You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist / Edition 3

by Dalton Conley

Overview

The bestselling “untextbook” that makes the familiar strange

The market leader for introductory sociology courses and a welcome alternative to traditional textbooks, You May Ask Yourself engages students with an irreverent narrative style. It questions what is often taken for granted and helps students apply sociological ways of thinking to their own experiences. The Seventh Edition features new coverage of pressing social issues related to aging, health, and inequality. Several new video interviews introduce important current research, and a thoughtfully revised InQuizitive course uses what learning experts call the “retrieval effect” to help students master core concepts.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393912999
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/01/2013
Edition description:	Third Edition
Pages:	840
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Dalton Conley is a professor of sociology at Princeton University. In 2005, Conley became the first sociologist to win the prestigious National Science Foundation's Alan T. Waterman Award, which honors an outstanding young U.S. scientist or engineer. He writes for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Slate, and Forbes. He is the author of Honky (2001) and The Pecking Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become (2004). His other books include Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America (1999), The Starting Gate: Birth Weight and Life Chances (2003), Elsewhere, U.S.A. (2009), Parentology (2014), and The Genome Factor (2017). He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Table of Contents

Preface xvii

Chapter 1 The Sociological Imagination: An Introduction 2

The Sociological Imagination 4

How to be a Sociologist According to Quentin Tarantino: A Scene from Pulp Fiction 6

