Belonging is often overlooked in its relationship to society and social change, and yet it forms the bedrock of how we relate to the world around us. Through the work of Marx, Giddens and Goffman, this book covers the familiar terrain of identity theory, while going beyond it to other sites of identification and social change.

George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) is a founding figure in the field of sociology. His stature is comparable to that of his contemporaries Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. Mead's contribution was a profound and unique American theory that analyzed society and the individual as social objects. As Mead saw it, both society and the individual emerged from cooperative, democratic processes linking the self, the other, and the community. Mary Jo Deegan, a leading scholar of Mead's work, traces the evolution of his thought , its continuity and change. She is particularly interested in the most controversial period of Mead's work, in which he addressed topics of violence and the nation state. Mead's theory of war, peace, and society emerged out of the historical events of his time, particularly World War I. During this period he went from being a pacifist, along with his contemporaries John Dewey and Jane Addams, to being a strong advocate for war. From 1917-1918 Mead became a leader in voicing the need for war based on his theory of self and society. After the war, he became disillusioned with President Woodrow Wilson, with Americans' failure to support mechanisms for international arbitration, and with the political reasons for American participation in World War I. He returned to a more pacifist and co-operative model of behavior during the 1920s, when he became less political, more abstract, and more withdrawn from public debate. The book includes Deegan's interpretation of Mead's early social thought, his friendship and family networks, the historical context of America at war, and the importance of analysis of violence and the state from Mead's perspective. She also provides illustrative selections from Mead's work, much of which was previously unpublished.

Control theories have dominated criminological theory and research since the 1969 publication of Hirschi's seminal work on the social bond. Social control and self-control theorists are unique in suggesting that patterns in criminal behaviors are better explained by variations in social constraints rather than by individual motivational impulses, thus indicating that their main concerns are the explication and clarification of the techniques, processes, and institutions of informal social control. The four major sections of this volume focus on: the similarities and differences among the major contributors to the early developmental stage of social control theory; the central importance of parents, peers, and schools in the creation of informal control mechanisms and their link to crime and delinquency; the theoretical underpinnings of self-control theory, including empirical tests and criticisms; and theoretical integrations of social control and self-control theories with various motivational theories of crime and delinquency.

This book shows how the individual constructs a self from the thousands of colloquial identities provided by a society's culture, and reveals how the individual actualizes and sustains an integrated and stable self while navigating the sometimes treacherous waters of everyday institutional life.

Drawing upon the perspective of social identity theory, The Development of the Social Self is concerned with the acquisition and development of children's social identities. In contrast to previous work on self-development, which has focused primarily on the development of the personal self, this volume makes a case for the importance of the study of the social self - that is, the self as defined through group memberships, such as gender, ethnicity, and nationality. A broad range of identity-related issues are addressed, such as ingroup identification, conceptions of social identities, prejudice, and the central role of social context. Based on contributions from leading researchers in Europe, Australia and the US, the book summarises the major research programmes conducted to date. Furthermore, the closing chapters provide commentary on this research, as well as mapping out key directions for future research. With a unique focus encompassing both social and developmental psychology, The Development of the Social Self will appeal to a broad spectrum of students and researchers in both disciplines, as well as those working in related areas such as sociology and child development.

Advancing Social Studies Education through Self-Study Methodology provides a collection of works that highlights ways in which self-study of teaching and teacher education practices can advance conversations and knowledge in social studies education. Some of the pieces chosen for this book will provide theoretical connections between the two fields (e.g. how values and principles important to both fields work together, are similar, and can help each field expand). Others will provide specific examples of self-studies that focus on social studies specific concepts. The book provides a strong and clear introduction of self-study to the field of social studies education as well as an argument for its use to further understand social studies teaching and teacher education. It also provides the self-study community with an example of how self-study can be used to look at content specific aspects of teaching and teacher education.

In this, the first of a six-volume contribution to systematic theology, Grenz creatively extends the insights of contemporary Trinitarian thought to theological anthropology. "The Social God and the Relational Self" is an example of theological construction as an ongoing conversation involving biblical texts, the theological heritage of the Christian tradition, and the contemporary historical-social context.

Despite tremendous progress in understanding the human body as a biological mechanism, researchers are finding that many aspects of physical health are strongly linked to a person's thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and to features of the sociocultural environment. This interdisciplinary volume, the newest in the Rutgers Series on Self and Social Identity, provides a survey of this research, emphasizing the connections between health and an individual's sense of self. Drawing on psychology, sociology and anthropology, the collection examines the health-related effects both of broad social forces and of individual experiences. Part I examines the diverse systems involved, moving from the biological and psychological systems in the individual to such societal systems as language, politics, economics, and health care. Part II focuses on stress and emotion and includes an extensive discussion of race related stress and of the beneficial effects of disclosing and talking about individual traumatic events. Part III addresses health in the context of personality and development, proposing a multilevel view of personality and describing the emergence of sexual identities during adolescence. The final part then looks at the other side of the self-health relationship by examining the effects of illness on one's sense of self. As a whole, the collection provides a wide ranging survey of existing work on how self and health are linked and is a valuable source of ideas for future research.

This is essential reading for professionals making judgements under pressure. It demonstrates how self-leadership is not only about surviving but thriving in a continually changing environment and introduces key theories, skills and debates to help professionals deliver high quality professional practice every day. The book focuses in on the quality of professional thinking, self- and social awareness, self-regulation and self-management, and the fundamentals of sustained resilience.

This volume focuses on the experience of growing old as it is linked to societal factors. Ryff and Marshall construct this "macro" view of aging in society by bridging disciplines and brining together contributors from all the social sciences. The book is organized into three sections: theoretical perspectives, socioeconomic structures, and contexts of self and society. Leading psychologists, anthropologists, gerontologists, and sociologists present theoretical and empirical advances that forge links between the individual and the social aspects of aging. It is must reading for researchers in all gerontologic specialties, and a valuable text for graduate courses in human development, psychology of aging, and other social aspects of aging.