations who recruit and capitalize on cheaper low-skilled workers. Thomas argues that for people from post-conflict countries such as Sierra Leone, where there are high levels of poverty and acute unemployment, the opportunity to improve their situation outweighs the risk of migration to war-torn Iraq. Examining migrants’ experiences in their native country, at US bases, and after their return to Sierra Leone, Thomas deftly explores the intricate dynamics of risk, sets up a theoretical framework for future researchers, and offers policy recommendations for decision-makers and practitioners in the field. Incorporating the voices of Sierra Leonean contractors who were manipulated and exploited, Contract Workers, Risk, and the War in Iraq turns the spotlight on a subject that has remained on the periphery of history and reveals an unexpected consequence of the War on Terror. |
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2017 Faithful Measures: New Methods in the Measurement of Religion Edited by Roger Finke In an era of rapid technological advances, the measures and methods used to generate data about religion have undergone remarkably little change. Faithful Measures pushes the study of religion into the 21st century by evaluating new and existing measures of religion and introducing new methods for tapping into religious behaviors and beliefs. |
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2017 The Century of Science: The Global Triumph of the Research University Edited by David Baker In The Century of Science — edited by Justin J.W. Powell, David P. Baker, and Frank Fernandez — a multicultural, international team of authors examines the global rise of scholarly research in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and health (STEM+) fields. |
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2017 Smart Growth Entrepreneurs: Partners in Urban Sustainability This book examines smart growth entrepreneurs—innovators in government, development companies, architectural firms, and other organizations, who coalesce to shift policies and markets toward green planning and building practices. Cities across the world are trying to manage their population and economic growth by implementing the design principles of Smart Growth and New Urbanism, developing green buildings that are compact, mixed-use, and in close proximity to transit services. How do innovators, governments, and markets interact in this planning and development process? The book profiles smart growth entrepreneurs and their projects in both Southern California and the suburbs of Portland, Oregon. The author highlights the unique obstacles, political and economic, that these actors encounter and details the centrality of markets and regulations in sustainable urban development. |
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2017 Race and Ethnicity in America By John Iceland Race and Ethnicity in America examines patterns and trends in racial and ethnic inequality over recent decades. John Iceland shows how color lines have generally softened over time in the United States but deep-seated inequalities remain—generally, blacks, American Indians, and some Hispanics fare less well than others. Among these groups, the underlying causes of the disadvantages vary, ranging from the legacy of racism, current discrimination, differences of human capital, the unfolding process of immigrant incorporation, and cultural responses to structural conditions. Throughout the book, Iceland also demonstrates that the ways Americans define racial and ethnic groups, along with changing patterns of identification in the U.S. population, influence our understanding of patterns and trends in racial and ethnic inequality. |
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2016 The Anthem Companion to Max Weber By Alan Sica The Anthem Companion to Max Weber is a study of the ideas and career of the German sociologist and founder of classical social theory. Including contributions by accomplished Weber scholars, this companion provides the latest scholarly interpretations of the sociologist's vast body of socioeconomic and political writings which continue to inspire new scholarship and debate on global politics, comparative religion, social class relationships, social science methods and law and society. This book serves as a handy introduction for beginners and a tidy commentary of advanced scholars. |
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2016 Book Matters - The Changing Nature of Literacy By Alan Sica Scholars have been puzzling over the “future of the book” since Marshall McLuhan’s famous maxim “the medium is the message” in the early 1950s. McLuhan famously argued that electronic media was creating a global village in which books would become obsolete. Such views were ahead of their time, but today they are all too relevant as declining sales, even among classic texts, have become a serious matter in academic publishing. |
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2014 A Portrait of America By John Iceland Portrait of America describes our nation’s changing population and examines through a demographic lens some of our most pressing contemporary challenges, ranging from poverty and economic inequality to racial tensions and health disparities. In this informative and accessible book, author John Iceland covers various topics, including America's historical demographic growth; the American family today; gender inequality; economic well-being; immigration and diversity; racial and ethnic inequality; internal migration and residential segregation; and health and mortality. |
