Seeing social problems : the hidden stories behind contemporary issues /: the hidden stories behind contemporary issues. (2020)

• Record Type: Book
• Further Information: Note: Ira Silver, Framingham State University.
• Authors: Silver, Ira
• Contents: Chapter 1 - Looking Beyond What You Already Know: Becoming Curious About Social Problems; Social Problems are Everywhere; First Impressions?; The Virtue of Sociology: Opening Your Eyes to the Hidden World Around You; Viewing Our Society Through Different Lenses; Recognizing That Social Problems Have Diverse Explanations; What Do You Know Now?; Chapter 2 - Opportunity for Few: The Withering of the American Dream; Struggling to get Ahead in the Land of Opportunity; First Impressions?; The Opportunity Divide: How American Society Produces Economic Inequality; Blocked Opportunities: How Social Forces Impede Low-Income Youth from Living the Dream; Tarnished Hopes: How Poverty Impedes Low-Income People's Motivations to get Ahead; A Personal Tale from the Other Side of the Opportunity Divide: How Social Forces Bolster Success; Rethinking Welfare: How the Sociological Perspective Can Inform Your Understanding of Who Deserves Help; Taking Collective Responsibility: Why the Withering of the American Dream is Everyone's Problem; What Do You Know Now?; Chapter 3 - "I Can't Breathe:" Policing, Race, and Violence; Violent Encounters Between Cops and People of Color; First Impressions?; Assigning Personal Blame - Either to Bad Cops or to Dangerous Black Men; Responding to Public Fears: Police Brutality as a Byproduct of Getting Tough on Crime; The Hidden Roots of Crime: How Race Shapes Opportunity; Taking a Deeper Look at Videos of Police Violence: Seeing the Sociological Stories Behind the Footage; What Do You Know Now?; Chapter 4 - The Color of Drug Abuse: Handcuffs for Some Addicts, Help for Others; Crack and Opioids: A Tale of Two Drug Epidemics; First Impressions?; Race and the Social Construction of Drugs; The Racial Inequalities Underlying Drug Enforcement; Policing Drugs by Creating Scapegoats; It's Hardly as Simple as "Just Say No:" The Social Forces Contributing to Drug Abuse; What Do You Know Now?; Chapter 5 - Fat Chances: Weight Anxiety in a Society that Prizes Thinness; Thin is in: The Social Construction of Body Size; First Impressions?; Bias Without Boundaries: The Pervasiveness of Size Discrimination in American Society; The Elephant in the Room: Explaining Why Obesity is Most Prevalent in Low-Income Communities; Feeling the Weight: Why People of Average Size May be Insecure About Their Bodies; Debunking Conventional Wisdom About Body Size; What Do You Know Now?; Chapter 6 - What's Sex Got to do With It? Uncovering the Roots of Teenage Pregnancy?; Parental Anxiety Gone Wild: Raising Kids in a Society Where Sexualized Images are Everywhere; First Impressions?; Who's Doing What and When? Shifting Views About Sex, Birth Control, and Pregnancy; Dim Hopes for the Future: Highlighting the Social Forces that Contribute to Teens Having Babies; "Acting Like Sluts:" How the Individual Perspective Toward Teen Parents Reinforces Gender Inequality; Reducing Teen Pregnancy: Early Educational Opportunity is Key; Looking Cross-Culturally; Exposing an Alternative Way to Understand Teens and Sex; What Do You Know Now?; Chapter 7 – Everybody’s Doing It: Getting Ahead by Cheating; From champ to chump: how Lance Armstrong tarnished his reputation riding the road to victory; First impressions?; A sketchy path to the top: doping in sports; Striving to be #1: competing in a winner-take-all society; Challenging the conventional wisdom about who’s a cheater; When second best feels like losing: the medicalization of imperfection; Game on: seeing cheating as a way to conform with mainstream american values; What do you know now?<br />Chapter 8 – Living in Infamy: Mass Shootings as Enduring Expressions of Masculinity; Making sense of the senseless: exploring what drives mass shooters to commit acts of destruction; First impressions?; Seeking revenge: seeing mass shootings as efforts by disrespected males to get even; The columbine effect: how online networks enable aggrieved males to plot the next rampage; Violence without outrage: how mass shootings resemble riots; Cementing their legacy as “real men:” how rampage reporting immortalizes toxic masculinity; What do you know now?; Chapter 9 – #MeToo: Why Gender Violence is Everyone’s Problem; Publicizing trauma: how social media has brought gender violence out of the shadows; First impressions?; Exhibiting entitlement: gender violence as a display of masculine power; Adding insult to injury: why blaming gender violence survivors for their victimization is part of the problem; “Be a man”: violence as a socially acceptable expression of masculinity; Seeing gender violence as everyone’s problem; What do you know now?; Chapter 10 – Bearing Witness to Inhumanity: Making Sense of Cruelty to Animals; Feeling their pain: exploring why stories of animal cruelty so deeply affects us; First impressions?; Gory thrills: making sense of the pleasure some people get from mistreating animials; Tastes so cruel: exposing the hidden workings of the factory farming system; Confronting our inhumanity: a look at efforts to cease the practice of animal entertainment; The payoff of the sociological perspective: seeing who we are through our relationships with animals; What do you know now?; Chapter 11 – “Better Safe Than Sorry:” Protecting Children from Strangers and Other Dangers; Careful who you friend: exploring the predatory behavior of strangers who lurk on the internet; First impressions?; Unequal childhoods: exposing why some kids are more prone than others to online exploitation by strangers; Overprotecting children: the unintended consequences of minimizizing the risks of growing up; Strangers with benefits: discovering the advantages of interacting with unfamiliar people in public; Thinking straight about threats children; What do you know now?; Chapter 12 – Have Kids Gotten Meaner? An Up-close Look at Cyberbullying and Suicide; Any time and place: how teens use technology to act cruely toward one another; First impressions?; A peek inside teen culture: uncovering the social forces that underlie cyberbullying; Not a solitary act of desperatioin: exposing social forces that lead teens to die from suicide; No meaner than prior generations: getting to the root of kids’ maliciousness toward one another; What do you know now?; Chapter 13 – “You’re Such a Downer:” Why Mental Illness Goes Beyond Personal Suffering; Diseases of the mind: exploring the wide spectrum of psychiatric disorders; First impressions?; Conditions that no blood test can prove: the social construction of mental illness; Inexact science: the diagnosis and misdiagnosis of ADHD; Being sad when you’re supposed to be happy: how American culture influences the experience of depression; “Feeling crazy:” How gender shapes the ways people think about and cope with mental illness; People whose minds are merely different: challenging the stigma associated with mental illness; What do you know now?; Chapter 14 – Eyes Wide Open: Seeing Social Problems from Multiple Perspectives; Benefit #1: Recognizing different realities; Benefit #2: Expanding your focus; Benefit #3: Getting to the heart of the matter; Benefit #4: Looking inward; Glossary<br />Acknowledgments; Index;
• Publisher Details: Thousand Oaks : SAGE Publications, Inc
• Publication Date: 2020
• Extent: 1 online resource (328 pages)
• Subjects: 361.1; Social problems; Sociology
• Languages: English
• ISBNs: 9781544398648; 1544398646
• Access Rights: Legal Deposit; Only available on premises controlled by the deposit library and to one user at any one time; The Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations (UK).
• Access Usage: Restricted: Printing from this resource is governed by The Legal Deposit Libraries (Non-Print Works) Regulations (UK) and UK copyright law currently in force.