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Seeing Social Problems
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Seeing Social Problems
The Hidden Stories Behind Contemporary Issues

First Edition
Other Titles in:
Social Problems
December 2019 | 328 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
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Seeing Social Problems: The Hidden Stories Behind Contemporary Issues shows students how to think about social problems in a new way, by carefully analyzing headline-making issues they are already familiar with and illustrating the connection between individual problems and larger social forces. Each chapter engages students in thinking about the world sociologically by focusing on a specific case study that represents a more general social problem. The chapters always start with the knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, and personal experiences that students bring to the case—what author Ira Silver refers to as the conventional wisdom—and effectively demonstrate to them the “first wisdom” of sociology: “things are not what they seem.” In each instance, Silver shows how sociologists ask questions, gather empirical data, use multiple perspectives, and consider larger social forces to discover the “hidden stories” behind individual behavior.


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The password-protected Instructor Resource Site (formally known as Sage Edge) offers access to all text-specific resources, including a test bank and editable, chapter-specific PowerPoint® slides. Learn more.
 
Preface: To the Instructor
 
Acknowledgments
 
About the Author
 
Chapter 1 • Looking beyond What You Already Know: Becoming Curious about Social Problems
Social Problems Are Everywhere

 
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?

 
Key Terms

 
 
Chapter 2 • Opportunity for Few: The Withering of the American Dream
Struggling to Get Ahead in the Land of Opportunity

 
The Opportunity Divide: How American Society Produces Economic Inequality

 
Blocked Opportunities: How Social Forces Impede Low-Income Youth from Living the Dream

 
Tarnished Hopes for the Future: 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 Widen 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?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 3 • “I Can’t Breathe”: Policing, Race, and Violence
Violent Encounters between Cops and People of Color

 
Assigning Personal Blame, Either to Bad Cops or to Dangerous Black Men

 
Responding to Public Fears: Police Brutality as a By-product of Getting Tough on Crime

 
The Hidden Roots of Crime: How Race Shapes Opportunity

 
The Sociological Stories behind the Footage: Taking a Deeper Look at Police Violence Videos

 
What Do You Know Now?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 4 • The Color of Drug Abuse: Handcuffs for Some Addicts, Help for Others
Crack and Opioids: A Tale of Two Drug Epidemics

 
Race and the Social Construction of Drugs

 
The Racial Inequalities Underlying Drug Enforcement

 
Policing Drugs by Creating Scapegoats

 
Not as Simple as “Just Say No”: The Social Forces Contributing to Drug Abuse

 
What Do You Know Now?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 5 • Slim Chances: Weight Anxiety in a Society That Prizes Thinness
Thin Is In: The Social Construction of Body Size

 
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?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 6 • What’s Sex Got to Do with It? Uncovering the Roots of Teen Pregnancy
Parental Anxiety Gone Wild: Raising Kids in a Society Where Sexualized Images Are Everywhere

 
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 Pregnancy 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?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
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

 
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 Values

 
What Do You Know Now?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
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

 
Seeking Revenge: Viewing 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?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 9 • #MeToo: Why Gender Violence Is Everyone’s Problem
Publicizing Trauma: How Social Media Has Brought Gender Violence out of the Shadows

 
Exhibiting Entitlement: Gender Violence as a Display of Male Power

 
Adding Insult to Injury: Why Blaming Gender Violence Survivors for Their Victimization Contributes to 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?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 10 • Bearing Witness to Inhumanity: Making Sense of Cruelty to Animals
Feeling Their Pain: Exploring Why Animal Cruelty So Deeply Affects Us

 
Gory Thrills: Making Sense of the Pleasure Some People Get from Abusing Animals

 
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?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 11 • “Better Safe Than Sorry”: Protecting Children from Strangers and Other Dangers
Careful Who You Friend: Exploring the Predatory Behavior of Strangers Lurking on the Internet

 
Unequal Childhoods: Exposing Why Some Kids Are More Prone Than Others to Online Exploitation by Strangers

 
Overprotecting Children: The Unintended Consequences of Safeguarding Kids from Risk

 
Strangers with Benefits: Discovering the Advantages of Interacting with Unfamiliar People in Public

 
Thinking Straight about Threats to Children

 
What Do You Know Now?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 12 • Have Kids Gotten Meaner? An Up-Close Look at Cyberbullying and Suicide
Any Time and Place: How Teens Use Technology to Act Cruelly toward One Another

 
A Peek Inside Teen Culture: Uncovering Social Forces That Give Rise to Cyberbullying

 
Not a Solitary Act of Desperation: Exposing Social Forces That Lead Teens to Die from Suicide

 
Getting to the Root of Kids’ Meanness toward One Another

 
What Do You Know Now?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 13 • “You’re Such a Downer”: Why Mental Illness Goes beyond Personal Suffering
Diseases of the Mind: Exploring the Wide Array of Psychiatric Disorders

 
Conditions Blood Tests Cannot Prove: The Social Construction of Mental Illness

 
Inexact Science: Explaining Cases Where ADHD Is Misdiagnosed

 
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?

 
Key Terms

 
Notes

 
 
Chapter 14 • Eyes Wide Open: The Benefits of 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

 
Notes

 
 
Glossary
 
Index

Supplements

Instructor Site
edge.sagepub.com/silver

The open-access Student Study Site makes it easy for students to maximize their study time, anywhere, anytime. It offers flashcards that strengthen understanding of key terms and concepts, as well as learning objectives that reinforce the most important material.

For additional information, custom options, or to request a personalized walkthrough of these resources, please contact your sales representative.
Student Study Site
edge.sagepub.com/silver

The open-access Student Study Site makes it easy for students to maximize their study time, anywhere, anytime. It offers flashcards that strengthen understanding of key terms and concepts, as well as learning objectives that reinforce the most important material.

For additional information, custom options, or to request a personalized walkthrough of these resources, please contact your sales representative.

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