Social Theory in the Real World

Social Theory in the Real World PDF Author: Steven Miles
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 0857022156
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Social Theory in the Real World is concerned with illustrating the practical benefits of social theory. Many students find it hard to relate the real insights provided by social theory to their real life experiences, and many lecturers struggle to demonstrate the relevance of social theory to everyday life. This book offers an accessible, non-patronizing solution to the problem, demonstrating that social theory need not be remote and obscure, but if used in imaginative ways, it can be indispensable in challenging our common sense perceptions and understandings. The book identifies the key themes of contemporary social theory: mass society, postindustrialism, consumerism, postmodernism, McDonaldization, risk and globalization, and uses the insights of both classical and contemporary theorists of social change to highlight the potential of imaginative theorizing.

Social Theory in the Real World

Social Theory in the Real World PDF Author: Steven Miles
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 0857022156
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 193

Get Book Here

Book Description
Social Theory in the Real World is concerned with illustrating the practical benefits of social theory. Many students find it hard to relate the real insights provided by social theory to their real life experiences, and many lecturers struggle to demonstrate the relevance of social theory to everyday life. This book offers an accessible, non-patronizing solution to the problem, demonstrating that social theory need not be remote and obscure, but if used in imaginative ways, it can be indispensable in challenging our common sense perceptions and understandings. The book identifies the key themes of contemporary social theory: mass society, postindustrialism, consumerism, postmodernism, McDonaldization, risk and globalization, and uses the insights of both classical and contemporary theorists of social change to highlight the potential of imaginative theorizing.

The Dynamics of Social Practice

The Dynamics of Social Practice PDF Author: Elizabeth Shove
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446290034
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
Everyday life is defined and characterised by the rise, transformation and fall of social practices. Using terminology that is both accessible and sophisticated, this essential book guides the reader through a multi-level analysis of this dynamic. In working through core propositions about social practices and how they change the book is clear and accessible; real world examples, including the history of car driving, the emergence of frozen food, and the fate of hula hooping, bring abstract concepts to life and firmly ground them in empirical case-studies and new research. Demonstrating the relevance of social theory for public policy problems, the authors show that the everyday is the basis of social transformation addressing questions such as: how do practices emerge, exist and die? what are the elements from which practices are made? how do practices recruit practitioners? how are elements, practices and the links between them generated, renewed and reproduced? Precise, relevant and persuasive this book will inspire students and researchers from across the social sciences. Elizabeth Shove is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University. Mika Pantzar is Research Professor at the National Consumer Research Centre, Helsinki. Matt Watson is Lecturer in Social and Cultural Geography at University of Sheffield.

The Real World

The Real World PDF Author: Kerry Ferris
Publisher: W. W. Norton
ISBN: 9780393639308
Category : Popular culture
Languages : en
Pages : 505

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Book Description
"In every chapter, Ferris and Stein use examples from everyday life and pop culture to draw students into thinking sociologically and to show the relevance of sociology to their relationships, jobs, and future goals. Data Workshops in every chapter give students a chance to apply theoretical concepts to their personal lives and actually do sociology.

Media, Society, World

Media, Society, World PDF Author: Nick Couldry
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745680763
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Media are fundamental to our sense of living in a social world. Since the beginning of modernity, media have transformed the scale on which we act as social beings. And now in the era of digital media, media themselves are being transformed as platforms, content, and producers multiply. Yet the implications of social theory for understanding media and of media for rethinking social theory have been neglected; never before has it been more important to understand those implications. This book takes on this challenge. Drawing on Couldry's fifteen years of work on media and social theory, this book explores how questions of power and ritual, capital and social order, and the conduct of political struggle, professional competition, and everyday life, are all transformed by today's complex combinations of traditional and 'new' media. In the concluding chapters Couldry develops a framework for global comparative research into media and for thinking collectively about the ethics and justice of our lives with media. The result is a book that is both a major intervention in the field and required reading for all students of media and sociology.

Social Theory after the Internet

Social Theory after the Internet PDF Author: Ralph Schroeder
Publisher: UCL Press
ISBN: 178735122X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
The internet has fundamentally transformed society in the past 25 years, yet existing theories of mass or interpersonal communication do not work well in understanding a digital world. Nor has this understanding been helped by disciplinary specialization and a continual focus on the latest innovations. Ralph Schroeder takes a longer-term view, synthesizing perspectives and findings from various social science disciplines in four countries: the United States, Sweden, India and China. His comparison highlights, among other observations, that smartphones are in many respects more important than PC-based internet uses. Social Theory after the Internet focuses on everyday uses and effects of the internet, including information seeking and big data, and explains how the internet has gone beyond traditional media in, for example, enabling Donald Trump and Narendra Modi to come to power. Schroeder puts forward a sophisticated theory of the role of the internet, and how both technological and social forces shape its significance. He provides a sweeping and penetrating study, theoretically ambitious and at the same time always empirically grounded.The book will be of great interest to students and scholars of digital media and society, the internet and politics, and the social implications of big data.