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2014 The Schooled Society: The Educational Transformation of Global Culture By David Baker Only 150 years ago, the majority of the world's population was largely illiterate. Today, not only do most people over fifteen have basic reading and writing skills, but 20 percent of the population attends some form of higher education. What are the effects of such radical, large-scale change? David Baker argues that the education revolution has transformed our world into a schooled society—that is, a society that is actively created and defined by education. |
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2014 Diverse Pathways: Race and the Incorporation of Black, White, and Arab-Origin Africans in the United States Africans are among the fastest-growing immigrant groups in the United States. Although they are racially and ethnically diverse, few studies have examined how these differences affect their patterns of incorporation into society. This book is the first to highlight the role of race and ethnicity, Arab ethnicity in particular, in shaping the experiences of African immigrants. It demonstrates that American conceptions of race result in significant inequalities in the ways in which African immigrants are socially integrated. Thomas argues that suggestions that Black Africans are model-minorities who have overcome the barriers of race are misleading, showing that Black and Arab-ethnicity Africans systematically experience less favorable socioeconomic outcomes than their White African counterparts. Overall, the book makes three critical arguments. First, historical and contemporary constructions of race have important implications for understanding the dynamics of African immigration and settlement in the United States. Second, there are significant racial inequalities in the social and economic incorporation of contemporary African immigrants. Finally, Arab ethnicity has additional implications for understanding intra-racial disparities in incorporation among contemporary African immigrants. In general, these arguments are foundational for understanding the diversity of African immigrant experiences. |
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2013 Max Weber Edited by Alan Sica Max Weber is a magisterial figure in the social sciences. His fundamental contributions to the methodological and conceptual apparatus of sociology remain of continuing relevance to contemporary debates. His astonishing range and quality of work on topics ranging from the comparative sociology of religion to political sociology, and the sociology of law to the sociology of music, have established Weber as a permanent point of reference for modern scholarship. |
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2013 Poverty in America: A Handbook By John Iceland The United States is among the most affluent nations in the world and has its largest economy; nevertheless, it has more poverty than most countries with similar standards of living. Growing income inequality and the Great Recession have made the problem worse. In this thoroughly revised edition of Poverty in America, Iceland takes a new look at this issue by examining why poverty remains pervasive, what it means to be poor in America today, which groups are most likely to be poor, the root causes of poverty, and the effects of policy on poverty. This new edition also includes completely updated data and extended discussions of poverty in the context of the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements as well as new chapters on the Great Recession and global poverty. In doing so this book provides the most recent information available on patterns and trends in poverty and engages in an open and accessible manner in current critical debates. |
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2012 Places of Faith: A Road Trip across America's Religious Landscape By Roger Finke and Christopher P. Scheitle Lavishly illustrated with over 100 color photographs, Places of Faith takes readers on a fascinating religious road trip. Christopher Scheitle and Roger Finke have crisscrossed America, visiting churches in small towns and rural areas, as well as the mega-churches, storefronts, synagogues, Islamic centers, Eastern temples, and other places of faith in major cities. Each stop on their tour provides an opportunity to introduce a particular current of American religion. Memphis serves as a window into the Black Church, a visit to Colorado Springs provides insight into evangelicalism, and a stop in Detroit sheds light on American Muslims. Readers visit Hare Krishnas in San Francisco, the Amish in central Pennsylvania, and a "cowboy church" in Amarillo, Texas. As the authors journey across the country, they retell unique religious histories and touch on local religious profiles and trends. They draw from conversations they had with pastors, imams, bishops, priests, and monks, along with ordinary believers of all kinds. Most of all, they tell the reader what they saw and heard, putting a human face on America's astounding religious diversity. |
