Community organizers build solidarity and collective power in fractured communities. They help ordinary people turn their private pain into public action, releasing hidden capacities for leadership and strategy. In Collective Action for Social Change , Aaron Schutz and Marie G. Sandy draw on their extensive experience participating in community organizing activities and teaching courses on the subject to empower novices to think like an organizers.

How do social researchers know how to select the action research (AR) approach most appropriate for their study? This book provides an overview of the different approaches. The authors introduce the history, philosophy, social change agenda, methodologies, ethical arguments for, and fieldwork tools of AR. They present an extensive range of cases, some from their own experience and, untypically, they rehearse failures as well as successes. The book will prove invaluable for both newcomers and experienced researchers and practitioners.

The development of industry in Europe and the United States has resulted in great marvels of production. However, non-Western nations, with a few exceptions, have not yet shared fully in this productivity, despite the desires of their leaders to do so. Also, in the United States, and in other industrial nations, there are sizeable minority groups which have not been fully assimilated into the productive pattern of the majority. Most live as poverty enclaves within the greater society. This socioeconomic imbalance has contributed to unrest in both the agrarian and industrial nations.Introducing Social Change deals with numerous topics of social change: cultural problems of change in general; a description of the concept of culture; a discussion of cultural change in its various forms; an introduction to the process of directed change; a discussion of the motivation necessary to bring about change; a treatment of the method of adapting an innovation to existing ideas and customs; the profile of the primary characteristics of most developing nations; the main characteristics and cultural values of America as a sample urban, industrial culture; and field problems of the change agent, and in particular those methods from anthropology that can be modified for use.Developments in the industrial countries, particularly the United States, have demonstrated the need for this second edition. When the original version was produced, little thought or activity was given to development efforts among ethnic minorities of industrial countries. Development was thought of almost exclusively as an activity relevant to the developing, non-industrial nations. It has become apparent that ethnic groups in industrial nations are also in need of economic development. Government policies, including funding, have been increasingly pointed in this direction.

An exploration of how societies have changed over the past five thousand years. The discussion focuses on the idea that industrial societies, despite their great success, have created a new set of recurring and unsolved problems which will serve as a major impetus for further social change.

This revised edition of this extremely popular introduction to social theory has been carefully and thoroughly updated with the latest developments in this continually changing field. Written in a refreshingly lucid and engaging style, Introducing Social Theory provides readers with a wide-ranging, well organized and thematic introduction to all the major thinkers, issues and debates in classical and contemporary social theory. Introducing Social Theory traces the development of social theorizing from the classical ideas about modernity of Durkheim, Marx and Weber, right up to a uniquely accessible review of the contemporary theoretical controversies in sociology that surround post-colonialism, gender and feminist theories, and public sociology. The ideal textbook for students of sociology at all levels, from A-level to undergraduates, Introducing Social Theory is remarkably easy to follow and understand. This new edition lives up to its predecessors' goal that students need never be intimidated by social theory again.

This introduction to social change covers the momentous and relatively recent changes that have occurred in the human condition, examining not only the major causes and conditions underlying our current situation, but also the main choices and options we face as we strive to shape our individual and collective futures. This edition of Social Change has been thoroughly updated and revised. Building on previous editions, the book introduces a social scientific approach to change, discusses the components of change and the factors driving them, examines change on the macro-level, then looks toward the future with a discussion of planned change. Most chapters explore societies of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and include comparative dimensions, especially along First, Second, and Third World lines. The engaging narrative traces several themes, such as the rise of capitalism and the socialist alternative, or civil rights movements in the United States and elsewhere, throughout the book. Social Change, Third Edition features a new discussion of the recent economic crisis and the interconnectedness of the global economy, new empirical data on globalization, and updated discussions of the concepts of evolution and altruism. It also incorporates the dramatic changes in India and China throughout the book.