Joel Best - Böcker

Although there is growing concern over Satanism as a threat to American life, the topic has received surprisingly little serious attention. Recognizing this, the editors of this volume have selected papers from a wide variety of disciplines, broadly covering contemporary aspects of Satanism from the vantage points of studies in folklore, cults, religion, deviance, rock music, rumor, and the mass media.All contributors are skeptical of claims that a large, powerful satanic conspiracy can be substantiated. Their research focuses instead on claims about Satanism and on the question of whose interests are served by such claims. Several papers consider the impact of anti-Satanism campaigns on public opinion, law enforcement and civil litigation, child protection services, and other sectors of American society.The constructionist perspective adopted by the editors does not deny the existence of some activities by 'real' Satanists, and two papers describe the workins of satanic groups. Whatever the basis of the claims examined and analyzed, there is growing evidence that belief in the satanic menace will have real social consequences in the years ahead.

Although there is growing concern over Satanism as a threat to American life, the topic has received surprisingly little serious attention. Recognizing this, the editors of this volume have selected papers from a wide variety of disciplines, broadly covering contemporary aspects of Satanism from the vantage points of studies in folklore, cults, religion, deviance, rock music, rumor, and the mass media.All contributors are skeptical of claims that a large, powerful satanic conspiracy can be substantiated. Their research focuses instead on claims about Satanism and on the question of whose interests are served by such claims. Several papers consider the impact of anti-Satanism campaigns on public opinion, law enforcement and civil litigation, child protection services, and other sectors of American society.The constructionist perspective adopted by the editors does not deny the existence of some activities by 'real' Satanists, and two papers describe the workins of satanic groups. Whatever the basis of the claims examined and analyzed, there is growing evidence that belief in the satanic menace will have real social consequences in the years ahead.

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 adolescents, this volume offers instead original case studies of problems concerning preadolescent children.The papers that Best has gathered here represent different theoretical and methodological approaches. They report on social issues in Albania, Kenya, and Japan as well as in the United States. The range of social problems they address is a wide one, from broad societal crises to decision-making within families. Topics include the effects of economic and social crises in Africa and Eastern Europe; concerns about crack use and other forms of fetal endangerment; parental decisions about spanking, toy choices, and letting children listen to rock music; schooling in day care and elementary and junior high schools; and children's perceptions of environmental crises.Troubling Children adds a new dimension to courses in social problems. It also offers a different set of perspectives for those concerned with sociology of preadolescent children and their discontents.

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 adolescents, this volume offers instead original case studies of problems concerning preadolescent children.The papers that Best has gathered here represent different theoretical and methodological approaches. They report on social issues in Albania, Kenya, and Japan as well as in the United States. The range of social problems they address is a wide one, from broad societal crises to decision-making within families. Topics include the effects of economic and social crises in Africa and Eastern Europe; concerns about crack use and other forms of fetal endangerment; parental decisions about spanking, toy choices, and letting children listen to rock music; schooling in day care and elementary and junior high schools; and children's perceptions of environmental crises.Troubling Children adds a new dimension to courses in social problems. It also offers a different set of perspectives for those concerned with sociology of preadolescent children and their discontents.

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 policymaking and public response to the problem. Th is new edition of Images of Issues addresses claimsmaking in the 1990s, featuring such issues as fathers' rights, stalking, sexual abuse by the clergy, hate crimes, multicultural education, factory farming, and concluding with an expanded discussion of the theoretical debate over constructionism.

Child abuse, incest, child molestation, Halloween sadism, child pornography: although clearly not new problems, they have attracted more attention than ever before. Threatened Children asks why. Joel Best analyzes the rhetorical tools used by child advocates when making claims aimed at raising public anxiety and examines the media's role in transmitting reformers' claims and the public's response to the frightening statistics, compelling examples, and expanding definitions it confronts. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from criminal justice records to news stories, from urban legends to public opinion surveys, Best reveals how the cultural construction of social problems evolves.