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2011 Communities, Neighborhoods, and Health Co-Edited by Stephen Matthews Place is an important element in understanding health and health care disparities. More that merely a geographic location, place is a socio-ecological force with detectable effects on social life, independent well-being, and health. Despite the general enthusiasm for the study of place and the potential it could have for a better understanding of the distribution of health in different communities, research is at a difficult crossroads because of disagreements in how the construct should be conceptualized and measured. This edited volume incorporates an cross-disciplinary approach to the study of place, in order to come up with a comprehensive and useful definition of place. Topics covered include: • Social Inequalities • Historical Definitions of Place • Biology and Place • Rural vs. Urban Places • Racialization of a Place • Migration • Sacred Places • Technological Innovations An understanding of place is essential for health care professionals, as interventions often do not have the same effects in the clinic as they do in varied, naturalistic social settings. |
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2011 Methodology of Social Sciences Introduction by Robert J. Antonio and Alan Sica Max Weber wrote these methodological essays in the closest intimacy with actual research and against a background of constant and intensive meditation on substantive problems in the theory and strategy of the social sciences. They were written between 1903 and 1917, the most productive of Max Weber's life, when he was working on his studies in the sociology of religion and Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Weber's methodology still holds interest for us. Some of its shortcomings, from the contemporary viewpoint, may be attributed to the fact that some of the methodological problems that he treated could not be satisfactorily resolved prior to certain actual developments in research technique. These few qualifications aside, the work remains a pioneering work in large scale social research, from one of the field's masters. |
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2010 The Price of Freedom Denied: Religious Persecution and Conflict in the 21st Century By Roger Finke The Price of Freedom Denied shows that, contrary to popular opinion, ensuring religious freedom for all reduces violent religious persecution and conflict. Others have suggested that restrictions on religion are necessary to maintain order or preserve a peaceful religious homogeneity. Brian J. Grim and Roger Finke show that restricting religious freedoms is associated with higher levels of violent persecution. Relying on a new source of coded data for nearly 200 countries and case studies of six countries, the book offers a global profile of religious freedom and religious persecution. Grim and Finke report that persecution is evident in all regions and is standard fare for many. They also find that religious freedoms are routinely denied and that government and the society at large serve to restrict these freedoms. They conclude that the price of freedom denied is high indeed. |
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2009 Where We Live Now: Immigration and Race in the United States By John Iceland Where We Live Now explores the ways in which immigration is reshaping American neighborhoods. In his examination of residential segregation patterns, John Iceland addresses these questions: What evidence suggests that immigrants are assimilating residentially? Does the assimilation process change for immigrants of different racial and ethnic backgrounds? How has immigration affected the residential patterns of native-born blacks and whites? Drawing on census data and information from other ethnographic and quantitative studies, Iceland affirms that immigrants are becoming residentially assimilated in American metropolitan areas. While the future remains uncertain, the evidence provided in the book suggests that America's metropolitan areas are not splintering irrevocably into hostile, homogeneous, and ethnically based neighborhoods. Instead, Iceland's findings suggest a blurring of the American color line in the coming years and indicate that as we become more diverse, we may in some important respects become less segregated. |
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2009 Work - Life Policies By Alan Booth and Ann Crouter Work-Life Policies assembles a diverse group of commentators industrial psychologists, labor organizers, policy analysts, management scholars, organizational psychologists, and others to offer fresh ideas and new insight. The contributors examine organizational policies, municipal policies, state policies, and federal policies as well as workers who vary from salaried professionals to low-wage part-time hourly workers. (With chapters by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Brian Distelberg; Cynthia A. Thompson and David J. Prottas; Netsy Firestein; Forrest Briscoe; Phyllis Moen, Erin Kelly, and Kelly Chermack; Shelley M. MacDermid, Mary Ann Remnet, and Colleen Pagnan; Jeffrey H. Greenhaus; Anisa M. Zvonkovic; Susan J. Lambert; Ruth Milkman; NoemàEnchautegui-de-Jesús; Maureen Perry-Jenkins; Jennifer Glass; Chai R. Feldblum; Ellen Galinsky; Michael A. Smyer and Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes; and Kelly D. Davis and Katherine Stamps Mitchell) |
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2008 Sentencing Guidelines: Lessons from Pennsylvania By John Kramer and Jeffery Ulmer Sentencing guidelines, adopted by many states in recent decades, are intended to eliminate the impact of bias based on factors ranging from a criminal's ethnicity or gender to the county in which he or she was convicted. But have these guidelines achieved their goal of "fair punishment"? And how do the concerns of local courts shape sentencing under guidelines? In this comprehensive examination of the development, reform, and application of sentencing guidelines in one of the first states to employ them, John Kramer and Jeffery Ulmer offer a nuanced analysis of the complexities involved in administering justice.This is a comprehensive examination of sentencing guidelines that illuminates the complexities involved in administering justice. |