What Are the True Costs and Returns of College? 8

Getting That "Piece Of Paper" 11

What Is a Social Institution? 14

The Sociology of Sociology 17

Auguste Comte and the Creation of Sociology 18

Two Centuries of Sociology 18

Classical Sociological Theory 21

American Sociology 27

Modern Sociological Theories 30

Doing Theory 34

Sociology and Its Cousins 35

History 35

Anthropology 37

The Psychological and Biological Sciences 39

Economics and Political Science 40

Divisions within Sociology 41

Microsociology and Macrosociology 42

Conclusion 42

Questions for Review 42

Practice: Seeing Sociologically 44

Chapter 2 Methods 46

Research 101 50

Causality versus Correlation 51

Variables 54

Hypothesis Testing 55

Validity, Reliability, and Generalizability 56

Role of the Researcher 57

Choosing Your Method 61

Data Collection 61

Samples: They're Not Just the Free Tastes at the Supermarket 66

Ethics of Social Research 72

Policy: The Political Battle Over the Citizenship Question 73

Conclusion 75

Questions for Review 76

Practice: Sociology, What Is It Good For? 78

Chapter 3 Culture and Media 80

Definitions of Culture 82

Culture = Human - Nature 82

Culture = (Superior) Man - (Inferior) Man 83

Culture = Man - Machine 85

Material versus Nonmaterial Culture 86

Language, Meaning, and Concepts 87

Ideology 88

Studying Culture 89

Subculture 92

Cultural Effects: Give and Take 93

Reflection Theory 95

Media 97

From the Town Crier to the Facebook Wall: A Brief History 97

Hegemony: The Mother of All Media Terms 99

The Media Life Cycle 100

Texts 100

Back to the Beginning: Cultural Production 100

Media Effects 101

Mommy, Where Do Stereotypes Come From? 103

The Race and Gender Politics of Making Out 104

Racism in the Media 106

Sexism in the Media 108

Political Economy of the Media 109

Consumer Culture 111

Advertising and Children 111

Culture Jams: Hey Calvin, How 'Bout Giving That Girl a Sandwich? 113

Conclusion 114

Policy: What's in a Name? 115

Questions for Review 117

Practice: Subculture Wars 118

Chapter 4 Socialization and the Construction of Reality 120

Socialization: The Concept 123

Limits of Socialization 124

"Human" Nature 124

Theories of Socialization 125

Me, Myself, and I: Development of the Self and the Other 125

Agents of Socialization 129

Families 129

School 133

Peers 135

Adult Socialization 136

Total Institutions 138

Social Interaction 139

Gender Roles 141

The Social Constructions of Reality 144

Dramaturgical Theory 148

Ethnomethodology 153

New Technologies: What Has the Internet Done to Interaction? 154

Policy: Roommates with Benefits 156

Conclusion 158

Questions for Review 159

Practice: Role Conflict and Role Strain 160

Chapter 5 Groups and Networks 162

Social Groups 164

Just the Two of Us 165

And Then There Were Three 166

Size Matters: Why Social Life is Complicated 169

Let's Get This Party Started: Small Groups, Parties, and Large Groups 170

Primary and Secondary Groups 172

Group Conformity 173

In-Groups and Out-Groups 174

Reference Groups 174

From Groups to Networks 174

Embeddedness: The Strength of Weak Ties 175

Six Degrees 179

Social Capital 180

Case Study: Survival of the Amish 184

Network Analysis in Practice 187

The Social Structure of Teenage Sex 188

Romantic Leftovers 191

Organizations 192

Organizational Structure and Culture 193

Institutional Isomorphism: Everybody's Doing It 194

Policy: Right to be Forgotten 195

Conclusion 196

Questions for Review 197

Practice: How to Disappear 198

Chapter 6 Social Control and Deviance 200

What Is Social Deviance? 203

Functionalist Approaches to Deviance and Social Control 204

Social Control 209

A Normative Theory of Suicide 211

Social Forces and Deviance 216

Symbolic Interactionist Theories of Deviance 218

Labeling Theory 218

The Stanford Prison Experiment and Abu Ghraib 222

Stigma 225

Broken Windows Theory of Deviance 226

Crime 228

Street Crime 228

White-Collar Crime 229

Interpreting the Crime Rate 230

Crime Reduction 233

Deterrence Theory of Crime Control 233

Goffman's Total Institution 235

Foucault on Punishment 237

The US Criminal Justice System 241

Policy: Does Prison Work Better as Punishment or Rehab? 244

Conclusion 246

Questions for Review 247

Practice: Everyday Deviance 248

Chapter 7 Stratification 250

Views of Inequality 253

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 253

The Scottish Enlightenment and Thomas Malthus 254

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 257

Modern Theories of Inequality 259

Standards of Equality 260

Equality of Opportunity 260

Equality of Condition 262

Equality of Outcome 263

Forms of Stratification 264

Estate System 264

Caste System 265

Class System 266

Status Hierarchy System 269

Elite-Mass Dichotomy System 272

Income Versus Wealth 274

How Is America Stratified Today? 275

The Upper Class 275

The Middle Class 277

The Poor 280

Global Inequality 281

Social Reproduction versus Social Mobility 284

Policy: Class-Based Affirmative Action 289

Conclusion 291

Questions for Review 292

Practice: The $5,000 Toothbrush 294

Chapter 8 Gender 296

Let's Talk About Sex Gender 298

Sex: A Process in the Making 299

Seeing Sex as Social: The Case of Nonbinary Individuals 300

Sexed Bodies in the Premodern World 301

