John J. Macionis (pronounced ma-SHOW-nis) was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He earned a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a doctorate in sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. His publications are wide-ranging, focusing on community life in the United States, interpersonal intimacy in families, effective teaching, humor, new information technology, and the importance of global education. He and Nijole V. Benokraitis have edited the anthology Seeing Ourselves: Classic, Contemporary, and Cross-Cultural Readings in Sociology. Macionis has also authored Society: The Basics, the leading brief text in the field, and he collaborates on international editions of the texts: Sociology: Canadian Edition; Society: The Basics, Canadian Edition; Seeing Ourselves, Canadian Edition; and Sociology: A Global Introduction (published by Prentice Hall Europe). Sociology is also available for high school students and in various foreign language editions. In addition, Macionis and Vincent Parrillo have written the urban studies text Cities and Urban Life (Prentice Hall). Macionis's most recent textbook is Social Problems (Prentice Hall). The latest on all the Macionis textbooks, as well as information and dozens of Internet links of interest to students and faculty in sociology, are found at the author's personal Web site: http://www.macionis.com or http://www.TheSociologyPage.com. Additional information, instructor resources, and online student study guides for the texts are found at the Prentice Hall site, http://www.prenhall.com/macionis.
John Macionis is Professor and Distinguished Scholar of Sociology at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. During his career at Kenyon, he has chaired the Sociology Department, directed the college's multidisciplinary program in humane studies, presided over the campus senate and also the college's faculty, and, most important, taught sociology to thousands of students.
In 2002, the American Sociological Association named Macionis recipient of the Award for Distinguished Contributions to Teaching, citing his innovative use of global material as well as introduction new teaching technology in the development of his textbooks.
Professor Macionis has been active in academic programs in other countries, having traveled to some fifty nations. During his last study tour, he directed the global education course for the University of Pittsburgh's Semester at Sea program, teaching 400 students on a floating campus that visited twelve countries as it circled the globe.
Macionis writes, "I am an ambitious traveler, eager to learn and, through the texts, to share much of what I discover with students, many of whom know little about the rest of the world. For me, traveling and writing are all dimensions of teaching. First and foremost, I am a teacher—a passion for teaching animates everything I do." At Kenyon, Macionis offers a wide range of upper-level courses, but his favorite course is Introduction to Sociology, which he teaches every year. He enjoys extensive contact with students and each term invites members of his classes to enjoy a home cooked meal.
The Macionis family—John, Amy, and children McLean and Whitney—live on a farm in rural Ohio. In his free time, John practices yoga and enjoys swimming and bicycling through the Ohio countryside. During the summer, he is a competitive sailor, and year-round, he enjoys performing oldies rock and roll and playing the Scottish bagpipes.
Professor Macionis welcomes (and responds to) comments and suggestions about this book from faculty and students. Write to the Sociology Department, Palme House, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio 43022, or direct e-mail to MACIONIS@KENYON.EDU
At the dawning of the modern age, the French philosopher Francois Voltaire expressed his certainty that humans were meant to live together in society and that the gift of society to each of us is the ability to develop a sense of justice. A young woman or man coming of age today has plenty of reasons to take a keen interest in human society and wonder about justice. The United States is engaged in military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our nation is fighting a worldwide war against terrorism. Throughout the world, there are several dozen other ongoing military conflicts. At home, the gap between the rich and poor is greater than it has been in half a century, and it is increasing. Worldwide, the income gap between the richest and poorest nations is vast, twice as large as it was a century ago.
Facts such as these force us to confront vital questions: What kind of world do we live in? Is it the kind of world we want for ourselves and for our children? Surely there is no better way to begin the process of answering these questions than by learning to use the discipline of sociology.
There is another, happier reason to begin the study of society. Learning about the social world all around us is extremely rewarding and often great fun. The daily e-mail I receive from students throughout the United States and around the world is clear testimony both to the power of sociology to help people understand their world and to the pleasure they find in doing it. Ask the women and men who teach sociology in classrooms throughout North America and you will find that, in a large majority of cases, they enjoyed the first course they took so much that they continued, eventually deciding to make the study of society their life's work.
Sociology has the power to transform people, and many of these people go on to transform society. All instructors know the deep satisfaction that comes from making a difference in the lives of our students. There is no greater reward for our work and, in my case, no better reason for striving for ever-better revisions of Sociology, which, along with the briefer Society: The Basics, stand out—as they have for more than a decade—as the discipline's most widely used texts.
I hope you will find Sociology to be authoritative, comprehensive, stimulating, and—as so many students testify—plain fun to read. In addition to the book, every new copy of Sociology, Tenth Edition, comes with a CD-ROM that includes a number of learning tools, including short video selections that illustrate major concepts, theories, and research findings, and also a series of "author's tip" videos-one for each chapter-that focus on key chapter themes.
