Mapping the Social Landscape: Readings in Sociology

by Susan J. Ferguson

This best-selling anthology provides excellent coverage of key concepts in sociology including culture, socialization, deviance, social structure, social institutions, and social inequality. Drawing from a wide selection of classic and contemporary works, the 58 selections represent a plurality of voices and views within sociology. Students will be introduced to cutting edge scholarship and perspectives through classical readings from great thinkers like C. Wright Mills, Karl Marx, Howard Becker, and Max Weber and contemporary articles on current issues like gender socialization, healthcare reform, and minorities in the power elite. By integrating issues of diversity throughout the book, Ferguson helps students see the interrelationships between race-ethnicity, social class, and gender, as well as how these relationships have shaped the experiences of all people in society. Each selection is preceded by a brief introduction that highlights the key sociological concepts for students consider as they read.

Genres: Sociology, School, Nonfiction, Education

672 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Promi]

fall semester socio class

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

did not enjoy :/

[Jake · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book contains just enough usable articles to make it through a 101 Sociology class, but that's about all. I don't think I would use it again, as it's hard to justify making students pay the price tag. On the downside, the articles are very poorly organized, and it often requires a stretch of imagination to discover why the editor placed a certain article under one category heading and not another. All the articles on education, for example, could have been in the section about race. The section on socialization is particularly poor, as the articles together do not really add to what would be covered in a typical survey course on that topic. They all could have been placed elsewhere in the book or just left out. This book is also very light on classical sociology, with just one excerpt each from Marx and Weber and a smattering of later standards. The excerpts themselves can be very choppy, especially at the end when they often trail off without emphasizing any particular conclusion -- a problem I noted in earlier versions of this book that does not seem to have been improved. Finally, there are many articles and excerpts included here that are simply not from the field of sociology and they are very hit or miss. The journalistic accounts about social issues may seem like valuable reading, but they are more useful for a high school sociology or current events course than for a college-level introduction to the discipline.

[Umm Layth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Within this book, many problems that our society faces are discussed through short stories, from different viewpoints. Issues such as women working and the effects it has on children and the home, the loss of identity for the Native Hawaiians, the reality of the poor not being able to make it on minimum wage, and many other topics that deal with gender, race, illnesses such as depression and aids etc. are mentioned.

I truly recommend it. It will cause you to look at life a bit differently.

For the contents go here: http://web.grinnell.edu/sociology/fac...

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for my sociology class undergrad- it's a really interesting analysis of different sociology experiments and events that happened at different periods of time in different areas of the world.

[augend]

Our mutual silence served as a way to deal with the status inconsistency of a housewife with a B.A. hiring an ABD to clean her house. p. 25, Romero, "Intersection of Biography and History"

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I mean, let's be clear: it's a textbook. But it's an accessible textbook that isn't too dry and has a lot of excerpts from other texts I had been meaning to read, anyway.

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

i just read ahead so i could mark this book as read today