Contemporary Concepts of Sex and the Paradoxes of Gender 301

Gender: What Does It Take to Be Feminine or Masculine? 302

Making Gender 303

Gender Differences over Time 305

Welcome to Ze College, Ze 306

Theories of Gender Inequality 309

Rubin's Sex/Gender System 309

Parsons's Sex Role Theory 311

Psychoanalytic Theories 312

Conflict Theories 313

"Doing Gender": Interactionist Theories 314

Black Feminism and Intersectionality 315

Postmodern and Global Perspectives 316

Growing Up, Getting Ahead, and Falling Behind 317

Growing Up with Gender 318

Inequality at Work 319

Sociology in the Bedroom 326

Sex: From Plato to NATO 326

The Social Construction of Sexuality 327

Contemporary Sexualities: The Q Word 331

"Hey": Teen Sex, from Hooking Up to Virginity Pledges 333

Sex and Aging 336

Policy : #Methree 338

Conclusion 339

Questions for Review 340

Practice: Measuring Mansplaining 342

Chapter 9 Race 344

The Myth of Race 346

The Concept of Race from the Ancients to Alleles 349

Race in the Early Modern World 350

Eugenics 353

Twentieth-Century Concepts of Race 355

Racial Realities 357

Race versus Ethnicity 360

Racial Groups in the United States 363

Native Americans 363

African Americans 365

Latinxs 366

Asian Americans 368

Middle Eastern Americans 370

The Importance of Being White 370

Inter-Group Relations 373

Pluralism 374

Segregation and Discrimination 376

Racial Conflict 381

Group Responses to Domination 382

Withdrawal 382

Passing 383

Acceptance versus Resistance 384

Prejudice, Discrimination, and the New Racism 384

How Race Matters: The Case of Wealth 387

Institutional Racism 389

The Future of Race 391

Policy: DNA Databases 395

Conclusion 396

Questions for Review 397

Practice: How Segregated are You? 398

Chapter 10 Family 400

Family Forms and Changes 403

Malinowski and the Traditional Family 404

The Family in the Western World Today 408

Keeping It in the Family: The Historical Divide between Public and Private 411

Premodern Families 411

The Emergence of the Male Breadwinner Family 413

Families after World War II 414

Family and Work: A Not-So-Subtle Revolution 416

A Feminist "Rethinking of the Family" 417

When Home Is No Haven: Domestic Abuse 419

The Chore Wars: Supermom Does It All 420

Swimming and Sinking: Inequality and American Families 426

African American Families 426

Latinx Families 428

Flat Broke with Children 429

The Pecking Order: Inequality Starts at Home 433

The Future of Families, and There Goes the Nation! 435

Divorce 435

Blended Families 438

Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Families 438

Multiracial Families 440

Immigrant Families 441

Policy: Expanding Marriage 442

Conclusion 444

Questions for Review 444

Practice: Making Invisible Labor Visible 446

Glossary A1

Bibliography A14

Credits A49

Index A53

Editorial Reviews

"For once, I was actually excited about reading a textbook. It seemed as if the author was talking directly to me at times."

social work major LaToya

"Honestly, I loved this book. It was so much more interesting than the other assigned readings, and reading You May Ask Yourself was the only assignment I always had done."

sociology major Melissa

Dalton Conley's You May Ask Yourself is a refreshingly different non-textbook book that I'd strongly encourage others to explore.

Brian Powell

You May Ask Yourself represents a departure from the typical cookie-cutter approach that characterizes most introductory texts. The best sociology textbooks read like storybooks, and students are actually interested in doing the readings. This book has the potential for approaching that standard.

Ralph Pyle

Hip, splashy, youthful, concise, emotive, provocative, unpretentious, sharp, with a fresh take on the issues.

Jennifer Schultz

Conley's text has filled an important niche for the community college needs. It is affordable, readable, colorful, and yet has fewer pages to read, which is an important consideration for my beginning-level community college students, and has examples that my young students can relate to.

Sharon Warner Methvin

Rather than bombarding students with lots of statistics, Dalton Conley seems more concerned with getting the ‘big ideas’ of the discipline across, and to encourage them to ask meaningful questions.

Michael Nofz

Your students will be captured by Conley’s conversational style and drawn into reading the text before they know what hit them. Conley provides a thorough discussion of theory with relevant past and contemporary examples. Further, he challenges the students to question what they’ve taken for granted most of their lives.

Cheryl Maes

I admit I assigned You May Ask Yourself mostly because of the cost to my students. However, after teaching from it, I find it is better than any text I have ever used. The chapters are interesting and thorough. In fact, I believe the chapters on gender and race are the best I have ever used. Dalton Conley also does a great job of integrating race and gender into every chapter. He covers a great deal of material, reflects important and recent research, and presents it in ways that students can understand.

Joan E. Manley

It was like reading magazines with images of my favorite actors and politicians. I loved looking at the book and reading it.

nursing major Abigail