Known for its balanced coverage of the 3 perspectives, this text continues to encourage students to think about their world with a sociological imagination. Through its strong coverage of globalization, race and ethnicity, careers in sociology, and current topics like mass media and social policy, Sociology provides students with knowledge they can use on campus, at work, in their neighborhoods, and in the global community. The new 12th edition features updated sections in various chapters reflecting recent sociological changes like the impact of the current economic downturn on social class and the global culture war. New Research Today boxes provide students with relevant examples of sociological research.

    This eye-opening, sometimes shocking exploration tells what life is really like for the stepchildren of Uncle Sam. A new recovery group, Adult Children of Military Personnel, Inc., has been formed as a direct result of this book's publication.

    Yet what happens if we continue to be plagued with spiritual and emotional problems, and the intimacy we long for with Christ seems elusive?What we need, says inner healing expert Charles H. Kraft, is deep-level healing: healing for our whole person--spirit, body, mind, emotions and will. Using a simple, proven process, refined through 25 years of successful ministry, Kraft leads readers step by step through deep-level healing.Once you experience true freedom, you will find the intimacy with Jesus that you desire, and you'll be equipped to help others find this freedom as well.

    Indeed, American students lag behind their peers in other nations, but America remains on the leading edge economically, scientifically, technologically, and militarily. The reason for this paradox, explains Barone in this brilliant essay, is that “from ages six to eighteen Americans live mostly in what I call Soft America—the parts of our country where there is little competition and accountability. But from ages eighteen to thirty Americans live mostly in Hard America—the parts of American life subject to competition and accountability.” While Soft America coddles, Hard America plays for keeps. Educators, for example, protect children from the rigors of testing, ban dodgeball, and promote just about any student who shows up. But most adults quickly figure out that how they do depends on what they produce. Barone sweeps readers along, showing how we came to the current divide—for things weren’t always this way. In fact, no part of our society is all Hard or all Soft, and the boundary between Hard America and Soft America often moves back and forth. Barone also shows where America is headed—or should be headed. We don’t want to subject kindergartners to the rigors of the Marine Corps or leave old people uncared for. But Soft America lives off the productivity, creativity, and competence of Hard America, and we have the luxury of keeping part of our society Soft only if we keep most of it Hard.Hard America, Soft America reveals: • How the American situation is unique: In Europe, schooling is competitive and demanding, but adult life is Soft, with generous welfare benefits, short work hours, long vacations, and state pensions• How the American military has reclaimed the Hard goals and programs it abandoned in the Vietnam era• How Hardness drives America’s economy—an economy that businesses and economists nearly destroyed in the 1970s by spurning competition • How America’s schools have failed because they are bastions of Softness—but how they are finally showing signs of Hardening• The benefits of Softness: How government programs like Social Security were necessary in what was a harsh and unforgiving America• Hard America, Soft America is a stunningly original and provocative work of social commentary from one of this country’s most respected political analysts.From the Hardcover edition.

    Based on interviews with 120 uninsured men and women and dozens of medical providers, policymakers, and advocates from around the nation, this book takes a fresh look at one of the most important social issues facing the United States today. A new afterword updates the stories of many of the people who are so memorably presented here.

    Besides the uncomfortable bump, they can create permanent damage to vehicles. And left untended, potholes can evolve into sinkholes that endanger entire roadway systems.  The same is true of our lives. We all have potholes that have been formed by pain, trauma, or choices that we’ve made. What do we do? Usually we find a quick fix, filling the hole with activities and even addictions disguised as culturally acceptable life choices. But before long, the hole is back, waiting to catch us off-guard, which in the end creates even more permanent damage. In The Thing Beneath the Thing, former Willow Creek Community Church lead teaching pastor Steve Carter asks the simple question, “How is life working for you?” He knows that potholes exist and that the longer we live disconnected from answering this question, the more we will fill those holes with harmful choices. The solution? Allow God to fill them with His grace and love so that we can discover the beauty of grace, peace, and wholeness He has for us.The process lies in discovering ourtriggers: the setup that sets us offhideouts: where we go to escape the pain of our storyinsecurities: the false stories we create about ourselvesnarratives: the false stories we create about othersgrace: the place where we discover how to become whole, holy, and spiritually healthyJourney with a seasoned fellow traveler who has learned how to ask key questions that help unlock the places where we’ve buried things. Then dig deep, invite healing, and learn new ways to operate so that we may begin to experience the life of freedom Jesus has promised us.

