Contemporary Social Problems - Hardcover

Parrillo, Vincent N.; Stimson, John; Stimson, Ardyth

3.71

7 ratings by Goodreads

9780023917318: Contemporary Social Problems

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0023917318 ISBN 13: 9780023917318

Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co, 1989

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This introductory text is theoretically-balanced, incorporating the three major theoretical perspectives: functionalist, conflict, and interactionist. The text focuses on the individual, with a chapter on "The Individual in a Complex Society: Alienation, Anomie and Postmodernism". Every chapter includes alternative scenarios, with a pessimistic scenario and an optimistic scenario, to show students how action taken today can affect the future. Topics new to the third edition include gun control, AIDS, abortion, domestic, school and street violence, and reactions to immigrants and illegal aliens. Every chapter includes an international section on how other societies face similar social problems.

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From the Back Cover:

In the three years since the publication of the last edition of this book, unfolding events and social changes have redirected public thinking about some of our social problems. Affirmative action -- as a result of initiatives in California, Texas, and Washington, DC -- is a far less potent entity. Welfare is now more of a state program than a national one. Federal assistance to non-citizens is drastically lower, and HMO's now appear to many as profit-motivated businesses often denying important medical care to patients because of their costs. These and other pervasive problems in our society need to be examined, analyzed, and considered, so that readers both can not only have a heightened awareness of social ills, but can also contribute to the solution. This clear, concise and well-organized book helps readers to understand their stake in social problems. A highly readable, visually stimulating book, it encourages readers to look at social problems and to ask "What if?" The book combines theory and sociohistoric perspectives with real, everyday problems. Topics include alcohol and drug use, adolescent and young adult suicide, pornography, crime, poverty, family, education, and work, among others. Sociologists, policy makers, government officials, and professors.

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