Social Sciences Textbooks
Introduction to Psychology
Copyright Year: 2015
Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing
License: CC BY-NC-SA
When you teach Introduction to Psychology, do you find it difficult — much harder than teaching classes in statistics or research methods? Do you easily give a lecture on the sympathetic nervous system, a lecture on Piaget, and a lecture on social cognition, but struggle with linking these topics together for the student? Do you feel like you are presenting a laundry list of research findings rather than an integrated set of principles and knowledge? Have you wondered how to ensure your course is relevant to your students? Introduction to Psychology utilizes the dual theme of behavior and empiricism to make psychology relevant to intro students. The author wrote this book to help students organize their thinking about psychology at a conceptual level. Five or ten years from now, he does not expect his students to remember the details of most of what he teaches them. However, he does hope that they will remember that psychology matters because it helps us understand behavior and that our knowledge of psychology is based on empirical study.
(22 reviews)
International Trade: Theory and Policy
Copyright Year: 2010
Contributor: Suranovic
Publisher: Saylor Foundation
License: CC BY-NC-SA
International Trade: Theory and Policy is built on Steve Suranovic's belief that to understand the international economy, students need to learn how economic models are applied to real world problems. It is true what they say, that ”economists do it with models.“ That's because economic models provide insights about the world that are simply not obtainable solely by discussion of the issues. International Trade: Theory and Policy presents a variety of international trade models including the Ricardian model, the Heckscher-Ohlin model, and the monopolistic competition model. It includes trade policy analysis in both perfectly competitive and imperfectly competitive markets.
(3 reviews)
Microeconomics: Theory Through Applications
Copyright Year: 2011
Contributors: Cooper and John
Publisher: Saylor Foundation
License: CC BY-NC-SA
Russell Cooper and Andrew John have written an economics text aimed directly at students from its very inception. You're thinking, ”Yeah, sure. I've heard that before.“
(4 reviews)
Money and Banking
Copyright Year: 2012
Contributor: Wright
Publisher: Saylor Foundation
License: CC BY-NC-SA
The financial crisis of 2007-8 has already revolutionized institutions, markets, and regulation. Wright's Money and Banking V 2.0 captures those revolutionary changes and packages them in a way that engages undergraduates enrolled in Money and Banking and Financial Institutions and Markets courses.
(6 reviews)
Principles of Economics
Copyright Year: 2016
Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing
License: CC BY-NC-SA
This book is intended for a two-semester course in Economics taught out of the social sciences or business school. Principles of Economics aims to teach considerable range and depth of Economic concepts through an approachable style and methodology. The authors take a three-pronged approach to every chapter: The concept is covered with a “Heads Up” to ward off confusion, a real-world application for that concept, and a “You Try It” section to make sure students are staying on top of the concept.
(7 reviews)
Principles of Macroeconomics
Copyright Year: 2016
Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing
License: CC BY-NC-SA
Recognizing that a course in economics may seem daunting to some students, we have tried to make the writing clear and engaging. Clarity comes in part from the intuitive presentation style, but we have also integrated a number of pedagogical features that we believe make learning economic concepts and principles easier and more fun. These features are very student-focused. The chapters themselves are written using a “modular” format. In particular, chapters generally consist of three main content sections that break down a particular topic into manageable parts. Each content section contains not only an exposition of the material at hand but also learning objectives, summaries, examples, and problems. Each chapter is introduced with a story to motivate the material and each chapter ends with a wrap-up and additional problems. Our goal is to encourage active learning by including many examples and many problems of different types.
(2 reviews)
Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World
Copyright Year: 2016
Publisher: University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing
License: CC BY-NC-SA
The founders of sociology in the United States wanted to make a difference. A central aim of the sociologists of the Chicago school was to use sociological knowledge to achieve social reform. A related aim of sociologists like Jane Addams, W.E.B. DuBois, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett and others since was to use sociological knowledge to understand and alleviate gender, racial, and class inequality.
(24 reviews)