Sociology - All titles

As the concept of gender mainstreaming grows more prominent in the debate about gender equality, this book explores its origins, evolution and varying impacts on political, social and cultural issues around Europe. It also considers mainstreaming’s potential and limits, providing a timely contribution to the ongoing debate about gender attitudes.

Geoff Mulgan, a pioneer in the global field of social innovation, explains how it provides answers to today’s global social, economic and sustainability issues. He argues for matching R&D in technology and science with a socially focused R&D and harnessing creative imagination on a larger scale than ever before.

The Happiness Problem shows that the illusion of control over our lives is too simplistic and can even be harmful. Sam Wren-Lewis offers an alternative: he proposes that we can connect with, and gain a deeper understanding of, the personal and social challenges that define our time.

Every household has to perform housework. Using quantitative, nationally representative survey data this book theorizes about how power dynamics as reflected in housework performance help us understand broader family variations.

Re-examining C.Wright Mills’s legacy as a jumping off point, this original introduction to sociology illuminates global concepts, themes and practices that are fundamental to the discipline and rethinks and re-imagines what a critically committed, politically engaged and publicly relevant sociology should look like in the 21st century.

This illuminating book offers a fresh and contemporary guide to the field of sociology. By demonstrating the versatility of the sociological imagination, the authors reveal the ways in which thinking sociologically can help us understand the personal, social and structural changes going on in the world around us.

This engaging study of anti-austerity protest provides a valuable feminist perspective on activism at a time when austerity policy is disproportionately impacting women. It brings together lived experiences of activist culture and contextual analysis to explore the motivations and emotions associated with it—both positive and negative.

Employing a generational analysis, this book offers an original approach to the study of Higher Education and documents the changing nature of the relationship between academics and students. Examining wider issues of culture and socialisation, this is a timely contribution to current debates about the University around higher education.

Can affirmative action in US college admissions survive mounting threats? This judicious review, part of the Sociology of Diversity series, considers the question using up-to-date sociological, policy and legal perspectives to explain both sides of the fierce debate over affirmative action in the context of prominent Supreme Court cases.

50 years on from the Race Relations Act of 1968, this ‘state of the nation’ book provides an overview and commentary on how things currently stand in a wide range of sectors of society.

Informed by sociological theory and recent empirical analysis, the new edition of this classic textbook is an accessible account of the major social divisions that structure social life. Written by experts, it covers an unrivalled range of social divisions, diversity and inequalities. This is an invaluable sourcebook for social science students.

We praise those people who do things for others. But the symbolic power of giving means glow of 'goodness' that charity provides can be taken advantage of. Drawing on original data and Bourdieu's sociology, this book examines a wide range of charity examples to provide an entertaining critique of how contemporary charity works.