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2008 Handbook of Cognitive Aging: Interdisciplinary Perspectives Edited By Duane Alwin The Handbook of Cognitive Aging: Interdisciplinary Perspectives clarifies the differences in patterns and processes of cognitive aging. Along with a comprehensive review of current research, editors Scott M. Hofer and Duane F. Alwin provide a solid foundation for building a multidisciplinary agenda that will stimulate further rigorous research into these complex factors. |
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2008 Calendar and Time Diary Methods in Life Course Research By Duane Alwin Calendar and Time Diary Methodologies in Life Course Research offers a road map to those who wish to use calendar and diary methods in their own research. The book is also a tool for examining issues related to these up-and-coming approaches to data collection. Finally, this text may serve as a helpful resource for readers who need to interpret literature based on calendar and diary research. The book begins with two foundational chapters in which the editors introduce readers to the history of calendar and diary methods and explain the approaches themselves. In subsequent chapters, well-known contributors from an array of disciplines discuss various applications of calendar and diary methods, as well as related issues of data quality. The text concludes with a chapter reviewing the key themes presented throughout the volume and discussing future directions for research. |
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2008 Seven Rules for Social Research Seven Rules for Social Research teaches social scientists how to get the most out of their technical skills and tools, providing a resource that fully describes the strategies and concepts no researcher or student of human behavior can do without. Glenn Firebaugh provides indispensable practical guidance for anyone doing research in the social and health sciences today, whether they are undergraduate or graduate students embarking on their first major research projects or seasoned professionals seeking to incorporate new methods into their research. The rules are the basis for discussions of a broad range of issues, from choosing a research question to inferring causal relationships, and are illustrated with applications and case studies from sociology, economics, political science, and related fields. Though geared toward quantitative methods, the rules also work for qualitative research. Seven Rules for Social Research is ideal for students and researchers who want to take their technical skills to new levels of precision and insight, and for instructors who want a textbook for a second methods course. |
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2008 A Typology of Domestic Violence: Intimate Terrorism, Violent Resistance, and Situational Couple Violence Domestic violence, a serious and far-reaching social problem, has generated two key debates among researchers. The first debate is about gender and domestic violence. Some scholars argue that domestic violence is primarily male-perpetrated, others that women are as violent as men in intimate relationships. Johnson's response to this debate--and the central theme of this book--is that there is more than one type of intimate partner violence. Some studies address the type of violence that is perpetrated primarily by men, while others are getting at the kind of violence that women areinvolved in as well. Because there has been no theoretical framework delineating types of domestic violence, researchers have easily misread one another's studies. |
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2007 Disparities in School Readiness: How Families Contribute to Transitions into School By Alan Booth and Ann Crouter Significant disparities exist in children's behavioral and learning capacities that support successful transitions into school. In this new volume, leading researchers from a variety of disciplines review the latest data on how families influence their children's transitions into school. The inequalities that exist in school readiness, the roots of the inequalities, and the ways in which families exacerbate or minimize these inequalities, are explored. The book concludes with a review of policies and programs that represent the best practices for how families, schools and communities can address these disparities. |
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2007 Alone Together: How Marriage in America Is Changing By Paul Amato , Alan Booth , David Johnson , and Stacy Rogers Most observers agree that marriage in America has been changing. Some think it is in decline, that the growth of individualism has made it increasingly difficult to achieve satisfying and stable relationships. Others believe that changes, such as increasing gender equality, have made marriage a better arrangement for men as well as women. Based on two studies of marital quality in America twenty years apart, this book takes a middle view, showing that while the divorce rate has leveled off, spouses are spending less time together--people may be "bowling alone" these days, but married couples are also eating alone. Indeed, the declining social capital of married couples--including the fact that couples have fewer shared friends--combined with the general erosion of community ties in American society has had pervasive, negative effects on marital quality. At the same time, family income has increased, decision-making equality between husbands and wives is greater, marital conflict and violence have declined, and the norm of lifelong marriage enjoys greater support than ever. The authors conclude that marriage is an adaptable institution, and in accommodating the vast changes that have occurred in society over the recent past, it has become a less cohesive, yet less confining arrangement. |
