While the usual introductory sociology text emphasizes defining key concepts in the field, the rigidity of this structure creates a need for a text that teaches real-world application of these concepts. The Sociologically Examined Life: Pieces of the Conversation prides itself on being an"anti-text," a tool that demonstrates how to recognize and utilize sociological thinking in the real world. The conversational writing encourages discussion - and debate - over ideas that are provocative and personal, and pushes students to think critically about what makes them feel the way theydo. The Sociologically Examined Life draws from examples that are culturally relevant to today's students, and encourages students to apply sociological thinking to their everyday lives and to reflect on their own roles as active players in the social world.

This lively and concise text uses analyses of everyday life to inspire students to think sociologically about society and about themselves as social actors.

An easy to understand overview of the process of psychoanalysis with illustrative examples.

In Rigging the Game Michael Schwalbe offers a clear and compelling introduction to how the rules that shape economic life and everyday interaction generate and perpetuate inequality in American society. Guided by the questions How did the situation get this way? and How does it stay this way?, Schwalbe tracks inequality from its roots to its regulation. With its lively combination of analysis and stories, Rigging the Game is an innovative tool for teaching about the inequalities of race, class, and gender. In the final chapter, "Escaping the Inequality Trap," Schwalbe helps students understand how inequality can be challenged and overcome.

"Our students already live sociologically. They are drawn to topics of urgent sociological concern-race, class, gender, family, popular culture, health, and crime-by a need to understand the forces that shape their world, as well as a desire to change that world for the better. Yet they do not always find it easy to connect sociological concepts with real-world applications. Helping students make that connection is what we have sought to do with Living Sociologically: Concepts and Connections, Concise Edition. The task was made more urgent by the extraordinary events of 2020, which unfolded as we created the Concise version. Alongside our students - metaphorically, as we all became remote teachers and learners - we witnessed and sought to make sense of the protests and uprisings after the murder of George Floyd; the economic devastation and medical challenges of COVID-19; and the fear, misinformation, and rage leading up to (and falling out from) the presidential election. Sociology gives us both structure and vocabulary to analyze these events - and search together for not just meaning but resolution. Students naturally want to know how the study of sociology can inform their career and professional choices. Throughout this textbook, we illustrate not only the ways in which sociologists live their profession, but also the rich and surprising ways in which sociological theories inform parenting and romantic relationships, political commitments, economic decisions, cultural expressions, and religious beliefs. Living sociologically is not only interesting-it's useful. Sociology provides not only big ideas to understand social life but also concrete tools for acting in the world with purpose and meaning. Sociology helps connect the individual level with the system level, revealing a layer of reality that is not always immediately obvious. We wrote Living Sociologically because we wanted a teaching resource that was grounded in the sociological tradition but also offered a more contemporary and practical approach to the discipline. By the end of the Introduction to Sociology course, our hope is that students will be critical rather than cynical, empirically committed rather than scientifically or politically dogmatic, and attuned to social relationships as well as individual stories"--

Making a Difference begins with the question that many sociology students often ask: Sociology tells us what's wrong with society, but what does sociology say we should do about it? Michael Schwalbe answers this question by drawing on sociology's methods, findings, and distinct ways of looking at social life. Schwalbe shows readers how social change can be accomplished by taking a sociologically mindful approach to a range of ordinary actions, such as listening, researching, writing, organizing, empathizing, advocating, conserving, teaching, dissenting, and imagining. Readers who have ever wondered how to use sociology to make the world a better place will find concrete answers and advice in Making a Difference.