Critics often warn that American schools are failing, and that our students are ill-prepared for the challenges the future holds, and may even be "the dumbest generation." We can think of these claims as warning about a Stupidity Epidemic. This essay begins by tracing the history of the idea of that American students, teachers, and schools are somehow getting worse; the record shows that critics have been issuing such warnings for more than 150 years. It then examines four sets of data that speak to whether educational deterioration is taking place. First, data on educational attainment show a clear trend: more students are getting more education. Second, standardized test scores suggest that American students are performing somewhat better; certainly most test scores do not indicate that students are getting worse. Third, measures of popular knowledge also show evidence of improvement. Fourth, there is clear evidence that IQ scores have been rising. In other words, the best available evidence fails to support claims about a Stupidity Epidemic. The essay then turns to exploring several reasons why belief in educational decline is so common, and concludes by suggesting some more useful ways to think about educational problems.The goal of this new, unique Series is to offer readable, teachable "thinking frames" on today’s social problems and social issues by leading scholars, all in short 60 page or shorter formats, and available for view on http://routledge.customgateway.com/routledge-social-issues.html For instructors teaching a wide range of courses in the social sciences, the Routledge Social Issues Collection now offers the best of both worlds: originally written short texts that provide "overviews" to important social issues as well as teachable excerpts from larger works previously published by Routledge and other presses.

"Random Violence" is a deft and thought-provoking exploration of the ways we talk about - and why we worry about - new crimes and new forms of victimization. Focusing on so-called random crimes such as freeway shootings, gang violence, hate crimes, stalking, and wilding, Joel Best shows how new crime problems emerge and how some quickly fade from public attention while others spread and become enduring subjects of concern. Best's original and incisive argument illuminates the fact that while these crimes are in actuality neither new, nor epidemic, nor random, the language used to describe them nonetheless shapes both private fears and public policies. Best scrutinizes the melodramatic quality of the American public's attitudes toward crime, exposing the cultural context for the popularity of 'random violence' as a catch-all phrase to describe contemporary crime, and the fallacious belief that violence is steadily rising. He points out that the age, race, and sex of homicide victims reveal that violence is highly patterned.Best also details the contemporary ideology of victimization, as well as the social arrangements that create and support a victim industry that can label large numbers of victims. He demonstrates why it has become commonplace to 'declare war' on social problems, including drugs, crime, poverty, and cancer, and outlines the complementary influence of media, activists, officials, and experts in institutionalizing crime problems. Intrinsic to all these concerns is the way in which policy choices and outcomes are affected by the language used to describe social problems.

While fads such as hula hoops or streaking are usually dismissed as silly enthusiasms, trends in institutions such as education, business, medicine, science, and criminal justice are often taken seriously, even though their popularity and usefulness is sometimes short-lived. Institutional fads such as open classrooms, quality circles, and multiple personality disorder are constantly making the rounds, promising astonishing new developments - novel ways of teaching reading or arithmetic, better methods of managing businesses, or improved treatments for disease. Some of these trends prove to be lasting innovations, but others - after absorbing extraordinary amounts of time and money - are abandoned and forgotten, soon to be replaced by other new schemes. In this pithy, intriguing, and often humorous book, Joel Best - author of the acclaimed "Damned Lies and Statistics" - explores the range of institutional fads, analyzes the features of our culture that foster them, and identifies the major stages of the fad cycle - emerging, surging, and purging.Deconstructing the ways that this system plays into our notions of reinvention, progress, and perfectibility, "Flavors of the Month" examines the causes and consequences of fads and suggests ways of fad-proofing our institutions.

Here, by popular demand, is the updated edition to Joel Best's classic guide to understanding how numbers can confuse us. In his new afterword, Best uses examples from recent policy debates to reflect on the challenges to improving statistical literacy. Since its publication ten years ago, Damned Lies and Statistics has emerged as the go-to handbook for spotting bad statistics and learning to think critically about these influential numbers.

This illuminating investigation uncovers the full dimensions of the student loan disaster. A father and son team--one a best-selling sociologist, the other a former banker and current quantitative researcher--probe how we've reached the point at which student loan debt--now exceeding $1 trillion and predicted to reach $2 trillion by 2020--threatens to become the sequel to the mortgage meltdown. In spite of their good intentions, Americans have allowed concerns about deadbeat students, crushing debt, exploitative for-profit colleges, and changing attitudes about the purpose of college education to blind them to a growing crisis. With college costs climbing faster than the cost of living, how can access to higher education remain a central part of the American dream? With more than half of college students carrying an average debt of $27,000 at graduation, what are the prospects for young adults in the current economy? Examining how we've arrived at and how we might extricate ourselves from this grave social problem, The Student Loan Mess is a must-read for everyone concerned about the future of American education.Hard facts about the student loan crisis: * Student loan debt is rising by more than $100 billion every year and is likely to reach $2 trillion by 2020. * Among recent college students who are supposed to be repaying their loans, more than a third are delinquent. * Because student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, the federal government misleadingly treats student loan debt as a government asset. * Higher default rates, spiraling college costs, and proposals for more generous terms for student borrowers make it increasingly likely that student loan policies will eventually cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

