Cowboy Ethics


James P. Owen - 2005
    Owen shares his new perspective on Wall Street and how the Code of the West can and should be applied to business practices and the corporate world. The book is beautifully illustrated with David Stoecklein's western photography

Unfaithful Angels: How Social Work Has Abandoned its Mission


Harry Specht - 1993
    As Specht and Courtney persuasively demonstrate, if social work continues to drift in this direction there is good reason to expect that the profession will be entirely engulfed by psychotherapy within the next twenty years, leaving a huge gap in the provision of social services traditionally filled by social workers. The authors examine the waste of public funds this trend occasions, as social workers educated with public money abandon community service in increasing numbers.

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better


Richard G. Wilkinson - 2009
    Why do we mistrust people more in the UK than in Japan? Why do Americans have higher rates of teenage pregnancy than the French? What makes the Swedish thinner than the Greeks? The answer: inequality. This groundbreaking book, based on years of research, provides hard evidence to show how almost everything—-from life expectancy to depression levels, violence to illiteracy-—is affected not by how wealthy a society is, but how equal it is. Urgent, provocative and genuinely uplifting, The Spirit Level has been heralded as providing a new way of thinking about ourselves and our communities, and could change the way you see the world.

Keeping Track: How Schools Structure Inequality


Jeannie Oakes - 1986
    For this new edition, Jeannie Oakes has added a new Preface and a new final chapter in which she discusses the “tracking wars” of the last twenty years, wars in which Keeping Track has played a central role.From reviews of the first edition:“Should be read by anyone who wishes to improve schools.”—M. Donald Thomas, American School Board Journal“[This] engaging [book] . . . has had an influence on educational thought and policy that few works of social science ever achieve.”—Tom Loveless in The Tracking Wars“Should be read by teachers, administrators, school board members, and parents.”—Georgia Lewis, Childhood Education“Valuable. . . . No one interested in the topic can afford not to attend to it.”—Kenneth A. Strike, Teachers College Record

The Left Behind: Decline and Rage in Rural America


Robert Wuthnow - 2018
    Wuthnow demonstrates that to truly understand rural Americans' anger, their culture must be explored more fully.We hear from farmers who want government out of their business, factory workers who believe in working hard to support their families, town managers who find the federal government unresponsive to their communities' needs, and clergy who say the moral climate is being undermined. Wuthnow argues that rural America's fury stems less from specific economic concerns than from the perception that Washington is distant from and yet threatening to the social fabric of small towns. Rural dwellers are especially troubled by Washington's seeming lack of empathy for such small-town norms as personal responsibility, frugality, cooperation, and common sense. Wuthnow also shows that while these communities may not be as discriminatory as critics claim, racism and misogyny remain embedded in rural patterns of life.Moving beyond simplistic depictions of the residents of America's heartland, The Left Behind offers a clearer picture of how this important population will influence the nation's political future.

Rigging the Game: How Inequality Is Reproduced in Everyday Life


Michael Schwalbe - 2007
    Guided by the questions How did the situation get this way? and How does it stay this way?, Schwalbe tracks inequality from its roots to its regulation. In the final chapter, "Escaping the Inequality Trap," he also shows how inequality can be overcome. Throughout, Schwalbe's engaging writing style draws students into the material, providing instructors with a solid foundation for discussing this challenging and provocative subject.With its lively combination of incisive analysis and compelling fictional narratives, Rigging the Game is an innovative teaching tool--not only for courses on stratification, but also for social problems courses, introductory sociology courses, and any course that takes a close look at how the inequalities of race, class, and gender are perpetuated.

A Preface to Democratic Theory


Robert A. Dahl - 1956
    Exploring problems that had been left unsolved by traditional thought on democracy, Dahl here examines two influential models—the Madisonian, which represents prevailing American doctrine, and its recurring challenger, populist theory—arguing that they do not accurately portray how modern democracies operate. He then constructs a model more consistent with how contemporary democracies actually function, and, in doing so, develops some original views of popular sovereignty and the American constitutional system. For this fiftieth-anniversary edition, Dahl has written an extensive new afterword that reevaluates Madisonian theory in light of recent research. And in a new foreword, he reflects back on his influential volume and the ways his views have evolved since he wrote it. For any student or scholar of political science, this new material is an essential update on a gold standard in the evolving field of democratic theory. “A Preface to Democratic Theory is well worth the devoted attention of anyone who cares about democracy.”—Political Science Quarterly

The Trouble With Rich Women (Singles Classic)


Gloria Steinem - 1986
    Intimacy and access make rebellion very dangerous.”In The Problem With Rich Women, Gloria Steinem explores how and why feminism failed to reach women in powerful families, and provides an urgent and persuasive argument for rebellion among upper-class women.The Problem With Rich Women was originally published in Ms., June 1986. Cover design by Adil Dara.

