Human Behavior and the Social Environment: Theory and Practice

This comprehensive text integrates multiple dimensions of the human experience in a reader-friendly style and provides the interface between developmental theory and practice.

Human Behavior and the Social Environment, 1/e, introduces and incorporates current research on the biological, psychological, socio-cultural, and spiritual dimensions of human behavior throughout the life-cycle. The authors provide an appropriate focus on contemporary perspectives that are central to the practice of social work, such as trauma, neurobiological underpinnings of behavior, chronic illness and disability. They pay particular attention to models of racial, ethnic, class, gender and gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender identity development; to the influences of gender, sexual orientation, social class, race and culture on family structure and function, and to issues pertinent to a variety of “post-modern” family forms.

Additionally, the text explores macro influences of groups, communities and organizations in individual chapters. It also contains a chapter on social welfare policy that examines the impact of specific policies at each stage of the life-cycle and paves the way for new directions in research and future directions in policy and practice.

This comprehensive text integrates multiple dimensions of the human experience in a reader-friendly style and explores the interface between human behavior theory and social work practice.

Human Behavior and the Social Environment:  Theory and Practice draws on ecosystemic concepts to present a transactional model for integrating the most current research on the biological, psychological, sociocultural, and spiritual dimensions of the human experience throughout the life cycle. This text distinguishes itself through the clarity of its presentation of the connections between micro and macro issues, as well as its illumination of the linkages between human behavior theory and social work practice. 

Features:

• Provides a special focus on contemporary issues that are central to the practice of social work, such as identity development, spirituality, the impact of trauma, the neurobiological underpinnings of human behavior, the bio-psychosocial dimensions of chronic illness, disability, and the GLBT experience.
• Examines models of identity development in terms of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation.
• Provides the interface between human behavior theory and multilevel social work practice by integrating theoretical and practice models, and by illuminating complex theoretical material with “real life” practice examples.

What Reviewers Are Saying:

I thoroughly enjoyed reviewing this excellent book. I was particularly impressed with the chapters on neurobiology, identity development, spirituality, and trauma. These represent newer areas of professional focus and were organized very well.  The strengths of this book are its comprehensive coverage of relevant topics, successful integration of some practice approaches with the HBSE content, use of visual learning aids, and inclusion of some unique chapters.    

                                                          –Joseph Walsh, Virginia Commonwealth University

This is an outstanding text with several features that set it apart from the “crowd.”   The writing is informal, accessible, and clear; the presentation of neurobiological issues in Chapter 2 is the best I’ve seen in any human behavior text; it’s a great idea to have a chapter on identity development; Chapter 7 is a comprehensive discussion of community–the best I’ve seen in a HBSE text; Chapter 8 on Spirituality is excellent; the chapters on chronic illness and trauma are important additions; GLBT issues are “normalized” via inclusion throughout. For these seven reasons, I would not hesitate to adopt this text.

                                                                       –Margaret Waller, Arizona State University

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