Everyday Sociology: Culture, Power, and the Social World

The anthology Everyday Sociology: Culture, Power, and the Social World introduces readers to the grit of our social world. Emphasizing constructionism, situational behavior, and cultural power, the text uses a carefully crafted structure to present critical information, and it features exciting and engaging writings that relate the content to everyday life.

The book is organized into sections that highlight the way we view our everyday world, the culture of social control, the faces of power, and social inequality, power, and progress. Specific topics include the sociological imagination, deviance and crime, making sense of race, class, and gender, and implicit bias. All chapters within the units have original introductions that frame the content. These highly personal passages are dubbed Dr. Sue to You, providing intimate narratives from author to audience. Original instructional devices include Beyond the Book, which links content to other ideas, experiences, and disciplines, From the Field, which touches on related research, and Reality Checks, which grounds the content in real-world experiences.

Everyday Sociology provides a clear sociological background to high-interest yet challenging issues and ideas. Written to be equally educational and intriguing, it is ideal for introductory sociology courses.

L. Susan Williams is an associate professor of sociology and criminology at Kansas State University, specializing in violence and inequality, with an emphasis on the effects of place. Her ground-breaking research for the National Science Foundation empirically documented the independent effect of local community on the life decisions of individual adolescent girls. Her research into rural youth and gendered violence resulted in two studies - Bad Girls from Rural Places and Rural Outlaws. Dr. Williams' recent interests include prison ethnography, women and crime, violence and survivors, and gender construction.