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2007 Margins of Error: A Study of Reliability in Survey Measurement (Wiley Series in Survey Methodology) By Duane Alwin Margins of Error: A Study of Reliability in Survey Measurement demonstrates how and why identifying the presence and extent of measurement errors in survey data is essential for improving the overall collection and analysis of the data. The author outlines the consequences of ignoring survey measurement errors and also discusses ways to detect and estimate the impact of these errors. This book also provides recommendations of improving the quality of survey data. This book argues that the consideration of the presence and extent of measurement errors in survey data leads to improvement in the overall collection and analysis of survey data. Its main purpose is to identify which types of questions and which types of interviewer practices produce the most valid and reliable data. |
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2006 Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences By Alan Sica Comparative research methods are central to sociology and its associated disciplines. This four-volume set brings together 77 articles and book chapters from key sources, spanning the history of comparative analysis in the social sciences, from ancient to modern works. The selections cover not only explanations of how to carry out comparative analysis in a reliable and creative way, but also exhaustively explore the fields of sociology, political science, anthropology and education. |
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2006 Romance And Sex in Adolescence And Emerging Adulthood: Risks And Opportunities By Alan Booth and Ann Crouter Contents: Preface. Part I: What Are the Evolutionary Origins of Contemporary Patterns of Sexual and Romantic Relationships? Where Does Evolution Leave Off and Where Do History and Culture Begin? H.E. Fisher, Broken Hearts: The Nature and Risks of Romantic Rejection. B.L. Barber, To Have Loved and Lost...Adolescent Romantic Relationships and Rejection. D.P. Schmitt, Short- and Long-Term Mating Strategies: Additional Evolutionary Systems Relevant to Adolescent Sexuality. P. Schwartz, What Elicits Romance, Passion, and Attachment, and How Do They Affect Our Lives Throughout the Life Cycle? Part II: How Do Early Family and Peer Relationships Give Rise to the Quality of Romantic Relationships in Adolescence and Young Adulthood? W.A. Collins, M. van Dulmen, "The Course of True Love(s)...": Origins and Pathways in the Development of Romantic Relationships. S. Coontz, Romance and Sex in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood K. Joyner, M. Campa, How Do Adolescent Relationships Influence the Quality of Romantic and Sexual Relationships in Young Adulthood? C.M. Bryant, Pathways Linking Early Experiences and Later Relationship Functioning. B.B. Brown, A Few "Course Corrections" to Collins & van Dulmen's "The Course of True Love". Part III: How Do Early Romantic and Sexual Relationships Influence People Contemporaneously and Later in Life? P.C. Giordano, W.D. Manning, M.A. Longmore, Adolescent Romantic Relationships: An Emerging Portrait of Their Nature and Developmental Significance. V.M. Murry, T.R. Hurt, S.M. Kogan, Z. Luo, Contextual Processes of Romantic Relationships: Plausible Explanations for Gender and Race Effects. A.R. Snyder, Risky and Casual Sexual Relationships Among Teens. W. Furman, L.S. Hand, The Slippery Nature of Romantic Relationships: Issues in Definition and Differentiation. Part IV: To What Extent Are Current Trends in Sexual and Romantic Relationships Problematic for Individuals, Families, and Society? What Are Effective Intervention Approaches at the Level of Practice, Program, and Policy? J. Manlove, K. Franzetta, S. Ryan, K. Moore, Adolescent Sexual Relationships, Contraceptive Consistency, and Pregnancy Prevention Approaches. V.J. Hotz, The Economic Approach to Modeling Adolescent Sexual Behavior: Empirical Implications. D.M. Upchurch, Y. Kusunoki, Adolescent Sexual Relationships and Reproductive Health Outcomes: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges. J. Manlove, S. Ryan, K. Franzetta, Sample Selection for Adolescent Sexual Relationships. M.L. Kan, A.C. Cares, From "Friends With Benefits" to "Going Steady": New Directions in Understanding Romance and Sex in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood. |
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2006 The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the Sixties By Alan Sica The late 1960s are remembered today as the last time wholesale social upheaval shook Europe and the United States. College students during that tumultuous period—epitomized by the events of May 1968—were as permanently marked in their worldviews as their parents had been by the Depression and World War II. Sociology was at the center of these events, and it changed decisively because of them. |