The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students


Anthony Abraham Jack - 2019
    The Privileged Poor reveals how—and why—disadvantaged students struggle at elite colleges, and explains what schools can do differently if these students are to thrive.The Ivy League looks different than it used to. College presidents and deans of admission have opened their doors—and their coffers—to support a more diverse student body. But is it enough just to admit these students? In The Privileged Poor, Anthony Jack reveals that the struggles of less privileged students continue long after they’ve arrived on campus. Admission, they quickly learn, is not the same as acceptance. This bracing and necessary book documents how university policies and cultures can exacerbate preexisting inequalities and reveals why these policies hit some students harder than others.Despite their lofty aspirations, top colleges hedge their bets by recruiting their new diversity largely from the same old sources, admitting scores of lower-income black, Latino, and white undergraduates from elite private high schools like Exeter and Andover. These students approach campus life very differently from students who attended local, and typically troubled, public high schools and are often left to flounder on their own. Drawing on interviews with dozens of undergraduates at one of America’s most famous colleges and on his own experiences as one of the privileged poor, Jack describes the lives poor students bring with them and shows how powerfully background affects their chances of success.If we truly want our top colleges to be engines of opportunity, university policies and campus cultures will have to change. Jack provides concrete advice to help schools reduce these hidden disadvantages—advice we cannot afford to ignore.

It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens


Danah Boyd - 2014
    . . It’s Complicated will update your mind.”—Alissa Quart, New York Times Book Review  “A fascinating, well-researched and (mostly) reassuring look at how today's tech-savvy teenagers are using social media.”—People  “The briefest possible summary? The kids are all right, but society isn’t.”—Andrew Leonard, Salon   What is new about how teenagers communicate through services such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? Do social media affect the quality of teens’ lives? In this eye-opening book, youth culture and technology expert danah boyd uncovers some of the major myths regarding teens' use of social media. She explores tropes about identity, privacy, safety, danger, and bullying. Ultimately, boyd argues that society fails young people when paternalism and protectionism hinder teenagers’ ability to become informed, thoughtful, and engaged citizens through their online interactions. Yet despite an environment of rampant fear-mongering, boyd finds that teens often find ways to engage and to develop a sense of identity. Boyd’s conclusions are essential reading not only for parents, teachers, and others who work with teens but also for anyone interested in the impact of emerging technologies on society, culture, and commerce in years to come. Offering insights gleaned from more than a decade of original fieldwork interviewing teenagers across the United States, boyd concludes reassuringly that the kids are all right. At the same time, she acknowledges that coming to terms with life in a networked era is not easy or obvious. In a technologically mediated world, life is bound to be complicated.

We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change


Myles Horton - 1990
    Throughout their highly personal conversations recorded here, Horton and Freire discuss the nature of social change and empowerment and their individual literacy campaigns. The ideas of these men developed through two very different channels: Horton's, from the Highlander Center, a small, independent residential education center situated outside the formal schooling system and the state; Freire's, from within university and state-sponsored programs. Myles Horton, who died in January 1990, was a major figure in the civil rights movement and founder of the Highlander Folk School, later the highlander Research and Education Center. Paulo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, established the Popular Culture Movement in Recife, Brazil's poorest region, and later was named head of the New National Literacy Campaign until a military coup forced his exile from Brazil. He has been active in educational development programs worldwide. For both men, real liberation is achieved through popular participation. The themes they discuss illuminate problems faced by educators and activists around the world who are concerned with linking participatory education to the practice of liberation and social change. How could two men, working in such different social spaces and times, arrive at similar ideas and methods? These conversations answer that question in rich detail and engaging anecdotes, and show that, underlying the philosophy of both, is the idea that theory emanates from practice and that knowledge grows from and is a reflection of social experience.

