Social Sciences

Principles of Sociological Inquiry – Qualitative and Quantitative Methods

Amy Blackstone, University of Maine

The author of Principles of Sociological Inquiry: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods, Amy Blackstone, started envisioning this textbook while sitting in her own undergraduate sociology research methods class. She enjoyed the material but wondered about its relevance to her everyday life and future plans (the idea that one day she would be teaching such a class hadn't yet occurred to her).

(19 reviews)

Social Problems: Continuity and Change

Social Problems: Continuity and Change is a realistic but motivating look at the many issues that are facing our society today. As this book's subtitle, Continuity and Change, implies, social problems are persistent, but they have also improved in the past and can be improved in the present and future, provided that our nation has the wisdom and will to address them.

(29 reviews)

Educational Psychology

Kelvin Seifert, University of Manitoba

Rosemary Sutton, Cleveland State University

Chapters in the text can be assigned either from beginning to end, as with a conventional printed book, or they can be selected in some other sequence to meet the needs of particular students or classes. In general the first half of the book focuses on broader questions and principles taken from psychology per se, and the second half focuses on somewhat more practical issues of teaching. But the division between “theory” and “practice” is only approximate; all parts of the book draw on research, theory, and practical wisdom wherever appropriate. Chapter 2 is about learning theory, and Chapter 3 is about development; but as we point out, these topics overlap with each other as well as with the concerns of daily teaching. Chapter 4 is about several forms of student diversity (what might be called individual differences in another context), and Chapter 5 is about one form of diversity that has become prominent in schools recently—students with disabilities. Chapter 6 is about motivation, a topic that is heavily studied by psychological researchers, but that also poses perennial challenges to classroom teachers.

(11 reviews)

Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation

Tom Theis, University of Illinois, Chicago

Jonathan Tomkin, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

With “Sustainability: A Comprehensive Foundation”, first and second-year college students are introduced to this expanding new field, comprehensively exploring the essential concepts from every branch of knowledge – including engineering and the applied arts, natural and social sciences, and the humanities. As sustainability is a multi-disciplinary area of study, the text is the product of multiple authors drawn from the diverse faculty of the University of Illinois: each chapter is written by a recognized expert in the field.

(26 reviews)

Research Methods in Psychology - 4th American Edition

Carrie Cuttler, Washington State University

Rajiv S. Jhangiani, Kwantlen Polytechnic University

Dana C. Leighton, Texas A&M University, Texarkana

This fourth edition (published in 2019) was co-authored by Rajiv S. Jhangiani (Kwantlen Polytechnic University), Carrie Cuttler (Washington State University), and Dana C. Leighton (Texas A&M University—Texarkana) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Revisions throughout the current edition include changing the chapter and section numbering system to better accommodate adaptions that remove or reorder chapters; continued reversion from the Canadian edition; general grammatical edits; replacement of “he/she” to “they” and “his/her” to “their”; removal or update of dead links; embedded videos that were not embedded; moved key takeaways and exercises from the end of each chapter section to the end of each chapter; a new cover design. In addition, the following revisions were made to specific chapters:

(24 reviews)

World Regional Geography: People, Places and Globalization

World Regional Geography: People, Places and Globalization is designed for students to experience and study as much of the world as possible within a limited amount of time. It gives students the fundamental concepts and the latest data regarding world places in a concise, easy-to-read format.

(7 reviews)

Social Science Research: Principles, Methods, and Practices

Anol Bhattacherjee, University of South Florida

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. This book is based on my lecture materials developed over a decade of teaching the doctoral-level class on Research Methods at the University of South Florida. The target audience for this book includes Ph.D. and graduate students, junior researchers, and professorsteaching courses on research methods, although senior researchers can also use this book as a handy and compact reference.

(33 reviews)

Introduction to Sociology 2e

Heather Griffiths, Fayetteville, North Carolina

Nathan Keirns, Zanesville, Ohio

Eric Strayer, Salinas, California

Introduction to Sociology 2e adheres to the scope and sequence of a typical, one-semester introductory sociology course. It offers comprehensive coverage of core concepts, foundational scholars, and emerging theories. The textbook presents section reviews with rich questions, discussions that help students apply their knowledge, and features that draw learners into the discipline in meaningful ways. The second edition has been updated significantly to reflect the latest research and current, relevant examples.

(46 reviews)

American Government and Politics in the Information Age

This text is a comprehensive introduction to the vital subject of American government and politics. Governments decide who gets what, when, how (See Harold D. Lasswell, Politics: Who Gets What, When, How, [New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936]); they make policies and pass laws that are binding on all a society's members; they decide about taxation and spending, benefits and costs, even life and death.

(10 reviews)

Principles of Social Psychology

Have you ever had trouble teaching the various topics of social psychology and fitting them together to form a coherent field? Unnamed Author felt like he was presenting a laundry list of ideas, research studies, and phenomena, rather than an integrated set of principles and knowledge. He wondered how his students could be expected to remember and understand the many phenomena that social psychologists study? How could they tell what was most important? It was then that he realized a fresh approach to a Social Psychology textbook was needed to structure and integrate student learning; thus, Principles of Social Psychology was born. This textbook is based on a critical thinking approach, and its aim is to get students thinking actively and conceptually – with a greater focus on the forest than the trees. Yes, there are right and wrong answers, but the answers are not the only thing. What is perhaps even more important is how students get to the answers – the thinking process itself. To help students better grasp the big picture of social psychology, and to provide you with a theme that you can use to organize your lectures, Unnamed Author's text has a consistent pedagogy across the chapters. The presentation is organized around two underlying principles that are essential to social psychology:

(12 reviews)