The new second edition of this distinctive and widely adopted textbook brings into the classroom an overview of how images of social problems can shape not only public policy and social services, but also the ways in which we make sense of ourselves…
In incorporating social process into a model of the dynamics of mental disorders, this text questions the individualistic model favoured in current psychiatric and psychoanalytic theory. While the conventional psychiatric viewpoint seeks the causes…
Increasingly, sociologists have turned their attention to the social problems of children- in particular, of younger children. This collection reflects those recent interest. While most researchers have focused on social problems involving adolescen…
Whatever reproductive choices women make--whether they opt to end a pregnancy through abortion or continue to term and give birth--they are considered to be at risk of suffering serious mental health problems. According to opponents of abortion in t…
Brief therapy is a postmodern treatment mode that treats problems as social constructions, encouraging those seeking treatment to replace personal troubles (negative stories) with new problem-solving skills (positive stories). The significant differ…
Jonathan Engel traces the policy debates over healthcare delivery, and the ways of paying for it, that were conducted during the second quarter of the twentieth century in the United States. Examining the views advanced by doctors, including those u…
This text addresses the issue of how to serve the growing population of elderly people who spend their later years as members of the community rather than residents of an institutional facility. A team of social work professionals proposes a model w…
In this fourth edition of a social work standard, Leon Ginsberg and Julie Miller-Cribbs offer an updated version of the text that has introduced thousands of social work students to the defining policies and procedures of the profession. Concise yet…
This unflinching effort critically traces the attempt of social psychology over the past half century to forge a scientific understanding of human behavior based on the systematic use of experiments.Having examined the record from the inception of t…
Many people consider their weight to be a personal problem; when, then, does body weight become a social problem? Until recently, the major public concern was whether enough food was consistently available. As food systems began to provide ample and…
Family preservation programmes provide flexible home-based services which allow families to remain intact while addressing issues threatening their safety and survival. This text offers an overview and assessment of the programmes in the United Stat…
In eleven original studies by social scientists, this is the first volume to focus on television reality crime programming as a genre. Contributors address such questions as: why do these programs exist; what larger cultural meaning do they have; wh…
In addressing a timely set of questions about the politics and dynamics of inter-group violence manifest as discrimination, this volume explores such issues as why injuries against some groups of people (Jews, people of color, gays and lesbians, and…
This is the first book-length account of the controversy preceding and following the APA's decision in 1986 to include a premenstrually related diagnosis in its revised diagnostic manual, DSM III-R. Figert examines why the decision was controversial…
This collection of authoritative studies portrays how the A basic agencies of socialization transform the newborn human organism into a social person capable of interacting with others. Socialization differs from one society to another and within an…
"Constructionist Controversies" reviews the substantial contributions to social problems theory that have been made by social constructionist theorists and examines debates about the future of this perspective. Intended for the student, the volume p…
What is "too fat?" "Too thin"? Interpretations of body weight vary widely across and within cultures. Meeting weight expectations is a major concern for many people because failing to do so may incur dire social consequences, such as difficulty in f…
Rich with proven, practical advice, ""Home Visiting Strategies"" is a comprehensive guide for in-home case management of vulnerable populations that without direct visits might not receive needed interventions. Drawing on her decades of experience i…
With the impact of social interactionist and ethnographic methodology twenty-five years ago, the research agenda in social problems began to shift its focus, giving rise to the Social Constructionism movement. The present volume and the related shor…
Best's anthology examines for the first time how diverse social issues--road rage, the metric system, gun control, and abortion are among those included--migrate across national boundaries, modifying themselves from place to place as a result of dif…
Drug courts offer offenders an intensive court-based treatment program as an alternative to the normal adjudication process. Begun in 1989, they have since spread dramatically throughout the United States. In this interdisciplinary examination of th…
Political corruption has traditionally been presented as a phenomenon characteristic of developing countries, authoritarian regimes, or societies in which the value system favored tacit patrimony and clientelism. Recently, however, the thesis of an…
"Whether you are drawn to this book because of an interest in media, social problems, or domestic violence, reading it will help you better understand the impact media stories have on our perceptions of social problems." That is how Nancy Berns intr…
The risk of a future catastrophic earthquake has never achieved the level of public concern accorded to such issues as crime, health care, economic conditions, or even pornography. This lack of concern might be explained as a function of our inabili…