A Place at the Table: The Crisis of 49 Million Hungry Americans and How to Solve It


Peter Pringle - 2012
    every day, despite our having the means to provide nutritious, affordable food for all. Inspired by the acclaimed documentary A Place at the Table, this companion book offers powerful insights from those at the front lines of solving hunger in America, including:• Jeff Bridges, Academy Award–winning actor, cofounder of the End Hunger Network, and spokesperson for the No Kid Hungry Campaign, on raising awareness about hunger• Ken Cook, president of Environmental Working Group, unravels the inequities in the Farm Bill and shows how they affect America’s hunger crisis• Marion Nestle, nutritionist and acclaimed critic of the food industry, whose latest work tracks the explosion of calories in today’s “Eat More” environment• Bill Shore, Joel Berg, and Robert Egger, widely-published anti-hunger activists, suggest bold and diverse strategies for solving the crisis• Janet Poppendieck, sociologist, bestselling author, and well-known historian of poverty and hunger in America, argues the case for school lunch reform• Jennifer Harris, of Yale University’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, uncovers the new hidden persuaders of web food advertisers • David Beckmann, head of Bread for the World, and Sarah Newman, researcher on A Place at the Table, explore the intersection of faith and feeding the hungry• Mariana Chilton, Philadelphia pediatrician and anti-hunger activist, tells the moving story of her extraordinary lobby group, Witnesses to Hunger• Tom Colicchio, chef and executive producer of television’s Top Chef, presents his down-to-earth case to Washington for increases in child nutrition programs • Andy Fisher, veteran activist in community food projects, argues persuasively why we have to move beyond the charity-based emergency feeding program• Kelly Meyer, cofounder of Teaching Gardens, illuminates the path to educating, and providing healthy food for, all children• Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush, the film’s directors/producers, tell their personal stories of how and why they came to make the documentaryHunger and food insecurity pose a deep threat to our nation. A Place at the Table shows they can be solved once and for all, if the American public decides—as they have in the past—that making healthy food available, and affordable, is in the best interest of us all.

The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace


John Paul Lederach - 2004
    As founding Director of the Conflict Transformation Program and Institute of Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University, he has provided consultation and direct mediation in a range of situations from the Miskito/Sandinista conflict in Nicaragua to Somalia, Northern Ireland, the Basque Country, and the Philippines. His influential 1997 book Building Peace has become a classic in the discipline. This new book represents his thinking and learning over the past several years. He explores the evolution of his understanding of peacebuilding by reflecting on his own experiences in the field. Peacebuilding, in his view, is both a learned skill and an art. Finding this art, he says, requires a worldview shift. Conflict professionals must envision their work as a creative act - an exercise of what Lederach terms the moral imagination.

When Helping Hurts: How to Alleviate Poverty without Hurting the Poor...and Yourself


Steve Corbett - 2009
    Churches and individual Christians typically have faulty assumptions about the causes of poverty, resulting in the use of strategies that do considerable harm to poor people and themselves. Don't let this happen to you, your ministry or ministries you help fund! A must read for anyone who works with the poor or in missions, When Helping Hurts provides foundational concepts, clearly articulated general principles and relevant applications. The result is an effective and holistic ministry to the poor, not a truncated gospel."Initial thoughts" at the beginning of chapters and "reflection questions and excercises" at the end of chapters assist greatly in learning and applying the material. A situation is assessed for whether relief, rehabilitation, or development is the best response to a situation. Efforts are characterized by an "asset based" approach rather than a "needs based" approach. Short term mission efforts are addressed and economic development strategies appropriate for North American and international contexts are presented, including microenterprise development.Now with a new preface, a new foreword, and a new chapter to assist in the next steps of applying the book's principles to your situation, When Helping Hurts is a new classic!

College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students


Jeffrey J. Selingo - 2013
    Student-loan debt in the United States crossed the $1 trillion mark in 2011. To say that the cost of a four-year college education is inflated on many campuses would be an understatement—and that education bubble is about to burst. Jeffrey J. Selingo, editor at large for The Chronicle for Higher Education and senior fellow at Education Sector, argues that America’s higher education system is broken and that the great credential race has transformed universities into big business. In the wake of the 2008 recession, colleges can no longer sell a degree at any price as the ticket to success in life. Brand-name universities like Harvard, Yale, Cornell, and Stanford will always find students and families willing to pay the sticker price because of their institution’s global prestige, influential alumni networks, and considerable endowments. But the campuses that the vast majority of Americans attend, where some students go into tens of thousands of dollars in debt for degrees with little payoff, will need to adapt fast to the changing job market and new technological breakthroughs. As an industry insider who has covered higher education for more than 15 years, Selingo offers a critical examination of the current state of affairs and the pressing issues faced by students and parents. He also seeks out institutions like Arizona State University and the University of Central Florida that are leading the way into the future. Selingo predicts that the class of 2020 will have a college experience that is radically different from the one their parents had, and the college of the future will be personalized, leaner, and better able to arm students with the hard skills they need to enter the workforce of tomorrow. College (Un)bound will be a great resource for prospective students, but more important, it will change the way you think about higher education.