Does a young person commit suicide every thirteen minutes in the United States? Are four million women really battered to death by their husbands or boyfriends each year? Is methamphetamine our number one drug problem today? Alarming statistics bombard our daily lives, appearing in the news, on the Web, seemingly everywhere. But all too often, even the most respected publications present numbers that are miscalculated, misinterpreted, hyped, or simply misleading. This new edition contains revised benchmark statistics, updated resources, and a new section on the rhetorical uses of statistics, complete with new problems to be spotted and new examples illustrating those problems. Joel Best's best seller exposes questionable uses of statistics and guides the reader toward becoming a more critical, savvy consumer of news, information, and data. Entertaining, informative, and concise, Stat-Spotting takes a commonsense approach to understanding data and doesn't require advanced math or statistics.

In an accessible and droll style, best-selling author Joel Best shines a light on how we navigate these anxious, insecure social times. While most of us still strive for the American Dream-to graduate from college, own a home, work toward early retirement-recent generations have been told that the next generation will not be able to achieve these goals, that things are getting-or are on the verge of getting-worse. In American Nightmares, Best addresses the apprehension that we face every day as we are bombarded with threats that the social institutions we count on are imperiled. Our schools are failing to teach our kids. Healthcare may soon be harder to obtain. We can't bank on our retirement plans. And our homes-still the largest chunk of most people's net worth-may lose much of their value. Our very way of life is being threatened! Or is it? With a steady voice and keen focus, Best examines how a culture develops fears and fantasies and how these visions are created and recreated in every generation.By dismantling current ideas about the future, collective memory, and sociology's marginalization in the public square, Best sheds light on how social problems-and our anxiety about them-are socially constructed.

In an accessible and droll style, best-selling author Joel Best shines a light on how we navigate these anxious, insecure social times. While most of us still strive for the American Dream-to graduate from college, own a home, work toward early retirement-recent generations have been told that the next generation will not be able to achieve these goals, that things are getting-or are on the verge of getting-worse. In American Nightmares, Best addresses the apprehension that we face every day as we are bombarded with threats that the social institutions we count on are imperiled. Our schools are failing to teach our kids. Healthcare may soon be harder to obtain. We can't bank on our retirement plans. And our homes-still the largest chunk of most people's net worth-may lose much of their value. Our very way of life is being threatened! Or is it? With a steady voice and keen focus, Best examines how a culture develops fears and fantasies and how these visions are created and recreated in every generation.By dismantling current ideas about the future, collective memory, and sociology's marginalization in the public square, Best sheds light on how social problems-and our anxiety about them-are socially constructed.

Across disciplines, critical thinking is praised, taught, and put into practice. But what does it actually mean to think critically? In this brief volume, sociologist Joel Best examines how to evaluate arguments and the evidence used to support them as he hones in on how to think in the field of sociology and beyond.  With inimitable style that melds ethnographic verve with dry humor, Best examines the ways in which sociologists engage in fuzzy thinking through bias, faddish cultural waves, spurious reasoning, and implicit bias. The short chapters cover: A general introduction to critical thinking and logic in the social sciencesSociology as an enterpriseKey issues in thinking critically about sociological researchChallenging questions that confront sociologists and a call for the discipline to meet those challenges.Students across disciplines will learn the building blocks of critical thinking in a sociological context and come away with key concepts to put into practice.

Across disciplines, critical thinking is praised, taught, and put into practice. But what does it actually mean to think critically? In this brief volume, sociologist Joel Best examines how to evaluate arguments and the evidence used to support them as he hones in on how to think in the field of sociology and beyond.  With inimitable style that melds ethnographic verve with dry humor, Best examines the ways in which sociologists engage in fuzzy thinking through bias, faddish cultural waves, spurious reasoning, and implicit bias. The short chapters cover: A general introduction to critical thinking and logic in the social sciencesSociology as an enterpriseKey issues in thinking critically about sociological researchChallenging questions that confront sociologists and a call for the discipline to meet those challenges.Students across disciplines will learn the building blocks of critical thinking in a sociological context and come away with key concepts to put into practice.