In the last decade, serial murder has become a source of major concern for law enforcement agencies, while the serial killer has attracted widespread interest as a villain in popular culture. There is no doubt, however, that popular fears and stereo…
Qualitative researchers have traditionally been cautious about claiming that their work was scientific. The "right-on" schools have exaggerated this caution into an outright rejection of science as a model for their work. Science is, for them, outmo…
Fathoming the Holocaust represents the culmination of a singular effort to attempt to explain the Final Solution to the "Jewish Problem" in terms of a general theory of social problems construction. The book is comprehensive in scope, covering the o…
In Making Trouble leading scholars in criminology, sociology, criminal justice, women's studies, and social history explore the mediated cultural dynamics that construct images and understanding of crime, deviance, and control. Contributors examine…
While crime, law, and punishment are subjects that have everyday meanings not very far from their academic representations, "social control" is one of those terms that appear in the sociological discourse without any corresponding everyday usage. Th…
Homelessness had become a social problem that was primarily not about solving the nation's housing crisis. The pressing question becomes: How (and why) did homelessness become the social problem in its own right, one that was only tangentially relat…
Due to advances in medical technology, better health care, and improvements in lifestyle habits, the 21st century brings unprecedented changes in life expectancy and increased numbers of older adults globally. As the elder population grows, so does…
The authorative and richly detailed handbook is divided into three parts: (1) procedures for studying SMOs; (2) propositions or generalizations about them; and (3) perspectives or wider considerations relating to them. Included are discussions of su…
When antibiotics became readily available in the 1950s, the danger of life-threatening infectious childhood diseases virtually disappeared. In that era, pediatricians broadened the core professional task of their specialty--the prevention and treatm…
When it was first published in 1980, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Third Edition-univer-sally known as DSM-III-embodied a radical new method for identifying psychiatric illness. Kirk and Kutchins challenge the general un…
Mirrors of Madness depicts the social-psychological processes and institutional consequences of psychiatric staffs experience of "closet insanity" (private worries about theirown social and psychological competence) and "reverse role modeling" (iden…
The social constructionist perspective has revolutionized the way that social scientists investigate social problems. Constructing Social Problems (Spector and Kitsuse [1977] 2001) offered the guiding statement of the approach, which both transforme…
This study, based on quantitative and qualitative data gathered over a twelve-year period, takes its title from the two predominant styles of gang violence: 'drive-bys,' which have replaced 'rumbles' as the primary form of gang violence; and 'gang-b…
The book acts as a guide to the images of terrorism that we see daily in the mass media. The author believes that our perceptions of terrorism are formed by the interaction of bureaucratic agencies, academics and private experts. These images and st…
This book, about involuntary commitment proceedings, focuses on interpretive practice at the nexus of legal, psychiatric, and practical reasoning. It describes the interactional dynamics through which legally and psychiatrically warranted decisions…
This book analyzes how hearing participants construct and organize arguments that are legally, psychiatrically, and practically accountable. It argues that commitment decisions orient to the "tenability" of situations that patients pose as alternati…
The first edition of Sexual Conduct, published in 1973, swiftly became a landmark text in the sociology of sexuality. It went on to profoundly shape the ideas of several generations of scholars and has become the foundation text of what is now known…
Veterans of all wars face a demanding task in readjusting to civilian life. Vietnam veterans have borne an additional burden, having returned from a controversial war that ended in defeat for the United States and South Vietnam. To address this situ…
This work is a wide-ranging and sensitive examination of the lived experience of intimate stalking victimization. It explores how it feels and what it means to be stalked by a former intimate and how this situation creates dilemmas for victims and t…
This book is about women who are coerced, intimidated, and stalked by former intimates. It is about the things these women do to manage this situation, and what happens to them as a consequence. Stalking is a behavior that has relatively recently be…
This volume focuses on the spirituality and religious belief of clients within health and human service professions. The text addresses the challenge of understanding the client's perspective, even when it involves a religious tradition unfamiliar t…
Constructionist theory describes and analyzes social problems as emerging through the efforts of claimsmakers who bring issues to public attention. By typifying a problem and characterizing it as a particular sort, claimsmakers can shape policymakin…
Tobacco control leaders were extremely proud of the movement's achievements in the state of Minnesota. In sharing their perspectives and experiences with Mark Wolfson, they found a way of making sure that the story would get told. His training in so…
This study, based on quantitative and qualitative data gathered over a twelve-year period, takes its title from the two predominant styles of gang violence: "drive-bys," which have replaced "rumbles" as the primary form of gang violence; and "gang-…
The creative use of fear by news media and social control organizations has produced a "discurse of fear" - the awareness and expection that danger and risk are lurking everywhere. Case studies illustrates how certain organizations and social instit…
