War in Social Thought


Book Description

Argues that sociologists have either ignored or grappled with the idea of war and examines the reasons behind this denial of the violent nature of the human race.







Systems Thinking For Social Change


Book Description

"David Stroh has produced an elegant and cogent guide to what works. Research with early learners is showing that children are natural systems thinkers. This book will help to resuscitate these intuitive capabilities and strengthen them in the fire of facing our toughest problems."—Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline Concrete guidance on how to incorporate systems thinking in problem solving, decision making, and strategic planning—for everyone! Donors, leaders of nonprofits, and public policy makers usually have the best of intentions to serve society and improve social conditions. But often their solutions fall far short of what they want to accomplish and what is truly needed. Moreover, the answers they propose and fund often produce the opposite of what they want over time. We end up with temporary shelters that increase homelessness, drug busts that increase drug-related crime, or food aid that increases starvation. How do these unintended consequences come about and how can we avoid them? By applying conventional thinking to complex social problems, we often perpetuate the very problems we try so hard to solve, but it is possible to think differently, and get different results. Systems Thinking for Social Change enables readers to contribute more effectively to society by helping them understand what systems thinking is and why it is so important in their work. It also gives concrete guidance on how to incorporate systems thinking in problem solving, decision making, and strategic planning without becoming a technical expert. Systems thinking leader David Stroh walks readers through techniques he has used to help people improve their efforts on complex problems like: ending homelessness improving public health strengthening education designing a system for early childhood development protecting child welfare developing rural economies facilitating the reentry of formerly incarcerated people into society resolving identity-based conflicts and more! The result is a highly readable, effective guide to understanding systems and using that knowledge to get the results you want.




Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory


Book Description

Social scientists have long resisted the radical ideas known as postcolonial thought, while postcolonial scholars have critiqued the social sciences for their Euro-centric focus. However, in Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory, Julian Go attempts to reconcile the two seemingly contradictory fields by crafting a postcolonial social science. Contrary to claims that social science is incompatible with postcolonial thought, this book argues that the two are mutually beneficial, drawing upon the works of thinkers such as Franz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, and Gayatri Spivak. Go concludes with a call for a "third wave" of postcolonial thought emerging from social science and surmounting the narrow confines of disciplinary boundaries.







Thinking about Social Problems


Book Description

While many scholars in sociology, communication, media studies, public policy, psycho-therapy, and criminology use social construction perspectives in their own research, these perspectives tend to be not adequately covered in popular college-level texts. This book can bring constructionist perspectives into college classrooms because it offers an accessible overview of these perspectives that is interdisciplinary in scope and historically current in examples. The topics cover a broad range of issues including how successful images of social problem conditions, victims, and villains are constructed; how these images shape public policy and social services; and how these images can change the ways we make sense of ourselves and others. examining social problems, it does not ask readers to abandon belief that reality exists outside our definitions of it. Rather, it asks readers only to momentarily bracket those realities in order to examine how what we know about the world is a consequence of human activity and to consider the very practical relationships between what we think, how we act, and how our social world of moral evaluations, social policy, and social services is organized. In focusing on what constructionist examination tells readers about their own lives, this book encourages critical reasoning skills; it encourages readers to become thoughtful and knowledgeable consumers of all talk about social problems and to think about the individual, social, and political consequences of the process of constructing public worry.




The Spatial Logic of Social Struggle


Book Description

Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice is widely regarded as among the most innovative and illuminating fruits of recent social thought. As evidence mounts that the "spatial turn" in the social sciences and humanities is no mere theoretical fad, but rather an enduring paradigm of social and cultural research, Bourdieu's status as a profoundly spatial thinker takes on a renewed importance. The Spatial Logic of Social Struggle: A Bourdieuian Topology focuses on Bourdieu's philosophy of space, arguing that space is at once a condition for social knowledge, a methodological instrument, and a physical context for practice. By considering Bourdieu's theory of social space and fields alongside his several accounts of socially potent physical spaces, Nikolaus Fogle develops an understanding of the systematic co-determinations between social and physical space. He traces Bourdieu's ideas about the spatiality of social life through his investigations of Algerian peasant villages and Gothic cathedrals, as well as spaces of class, lifestyle and cultural creation, revealing that social and environmental struggles are only logical insofar as they are topological. He also demonstrates how a Bourdieuian dialectical understanding of social and physical space can be brought to bear on contemporary issues in architecture and urban development. This book will be useful and accessible not only to philosophers, but also to architects, geographers, sociologists, and other scholars in the social sciences and humanities who take an interest in the social theory of space.




The Struggle for Recognition


Book Description

In this book Axel Honneth re-examines arguments put forward by Hegel and claims that the 'struggle for recognition' should be at the centre of social conflicts.




How to Be Yourself


Book Description

Picking up where Quiet ended, How to Be Yourself is the best book you’ll ever read about how to conquer social anxiety. “This book is also a groundbreaking road map to finally being your true, authentic self.” —Susan Cain, New York Times, USA Today and nationally bestselling author of Quiet Up to 40% of people consider themselves shy. You might say you’re introverted or awkward, or that you're fine around friends but just can't speak up in a meeting or at a party. Maybe you're usually confident but have recently moved or started a new job, only to feel isolated and unsure. If you get nervous in social situations—meeting your partner's friends, public speaking, standing awkwardly in the elevator with your boss—you've probably been told, “Just be yourself!” But that's easier said than done—especially if you're prone to social anxiety. Weaving together cutting-edge science, concrete tips, and the compelling stories of real people who have risen above their social anxiety, Dr. Ellen Hendriksen proposes a groundbreaking idea: you already have everything you need to succeed in any unfamiliar social situation. As someone who lives with social anxiety, Dr. Hendriksen has devoted her career to helping her clients overcome the same obstacles she has. With familiarity, humor, and authority, Dr. Hendriksen takes the reader through the roots of social anxiety and why it endures, how we can rewire our brains through our behavior, and—at long last—exactly how to quiet your Inner Critic, the pesky voice that whispers, "Everyone will judge you." Using her techniques to develop confidence, think through the buzz of anxiety, and feel comfortable in any situation, you can finally be your true, authentic self.




Identities, Groups and Social Issues


Book Description

`When considering a volume that has essentially the form of a textbook, particular criteria apply. It is important that it is accurate, up-to-date and covers an appropriate range of material in an accessible and stimulating manner. It is important that it is a flexible vehicle for use with diverse courses, and does not overly impose a particular or narrow intellectual structure. In all these respects, this text is to be recommended.... Finally, it is important that all students of social psychology should try to see the historical and cultural linkages that extend across and through its subject area, and this is the other message that comes across from this exceptionally well thought-through book' - Journal of Community and Applied So