Society Now – serie

Written in a clear, accessible style, Health introduces students to the valuable contribution sociologists have made to understanding health, illness and disease. In so doing, it challenges the adequacy of biomedical models, contrasting them with explanations offered by positivist, interactionist, structuralist and feminist sociologists.Aggleton, an experienced teacher, links the key debates within the sociology of health and illness with their implications for health care, and covers topics such as complementary medicine and AIDS. Students are encouraged to undertake suggested activities and are given guidance for further reading to develop their understanding.

The questions raised by a study of class and inequality are important, but often complex. This book succeeds in making them understandable without oversimplifying, and its breadth, originality, and easy style will appeal to a wide readership.Peter Saunders covers theories of social class as well as evidence on class inequalities in the contemporary period. He analyses why class inequalities exist, whether they are inevitable, whether they are unjust, and how they are changing. The analysis is comprehensive and up-to-date and includes information on how the distribution of wealth and income and social mobility chances have been changing during the Thatcher years. It also explores how the class structure is being affected by developments such as the spread of privatization and individual shareholdings, the rise of the 'yuppies', and the emergence of an underclass. On the theoretical side Professor Saunders gives equal weight to marxist, social-democratic, and neo-liberal perspectives on class and inequality, and writers as diverse a Karl Marx, John Rawls, and Friedrich Hayek all receive serious and balanced consideration.

The British post-war campaign to ban American horror comics neatly illustrates many of the pitfalls of media research. It is the first case-study used by David Barrat as he reviews this rapidly growing field of sociology. He gives a clear account of how and why sociologists have studied the media, looking in particular at the arguments about the effects of television, video, comics, newspapers, and radio on their audiences.He explains how media organizations work, how 'news' is manufactured, and what the political and commercial constraints can be. He discusses the likely impact on new technologies, including satellite and cable television, on the media industry. The final chapter is about methods of studying the media, such as 'uses and gratifications', content analysis, semiology and structural approaches.

Adrian Wilson provides a comprehensive introduction to the study of the family. The book opens with a chapter on family structure, looking at the family historically and in cross-cultural perspective. Following this is a review first of theoretical approaches to the family, including functionalist, feminist, Marxist and radical criticism, and second, how the family is studied sociologically. Chapters 4 and 5 look at the changing British family and British families today, and the concluding chapters examine family problems, for example, divorce, violence, one -parent families, and the family and the state.

Age and Generation introduces students to the main sociological and anthropological issues surrounding this topic, from childhood to old age, and focuses, in particular, on youth culture.

Written in a clear, accessible style, Health introduces students to the valuable contribution sociologists have made to understanding health, illness and disease. In so doing, it challenges the adequacy of biomedical models, contrasting them with explanations offered by positivist, interactionist, structuralist and feminist sociologists.Aggleton, an experienced teacher, links the key debates within the sociology of health and illness with their implications for health care, and covers topics such as complementary medicine and AIDS. Students are encouraged to undertake suggested activities and are given guidance for further reading to develop their understanding.

The questions raised by a study of class and inequality are important, but often complex. This book succeeds in making them understandable without oversimplifying, and its breadth, originality, and easy style will appeal to a wide readership.Peter Saunders covers theories of social class as well as evidence on class inequalities in the contemporary period. He analyses why class inequalities exist, whether they are inevitable, whether they are unjust, and how they are changing. The analysis is comprehensive and up-to-date and includes information on how the distribution of wealth and income and social mobility chances have been changing during the Thatcher years. It also explores how the class structure is being affected by developments such as the spread of privatization and individual shareholdings, the rise of the 'yuppies', and the emergence of an underclass. On the theoretical side Professor Saunders gives equal weight to marxist, social-democratic, and neo-liberal perspectives on class and inequality, and writers as diverse a Karl Marx, John Rawls, and Friedrich Hayek all receive serious and balanced consideration.

The British post-war campaign to ban American horror comics neatly illustrates many of the pitfalls of media research. It is the first case-study used by David Barrat as he reviews this rapidly growing field of sociology. He gives a clear account of how and why sociologists have studied the media, looking in particular at the arguments about the effects of television, video, comics, newspapers, and radio on their audiences.He explains how media organizations work, how 'news' is manufactured, and what the political and commercial constraints can be. He discusses the likely impact on new technologies, including satellite and cable television, on the media industry. The final chapter is about methods of studying the media, such as 'uses and gratifications', content analysis, semiology and structural approaches.