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2005 Confessions of a Dying Thief: Understanding Criminal Careers and Illegal Enterprise By Darrell Steffensmeier and Jeffrey T. Ulmer Confessions of a Dying Thief is an in-depth ethnographic study of the world of Sam Goodman, a long-time thief, fence, and quasi-legitimate businessman, based on continuous contact with him for many years, multiple interviews with his network of associates in crime and business, and a series of interviews with him shortly before he died. The book updates and greatly expands the case study of Sam Goodmans fencing activity found in Steffensmeiers award-winning 1986 book The Fence: In the Shadow of Two Worlds. The book combines Sams colorful narrative accounts with substantive commentary by the authors to provide a more nuanced portrayal of criminal careers, illegal enterprise, and the broad landscape comprising the entity called "crime." |
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2005 On Your Own Without a Net: The Transition to Adulthood for Vulnerable Populations By D. Wayne Osgood, E. Michael Foster, Constance Flanagan, Gretchen R. Ruth In the decade after high school, young people continue to rely on their families in many ways-sometimes for financial support, sometimes for help with childcare, and sometimes for continued shelter. But what about those young people who confront special difficulties during this period, many of whom can count on little help from their families? |
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2005 The Churching of America, 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in our Religious Economy By Roger Finke and Rodney Stark In The Churching of America, 1776–2005, Roger Finke and Rodney Stark once again revolutionize the way we think about religion. Extending the argument that the nation’s religious environment acts as a free market economy, this extensively revised and expanded edition offers new research, statistics, and stories that document increased participation in religious groups from Independence through the twenty-first century. Adding to the thorough coverage of "mainline" religious groups, new sections chart the remarkable development and growth of African American churches from the early nineteenth century forward. Finke and Stark show how, like other "upstart sects," these churches competed for adherents and demonstrate how American norms of religious freedom allowed African American churches to construct organizational havens with little outside intervention. This edition also includes new sections on the ethnic religious communities of recent immigrants—stories that echo those told of ethnic religious enclaves in the nineteenth century. Bringing together timely new information and evidence, this provocative book insists, more than ever, on a major reevaluation of established ideas about American religious institutions. Written with lively prose, it will stir debate within church and academic communities, as well as among laypersons interested in the history of religion. Received the 1993 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. Buy this book |
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2004 Social Thought: From the Enlightenment to the Present By Alan Sica This comprehensive, multicultural, and cross-disciplinary anthology examines social theory and social thought from the major figures of the Enlightenment in France and England through the Postmodernists of the late Twentieth Century. Contains selections from 144 authors, writing between 1690 and the present, who dealt with issues of equality, social justice, gender relations, political structures, family life, ethnic relations, political-economics, and other perennial questions that confront social actors and the societies in which they exist. Sica offers a greater historical scope than other social theory texts and readers; starts with the origins of the modern worldview in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Europe. This reader is a perfect introduction to great thinkers and ideas of Western civilization from the Enlightenment forward. |
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2004 Work-Family Challenges for Low-Income Parents and Their Children By Alan Booth and Ann Crouter The area of work and family is a hot topic in the social sciences and appeals to scholars in a wide range of disciplines. There are few edited volumes in this area, however, and this may be the only one that focuses on low-income families--a particularly important group in this era of welfare-to-work policy. Interdisciplinary in nature, the volume brings together contributors from the fields of psychology, social work, sociology, demography, economics, human development and family studies, and public policy. It presents important work-family topics from the point of view of low-income families at a time in history when welfare to work programs have become standard. Divided into four parts, each section addresses a different aspect of the topic, consisting of a big picture lead essay which is followed by three papers that critique, extend, and supplement the final paper. Many of the chapters address important social policy issues, giving the volume an applied focus which will make it of interest to many groups. |