The third part of the learning package that is available free with each new book is access to two Web sites. The first is our full-featured Companion Website™ at http://www.prenhall.com/macionis. From the main page, simply click on the cover of the text to access a comprehensive and interactive study guide. Select a chapter to find chapter summaries, learning objectives, suggested essay questions, and paper topics, as well as multiple-choice and true/false questions. The second, new to this edition, is a premium-content Web site called OneKey. It will serve as a one-stop shop for students and faculty, providing anytime, anywhere access to important course materials. OneKey will also offer a customized student study plan after the student takes a quick diagnostic quiz. Access to OneKey is free with a passcode that can be wrapped with Sociology, Tenth Edition.
Textbook, CD-ROM, and Web sites: A three-part, multimedia package that is the foundation for sound learning in this new information age. We invite you to examine all three!
ORGANIZATION OF THIS TEXT
Part I of the textbook and the CD-ROM introduces the foundations of sociology. Underlying the discipline is the sociological perspective—the focus of Chapter 1, which explains how this point of view brings the world to life in a new and instructive way. Chapter 2 spotlights sociological investigation, or the "doing of sociology." This chapter recognizes the methodological diversity of the discipline, explaining the scientific, interpretive, and critical orientations, and illustrating major research strategies with actual, well-known sociological work.
Part II surveys the foundations of social life. Chapter 3 focuses on the central concept of culture, emphasizing the cultural diversity that makes up our society and our world. The focus of Chapter 4 is the concept of society, presenting four time-honored models for understanding the structure and dynamics of social organization. This unique chapter provides introductory students with the background to understand the ideas of important thinkers—including Karl Marx, Max Weber, and Emile Durkheim, as well as Gerhard Lenski—that appear in subsequent chapters. Chapter 5 turns to socialization, exploring how we gain our humanity as we learn to participate in society. Chapter 6 provides a micro-level look at the patterns of social interaction that make up our everyday lives. Chapter 7 offers full-chapter coverage of groups and organizations, explaining the importance of group life and investigating how and why large organizations have come to dominate our way of life. Chapter 8 explains how the operation of society generates both deviance and conformity and also surveys the operation of the criminal justice system. Chapter 9 explains the social foundations of human sexuality. This chapter surveys sexual patterns in the United States and also explores variations in ideas and practices through history and around the world today.
Part III offers unparalleled discussion of social inequality, beginning with three chapters on social stratification. Chapter 10 introduces major concepts and presents theoretical explanations of social inequality. This chapter richly illustrates historical changes in stratification and how patterns of inequality vary in today's world. Chapter 11 surveys social inequality in the United States, confronting common perceptions of inequality and assessing how well they square with research findings. Chapter 12 extends the analysis with a look at global stratification, revealing the disparities in wealth and power that separate rich and poor nations. Both Chapters 11 and 12 pay special attention to how global developments affect stratification in the United States as they explore our nation's role in global inequality. Chapter 13, gender stratification, explains how gender is a central element in social stratification in the United States as it is worldwide. Race and ethnicity, additional important dimensions of social inequality that often intersect differences based on class and gender, are detailed in Chapter 14. Aging and the elderly, a topic of increasing concern to "graying" societies such as our own, is addressed in Chapter 15.
Part IV includes a full chapter on each social institution. Leading off is Chapter 16, the economy and work, because most sociologists recognize the economy as having the greatest impact on all other institutions. This chapter traces the rise and fall of industrial production in the United States and the emergence of a global economy, and explains what such transformations mean for the U.S. labor force. Chapter 17, politics and government, analyzes the distribution of power in U.S. society and surveys political systems around the world. In addition, this chapter includes discussion of the U.S. military, the threat of war, and terrorism as a new form of war. Chapter 18, family, explains the central importance of families to social organization and underscores the diversity of family life both here and in other societies. Chapter 19, religion, addresses the timeless human search for ultimate purpose and meaning, introduces major world religions, and explains how religious beliefs are linked to other dimensions of social life. Chapter 20, education, analyzes the expansion of schooling in industrial and postindustrial societies. Here again, schooling in the United States comes to life through contrasts with educational patterns in other countries. Chapter 21, health and medicine, reveals health to be a social issue just as much as it is a matter of biological processes. This chapter traces the historical emergence of scientific medicine, analyzes today's medical establishment as well as alternative approaches to health, and compares patterns of health in the United States to those in other countries.
Part V examines important dimensions of global social change. Chapter 22 highlights the powerful impact of population growth and urbanization in the United States and throughout the world with special attention to the natural environment. Chapter 23 explores forms of collective behavior and explains how people seek or resist social change by joining social movements. Chapter 24 concludes the text with an overview of social change that contrasts traditional, modern, and postmodern societies. This chapter rounds out the text by explaining how and why world societies change and critically analyzing the benefits and liabilities of traditional, modern, and postmodern ways of life.
CONTINUITY: ESTABLISHED FEATURES OF SOCIOLOGY
Everyone knows that introductory sociology texts have some things in common, but differences run deep. The extraordinary success of Sociology and Society: The Basics—far and away the texts most widely adopted by sociologists across North America—results from a combination of the following distinctive features.
The best writing style. Most important, this text offers a writing style widely praised by students and facu...
