Understanding social problems

This is a comprehensive mid-level paperback text that takes a theoretically balanced, student-centered approach to social problems. The text progresses from a micro- to macro-level of analysis, focusing first on such problems as illness and health care, drugs and alcohol, and family problems and then broadening to the larger issues of poverty and inequality, population growth, environmental problems, and conflict around the world. The social problem in each chapter is framed in a global as well as U.S. context. In every chapter, the three major theoretical perspectives are applied to the social problem under discussion, and the consequences of the problem, as well as alternative solutions, are explored. Pedagogical features such as The Human Side and Self and Society enable students to grasp how social problems affect the lives of individuals and apply their understanding of social problems to their own lives.

pt. 1: Sociology and the study of social problems -- 1. Thinking about social problems -- Elements of social structure and culture -- Self and society: person beliefs about various social problems -- The sociological imagination -- Theoretical perspectives -- Structural-functionalist perspective -- Structural-functionalist theories of social problems -- Conflict perspective -- Conflict theories of social problems -- Symbolic interactionist perspective -- Symbolic interactionist theories of social problems -- Social problems research -- Social problems research up close: the sociological enterprise -- The human side: social change and college student activism.

pt. 2: Problems of well-being -- 2. Problems of illness and health care -- the global context: patterns of health and illness around the world -- Morbidity, life expectancy, and mortality -- Patterns of burden of disease -- Sociological theories of illness and health care -- Structural-functionalist perspective -- Conflict perspective -- Symbolic interactionist perspective -- HIV / AIDS: a global health concern -- HIV / AIDS in Africa and other regions -- HIV / AIDS in the United States -- The growing problem of obesity -- M…