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2004 Max Weber and the New Century By Alan Sica The most profound and enduring social theorist of sociology's classical period, Max Weber speaks as co-gently to concerns of the new century as he did to those of the past. Over the past seventy years, those special ideas that have become identified as "Weberian" have become especially pertinent to those who would analyze today's socioeconomic and cultural life. They offer the possibility of a more acute understanding of our immediate future than reliance on the ideas of any other social theorist in the pantheon. Alan Sica demonstrates Weber's preeminent position and lasting vitality within social theory by applying them to topics of contemporary concern. The result will appeal to experts and novices alike.Max Weber and the New Century documents the continuing usefulness of Weber's unrivalled social thought. Sica offers a series of linked studies that treat Weber's concept of rationalization as expressed in different cultural forms, the role of Weberian ideas in contemporary historiography, the uses of Weber's image in the popular imagination, the rhetorical structure of Economy and Society, and Weber's relationship to modern philosophical thought. Conceptually and practically, this volume is a companion piece to the author's forthcoming Max Weber: A Comprehensive Bibliography -- a 3,600-item bibliography of works by and about Weber in English -- which, for the first time, will allow scholars to explore the universe of Weberian analysis.Max Weber and the New Century is a valuable addition to the library of social scientists, historians, philosophers, economists, and students of intellectual history. It shows that Weber -- the scholar as much as his ideas -- continues to inspirefruitful social and cultural analyses. |
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2004 Max Weber: A Comprehensive Bibliography By Alan Sica The most profound and enduring social theorist of sociology's classical period, Max Weber speaks as cogently to concerns of the new century as he did to those of the past. In Max Weber and the New Century, Alan Sica demonstrated Weber's preeminent position and lasting vitality within social theory by applying his ideas to a broad range of topics of contemporary concern. Max Weber: A Comprehensive Bibliography is a companion volume that offers some 4,600 bibliographic listings of work on Weber, making it the most complete guide to the literature in English and a testament to the continued vitality of Weber's thought. Sica's work supersedes all previous bibliographical efforts covering the Weber literature, both in the quantity and accuracy of its references, and the clarity and convenience of its format. In order to demonstrate the enormous variety of Weberiana in English, Sica has adopted a liberal criterion for inclusion, rather than a critical one, choosing to mix the best with what may be more routine work. Following a preface in which previous bibliographies and bibliographic problems are discussed, the volume opens with a series of five specialized bibliographies. The first lists Weber's works in English translation. The second lists reviews of Weber's major works including those translated into English, while the third covers reviews of recent books and other work on Weber. The fourth section contains a selection of dissertations and theses relating to Weber or his ideas. The fifth includes primary and secondary sources treating Weber on rationality and rationalization processes. The last and largest section offers a comprehensive Weber bibliography of works in English. Thislarge-scale endeavor attempts to identify with accuracy and completeness the entire universe of Weber scholarship in English. It will be an essential scholarly tool for sociologists, historians, economists, and students of cultural and intellectual history. |
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2003 The Unknown Max Weber Edited With an Introduction By Alan Sica Paul Honigsheim is unique. One of the select few who regularly participated in the Weber-Kreis in Heidelberg during the 1910s, Honigsheim's special place within Weber's world adds a degree of credibility to his writings matched by few others. In the late 1940s Honigsheim published four essays from what might be called Weber's "lost decade," the period during which Weber established his reputation in Germany as the most versatile and brilliant of the younger social scientists. Together in one volume for the first time, these essays reveal portions of Weber's work previously unavailable in English. |
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2003 The New Geography of Global Income Inequality The surprising finding of this book is that, contrary to conventional wisdom, global income inequality is decreasing. Critics of globalization and others maintain that the spread of consumer capitalism is dramatically polarizing the worldwide distribution of income. But as the demographer Glenn Firebaugh carefully shows, income inequality for the world peaked in the late twentieth century and is now heading downward because of declining income inequality across nations. Furthermore, as income inequality declines across nations, it is rising within nations (though not as rapidly as it is declining across nations). Firebaugh claims that this historic transition represents a new geography of global income inequality in the twenty-first century. This book documents the new geography, describes its causes, and explains why other analysts have missed one of the defining features of our era--a transition in inequality that is reducing the importance of where a person is born in determining his or her future well-being. - Harvard University Press, 2006
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2003 Children’s Influence on Family Dynamics By Alan Boothand Ann Crouter Any parent who has raised more than one child is likely to be keenly aware of subtle or even striking differences among their offspring. The central premise of this volume is that children bring personal qualities to their relationships with other family members that help shape family interaction, relationships, and even processes that family researchers have called "parenting." The chapters address how children's personal qualities make their mark on families in ways that may in turn influence children's subsequent development. |