Theory for the Working Sociologist

Theory for the Working Sociologist PDF Author: Fabio Rojas
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231543697
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Theory for the Working Sociologist makes social theory easy to understand by revealing sociology's hidden playbook. Fabio Rojas argues that sociologists use four different theoretical "moves" when they try to explain the social world: how groups defend their status, how people strategically pursue their goals, how values and institutions support each other, and how people create their social reality. Rojas uses famous sociological studies to illustrate these four types of theory and show how students and researchers may apply them to their interests. The guiding light of the book is the concept of the "social mechanism," which clearly and succinctly links causes and effects in social life. Drawing on dozens of empirical studies that define modern sociology and focusing on the nuts and bolts of social explanation, Rojas reveals how areas of study within the field of sociology that at first glance seem dissimilar are, in fact, linked by shared theoretical underpinnings. In doing so, he elucidates classical and contemporary theory, and connects both to essential sociological findings made throughout the history of the field. Aimed at undergraduate students, graduate students, journalists, and interested general readers who want a more formal way to understand social life, Theory for the Working Sociologist presents the underlying themes of sociological thought using contemporary research and plain language.

Approaches to Social Theory

Approaches to Social Theory PDF Author: Stewart Lindenberg
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610443616
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 409

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Book Description
Many social scientists lament the increasing fragmentation of their discipline, the trend toward specialization and away from engagement with overarching issues. Opportunities to transcend established subdisciplinary boundaries are rare, but the extraordinary conference that gave rise to this volume was one such occasion. The W. I. Thomas and Florian Znaniecki Memorial Conference on Social Theory, held at the University of Chicago, brought together an outstanding array of scholars representing a variety of contending approaches to social theory. In panels, presentations, and general discussions, these scholars confronted one another in the context of an entire range of approaches. But as readers of this deftly edited collection will discover, the conference was more than a forum for abstract theoretical debate. These papers and discussions represent original scholarly contributions that exemplify orientations to social theory by examining real problems in the functioning of society—from large-scale economic growth and decline to the dynamics of interpersonal interaction. By exploring a few central issues in different ways, this unique conference worked through some lively theoretical incompatibilities and established genuine potential for communication, for complementary and collaborative effort at the core of sociology. The excitement of that dialogue, and the intellectual vitality it generated, are captured for the reader in Approaches to Social Theory. "Meaty presentations and confrontations of ideas by people whose views we respect...Recommended to anyone interested in the current state of social theory." —Contemporary Sociology

Modern Sociological Theory

Modern Sociological Theory PDF Author: George Ritzer
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1071823264
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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Book Description
The authors are proud sponsors of the SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award—enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop. Modern Sociological Theory gives readers a comprehensive overview of the major theorists and schools of sociological thought, from sociology′s 19th century origins through the mid-20th century. Written by an author team that includes one of the leading contemporary thinkers, the text integrates key theories with with biographical sketches of theorists, placing them in historical and intellectual context.

Classical Sociological Theory

Classical Sociological Theory PDF Author: George Ritzer
Publisher: SAGE Publications
ISBN: 1506325564
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 593

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Book Description
Now with SAGE Publishing, and co-authored by one of the foremost authorities on sociological theory, George Ritzer and Jeffrey Stepnisky’s Classical Sociological Theory, Seventh Edition, provides a comprehensive overview of the major theorists and schools of sociological thought from the Enlightenment roots of theory through the early 20th century. The integration of key theories with biographical sketches of theorists and the requisite historical and intellectual context helps students to better understand the original works of classical authors as well as to compare and contrast classical theories. New to this Edition · In Ch. 1, Colonialism is now discussed as a major social force in development of modern society. · In Ch. 2, there is an expanded discussion of the historical significance of Early Women Founders and the contributions of W.E.B. Du Bois. · The chapter on Du Bois (Ch. 9) includes new material about his intellectual influences. · New contemporary commentary about Durkheim has been added to Ch. 7. · Ch. 9 includes new material from recently translated later writings of George Simmel, providing new context for his overall theory. · Addition of Historical Context boxes throughout text. · Sections on contemporary applications of classical theory have been added to each chapter.

Theories of Social Order

Theories of Social Order PDF Author: Michael Hechter
Publisher: Stanford Social Science
ISBN: 9780804758734
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
This newly expanded and reorganized collection of readings provides a compelling exploration of what arguably remains the single most important problem in social theory: the problem of social order.