    The New Better Off puts a name to the American phenomenon of rejecting the traditional dream of a 9-to-5 job, home ownership, and a nuclear family structure—illuminating the alternate ways Americans are seeking happiness and success.Including commentary on recent changes in how we view work, customs and community, marriage, rituals, money, living arrangements, and spirituality, The New Better Off uses personal stories and social analysis to explore the trends shaping our country today. Martin covers growing topics such as freelancing, collaborative consumption, communal living, and the breaking down of gender roles. The New Better Off is about the creative choices individuals are making in their vocational and personal lives, but it’s also about the movements, formal and informal, that are coalescing around the New Better Off idea—people who are reinventing the social safety net and figuring out how to truly better their own communities."We all know that money can't buy peace, kindness or honesty—in the Age of Trump, what could be more clear? Courtney Martin is a practical and lyrical explorer in showing us how money as the only measure of "better off" has failed us, and what is needed to create a new American Dream for us and the next generation. Never has there been a more timely and livable book."—Gloria Steinem"This book encapsulates a huge idea: That our dreams of individual success are in urgent need of an upgrade. Courtney Martin makes the case with extraordinary eloquence anchored in beautiful personal stories. If you're depressed about the current state of America, she offers a powerful antidote."—Chris Anderson, CEO of TED

    Both talks deal with the importance of conscience and its exercise in particular circumstances.Ratzinger's reflections show that contemporary debates over the nature of conscience have deep historical and philosophical roots. He says that a person is bound to act in accord with his conscience, but he makes it clear that there must be reliable, proven sources for the judgment of conscience in moral issues, other than the subjective reflections of each individual.The always unique and profound insights that the new Pope Benedict XVI brings to perennial problems reminds the reader of his strong warning before the recent Papal conclave of the great dangers today of the dictatorship of relativism.

    

    Forceful. Impatient. Always in a hurry. And they're usually ready to tell others how to do their jobs "better." Control freaks. Maybe you know one. Maybe you are one. What are you to do? Psychologist Les Parrott (a recovering control freak) helps readers relate better to the control freaks around them. And if you are a control freak, Les will help you become willing to lose the control you love. The book includes self-tests and a lifelong prescription for healthier relationships.

    These tough realities are not given much attention by many people until midlife, when they become harder to avoid. Using a Buddhist text known as the Five Subjects for Frequent Recollection, Larry Rosenberg shows how intimacy with the realities of aging can actually be used as a means to liberation. When we become intimate with these inevitable aspects of life, he writes, we also become intimate with ourselves, with others, with the world—indeed with all things.

    Dialogue-when it happens at all-is heated. It isn't that we've lost hope in what faith and politics can accomplish in our world. It's that in our polarizing times, faith and politics seem to be leading more to rage than actual change. It's discouraging, disheartening, and disappointing. But it doesn't have to stay that way. Civility is not a pipe dream. Nuance is not unrecoverable. Peace is possible. And it can all start right here, right now, with us. For those who are looking for a better way to engage on the topics that mean the most to them, for those who are looking to build a bridge with the people politics and religion has isolated them from, for those who won't settle for the growing space between us and who believe there's a better way, this book is for you.

    Burge details a comprehensive picture of an increasingly significant group--Americans who say they have no religious affiliation.The growth of the nones in American society has been dramatic. In 1972, just 5 percent of Americans claimed "no religion" on the General Social Survey. In 2018, that number rose to 23.7 percent, making the nones as numerous as both evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. Every indication is that the nones will be the largest religious group in the United States in the next decade.Burge illustrates his precise but accessible descriptions with charts and graphs drawn from over a dozen carefully curated datasets, some tracking changes in American religion over a long period of time, others large enough to allow a statistical deep dive on subgroups such as atheists and agnostics. Burge also draws on data that tracks how individuals move in and out of religion over time, helping readers understand what type of people become nones and what factors lead an individual to return to religion.The Nones gives readers a nuanced, accurate, and meaningful picture of the growing number of Americans who say they have no religious affiliation. Burge explains how this rise happened, who the nones are, and what they mean for the future of American religion.

    But one of the worst is when an innocent gets violated. Why does God allow such things to happen? What Joy Tan-Chi Mendoza went through when she was 15 has been a very public and strong statement of pain, healing, and grace. She has now put her story into a book that she hopes will show people that there is hope, healing, and wholeness for those who have experienced abuse and this kind of pain. What Satan meant for harm, God meant for good.

    It is a book about the advantages of living a less cluttered, less stressful life than that which has become the norm in the overcrowded and manic-paced consuming nations. It is a book about having less and enjoying more, enjoying time to do the work you love, enjoying time to spend with your family, enjoying time to pursue creative projects, enjoying time for good eating, enjoying time just to be.