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2002 Violence & Gender Reexamined Using a comparative method to determine how violence against women differs from violence against men, Felson illustrates not only that violence against women is less frequent than violence against men but also that our culture and legal system treat it more harshly. Contrary to the claims that our courts "blame the victim" in cases of violence against women, the author shows that the tradition of protection of women sometimes produces the opposite effect, and that it is due process and not sexism that makes, for instance, rape cases seem biased against women. This powerful book encourages all readers, be they psychologists, lawyers, social scientists, or concerned lay people, to question preconceptions about gender and violence. |
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2002 Just Living Together: Implications of Cohabitation on Families, Children, and Social Policy By Alan Boothand Ann Crouter Based on the presentations and discussions from a national symposia, Just Living Together represents one of the first systematic efforts to focus on cohabitation. The book is divided into four parts, each dealing with a different aspect of cohabitation. Part I addresses the big picture question, "What are the historical and cross cultural foundations of cohabitation?" Part II focuses specifically on North America and asks, "What is the role of cohabitation in contemporary North American family structure?" Part III turns the focus to the question, "What is the long- and short-term impact of cohabitation on child well-being?" Part IV addresses how cohabiting couples are affected by current policies and what policy innovations could be introduced to support these couples. |
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2001 Rethinking Risk Assessment: The MacArthur Study of Mental Disorder and Violence By Monahan, J., Steadman, H. J., Eric Silver, Appelbaum, P. S., Robbins, P. C., Mulvey, E. P., Roth, L. H., Grisso, T., & Banks, Steven Tells the story of a pioneering investigation challenging preconceptions about the frequency and nature of violence among persons with mental disorders, and suggests an innovative approach to predicting its occurrence. Demonstrates how clinicians can use a decision tree to identify groups of patients at low and high risk for violence. DNLM: Mental Disorders--diagnosis. Winner of the 2002 Manfred Guttmacher Award, American Psychiatric Association. |
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2002 The Philosophy of Giambattista Vico Introduction By Alan Sica Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) is often regarded as the beleaguered, neglected genius of pre-Enlightenment Naples. His work - though known to Herder, Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, and Michelet - widely and deeply appreciated only during the twentieth century. Although Vico may be best known for the use James Joyce made of his theories in Finnegans Wake, Croce's insightful analysis of Vico's ideas played a large role in alerting readers to his unique voice. Croce's volume preceded Joyce's creation of "Mr. John Baptister Vickar" by a quarter century. During the last 25 years Vico's ideas about history, language, anti-Cartesian epistemology, and rhetoric have begun to receive the recognition their admirers have long claimed they deserve. Increasing numbers of publications appear annually which bear the stamp of Vico's thinking. Even if he is not yet so renowned as some of his contemporaries, such as Locke. Voltaire, or Montesquieu, there are good reasons to believe that in the future he will be equally honored as a cultural theorist. As a theorist of historical process and its language, there is no more innovative voice than his until the twentieth century - which explains in part why such figures as Joyce and R.G. Collingwood freely drew on Vico's work, particularly his New Science, while creating their own. If Vico was Naples' most brilliant, if uncelebrated, citizen prior to the Enlightenment taking hold in Southern Italy, then Croce (1866-1952) is surely the city's most important thinker of modern times, and the single indispensable Italian philosopher since Vico's death. When a genius of Croce's interpretative prowess, evaluates the work of another, it is inevitable that an explosive mixture will result. A great virtue of this book is its fusion of Croce's unique brand of idealism and aesthetic philosophy with Vico's epistemological, ethical, and historical theories. If Vico's theory of cyclical changes in history remains fruitful, it might be argued that Croce's evaluation of his countryman' ideas represented the next turn of the philosophical wheel toward enlightenment. |
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2001 Couples in Conflict By Alan Booth, Ann Crouter and Mari Clements This volume is based on the presentations and discussions of a national symposium on "Couples in Conflict" that focused on family issues. A common thread throughout is that constructive conflict and negotiation are beneficial for relationships. Together, the chapters provide a foundation for thinking about creative ways in which our society can work to prevent or minimize destructive couple conflict and to enhance couples' abilities to constructively handle their differences. |
