Liberation sociology is concerned with eliminating social oppressions and creating truly just societies. Liberation sociology takes sides with the oppressed and envisions an end to that oppression. Liberation social scientists featured in this book consciously try to step outside their groups or societies and view them critically. The authors examine theories and research of social scientists who ask, Social science for what purpose? and Social science for whom? Case studies offer humanistic, democratic, and activist answers. Featured researchers provide tools to increase human abilities to understand deep social realities, engage in better dialogues, and increase democratic participation in use of knowledge.Many people of all ages today continue to be attracted to sociology and other social sciences because of their promise to contribute to better political, social, and moral understandings of themselves and their social worlds-and often because they hope it will help them to build a better society. We accent the liberation potential of social science with these social science teachers and students firmly in mind.

Adapted from David M. Newman’s best-selling Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life, this briefer, streamlined version continues to show students how to see the “unfamiliar in the familiar,” inspiring them to think critically about their own lives and social contexts. As in the full text, the author’s approachable writing style and lively personal anecdotes make the Brief Edition a text that “reads like a real book.” It uses the metaphors of “architecture” and “construction” to help students understand that society is not something that exists “out there,” independently of themselves; it is a human creation that is planned, formed, maintained, or altered by individuals. Rather than surveying every subfield in sociology, the Brief Edition focuses on the individual and society, the construction of self and society, and social inequality in the context of social structures.

Presents a selection of forty-six readings that provide, an introduction to the sociological perspective, look at how sociologists conduct research, examine the cultural underpinnings of social life, and discuss social groups and social structure, gender and sexuality, deviance, and social stratification, institutions, and change.

The SAGE Encyclopedia of the Sociology of Religion takes a look at the role of religion in society; unpacking and evaluating the significance of religion in and on human history; and tracing and outlining the social forces and influences that shape religion.

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical contributions – so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands and see how their work contributes to the development of the field. In a collection of her most influential work spanning nearly four decades, Patricia Broadfoot applies her trademark sociological and comparative perspective to empirical studies at every level of the educational system. From her classic long-term study of the impact of changing national assessment policies on pupils and teachers in the classrooms of England and France to her sustained championship of the need for a better understanding of the impact of assessment on learning, Broadfoot has consistently championed the need for a more developed sociological understanding of assessment. Broadfoot’s accessible writing offers insights that are as novel as they are important for the education of future generations. This book allows readers to follow themes and strands across Patricia Broadfoot’s career and will be of interest to all followers of her work and any reader interested in the development of teaching, learning and assessment.

A collection of essays by feminist scholars on feminist sociology, reflecting the cultural and historical context in which feminist scholarship has taken place.

The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology and Christianity examines the intersection of the sociology of religion – a long-standing focus of sociology as a discipline – and Christianity – the world’s largest religion. An internationally representative and thematically comprehensive collection, it analyzes both the sociology of Christianity and Christian approaches to sociology, with attention to the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant branches of Christianity. An authoritative, state-of-the-art review of current research, it is organized into five inter-connected thematic sections, considering the overlapping emergence of both the Christian religion and the social science, the conceptualization of and engagement with Christianity by sociological theory, the ways in which Christianity shapes and is shaped by various social institutions, the manner in which Christianity resists and promotes various forms of social change, and the identification, diagnosis, and correction of social problems by sociology and Christianity. This volume is an invaluable collection for scholars and advanced students, with special appeal for those working in the fields of sociology and social theory, as well as religious studies and theology