Product Description: This concise yet thorough treatment of sociology is organized around a set of central questions and integrates classic and current research with analyses of trends affecting society. Written by the best-selling author of SOCIOLOGY IN A CHANGING WORLD, William Kornblum's brief text incorporates many of his most popular features (such as Mapping Social Change) while new features and the text's unique approach give this book its own distinct voice and perspective...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This book was written to bring a more cohesive thematic approach - emphasizing social/global change - to the introductory course and to give students a better understanding of sociology as it is applied to the real world. The text is accessible, while advanced students will be challenged with material in the exhibit boxes such as 'Sociological Methods' and 'Mapping Social Change'...read more

Product Description: Military brats, global nomads, missionary kids, and others who have spent some years overseas--whether in childhood or as adults--will be interested in this collection of essays by authors who have lived overseas, raised children in other cultures, or conducted social-scientific studies of internationally mobile children and families...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

This volume brings together personal accounts by a group of noted ethnographic researchers. An ideal supplemental text for methods courses, In the Field is designed to give students a sense of what it is actually like to conduct ethnographic research, especially participant observation. As the selections show, field researchers often become deeply involved in the lives of the people they study and are at times forced into a reexamination of their own values. By learning how social scientists conduct research under field conditions and how they feel while they are doing it, students will be better prepared to carry out successful field research projects of their own.Divided into four parts, the book begins with several readings that explore the confusing and frustrating period every field researcher goes through while trying to gain the acceptance of the people under study. In the second section, Building Relationships, the contributors show how ethnographic researchers often develop subtle, complex relationships with their informants. These selections also illustrate the impact of differences in race, gender, and class between the researcher and his or her subject. The next group of readings deal with a problem often encountered in the field: How can ethnographic researchers maintain objectivity in the face of deepening involvement in their subjects' lives? In the final section, the researchers ask some searching questions about the role of the observer. Taken together, these readings offer a new window onto the field research experience that will be invaluable not only for those just beginning their careers but also for professional researchers who seek inspiration and encouragement from others with similar experiences. (view table of contents)

Product Description: This unique volume describes the impact of overseas living on Americans who spent some of their formative years in other countries and returned to the United States during their high school or early college years. Based on a survey and interviews of more than 300 returnees, The Absentee American describes overseas life, reentry into the United States, and the long-term effects of these experiences on repatriated Americans...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This anthology explores medical and health-related problems from the perspectives of well-known health care practitioners and medical sociology researchers--all of whom have written about their lives and struggles in vivid detail...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: During the 1950s and 1960s increasing numbers of American citizens were stationed in foreign countries, and a whole generation of American children grew up abroad. As the interdependence of nations increases, new generations of Absentee Americans will be raised outside the United States...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: In this timely new book, Carolyn Smith develops a methodology for the study and criticism of presidential press conferences. Moving away from the traditional method of studying the presidential rhetoric of prepared speeches, Smith proposes methods of criticism for the quasi-spontaneous environment of the press conference where the control of messages is divided between the president and the press...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)