Publisher's Synopsis
This edition draws upon recent findings of sociological research about a rapidly changing society, upon both classical and contemporary theoretical debates and upon public controversies over social policy in fields ranging from the health service to the future of industry.;The book begins with an assessment of sociology as a discipline, which is then set against the background of the history of global development and of contemporary divisions in the world, especially the Third World.;Successive chapters introduce the reader to the special problems involved in researching society: the issues of sex, gender and the family, especially those raised by the women's movement; changing patterns of health and illness and of medical therapy; the explosive growth of the world's cities and changes in community life; the transformations of industry and of the nature of work in an epoch of mass unemployment; ethnic and racial conflicts both at world level and within our own society; the persistence of social order despite deep inequalities; and the many ways in which people deviate from respectable models of behaviour. The book ends with an overview of the main varieties of sociological theory.