Why can’t we seem to agree on facts? In this succinct volume, sociologist Joel Best turns his inimitable eye toward the social construction of what we think is true. He evaluates how facts emerge from our social worlds—including our beliefs, values, tastes, and norms—and how they align with those worlds’ standards. He argues that by developing a sociological perspective toward what we think we know, we can better parse the use of facts and untruths around us.This book examines how facts are created and supported through science, government, law, and journalism, revealing that facts are actually claims. These claims are malleable and can change over time through fact-checking, revision, and sometimes rejection. Best guides us through these processes so that we can question our assumptions and understand why disputes happen in the first place. In a time of increasing social and political divide, Just the Facts urges us to resist defensiveness over our facts and approach disputes in critical new ways.

Why can’t we seem to agree on facts? In this succinct volume, sociologist Joel Best turns his inimitable eye toward the social construction of what we think is true. He evaluates how facts emerge from our social worlds—including our beliefs, values, tastes, and norms—and how they align with those worlds’ standards. He argues that by developing a sociological perspective toward what we think we know, we can better parse the use of facts and untruths around us.This book examines how facts are created and supported through science, government, law, and journalism, revealing that facts are actually claims. These claims are malleable and can change over time through fact-checking, revision, and sometimes rejection. Best guides us through these processes so that we can question our assumptions and understand why disputes happen in the first place. In a time of increasing social and political divide, Just the Facts urges us to resist defensiveness over our facts and approach disputes in critical new ways.

The myths and truths of teen's sexual behavior.Winner of the 2015 Brian McConnell Book Award presented by the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research To hear mainstream media sources tell it, the sexlives of modern teenagers outpace even the smuttiest of cable television shows.Teen girls "sext" explicit photos to boys they like; they wear "sex bracelets"that signify what sexual activities they have done, or will do; they team upwith other girls at "rainbow parties" to perform sex acts on groups of willingteen boys; they form "pregnancy pacts" with their best girlfriends to allbecome teen mothers at the same time. From The Today Show, to CNN, to the New York Times, stories of these eventshave been featured widely in the media. But are most teenage—oryounger—children really going to sex parties and having multiple sexualencounters in an orgy-like fashion? Researcherssay no—teen sex is actually not rampant and teen pregnancy is at low levels.But why do stories like these find such media traffic, exploiting parents'worst fears? How do these rumors get started, and how do they travel around thecountry and even across the globe? In Kids Gone Wild,best-selling authors Joel Best and Kathleen A. Bogle use these stories aboutthe fears of the growing sexualization of childhood to explore what we knowabout contemporary legends and how both traditional media and the internet perpetuatethese rumors while, at times, debating their authenticity. Best and Bogledescribe the process by which such stories spread, trace how and to where they have moved, and track howthey can morph as they travel from one medium to another. Ultimately, they findthat our society's view of kids raging out of control has drastic andunforeseen consequences, fueling the debate on sex education and affecting policydecisions on everything from the availability of the morning after pill to whois included on sex offender registries. Asurprising look at the truth behind the sensationalism in our culture, Kids Gone Wild is a much-needed wake-upcall for a society determined to believe the worst about its young people.

Critics often warn that American schools are failing, and that our students are ill-prepared for the challenges the future holds, and may even be "the dumbest generation." We can think of these claims as warning about a Stupidity Epidemic. This essay begins by tracing the history of the idea of that American students, teachers, and schools are somehow getting worse; the record shows that critics have been issuing such warnings for more than 150 years. It then examines four sets of data that speak to whether educational deterioration is taking place. First, data on educational attainment show a clear trend: more students are getting more education. Second, standardized test scores suggest that American students are performing somewhat better; certainly most test scores do not indicate that students are getting worse. Third, measures of popular knowledge also show evidence of improvement. Fourth, there is clear evidence that IQ scores have been rising. In other words, the best available evidence fails to support claims about a Stupidity Epidemic. The essay then turns to exploring several reasons why belief in educational decline is so common, and concludes by suggesting some more useful ways to think about educational problems.The goal of this new, unique Series is to offer readable, teachable "thinking frames" on today’s social problems and social issues by leading scholars, all in short 60 page or shorter formats, and available for view on http://routledge.customgateway.com/routledge-social-issues.html For instructors teaching a wide range of courses in the social sciences, the Routledge Social Issues Collection now offers the best of both worlds: originally written short texts that provide "overviews" to important social issues as well as teachable excerpts from larger works previously published by Routledge and other presses.

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 policymaking and public response to the problem. Th is new edition of Images of Issues addresses claimsmaking in the 1990s, featuring such issues as fathers' rights, stalking, sexual abuse by the clergy, hate crimes, multicultural education, factory farming, and concluding with an expanded discussion of the theoretical debate over constructionism.