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Sociology Today
Social Transformations in a Globalizing World

Edited by:


August 2012 | 464 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd

We are living in a turbulent world marked by fast, continuous social changes that affect the lives of individuals, families, communities, organizations, businesses, nation-states, and international networks. This fundamentally commits contemporary sociology to being a science of change.

This collection effectively mirrors this diversity and variety of transformations underway in today's societies and transnational spaces. Written by a group of internationally renowned sociologists, it offers a cutting edge understanding of what is happening in our life worlds, work lives and frames of social existence. Bringing up issues such as political turbulence, cultural and artistic dynamics, family changes, gender roles, migration flows and social movements, it is a timely contribution that discusses transformation and globalization and their consequences on diverse platforms.

Illuminating and comprehensive, this book will be of immense use for sociology students on all levels, as well as lecturers, researchers and others who are interested in social life and the consequences of human action.

 
PART I: INTRODUCTION
Arnaud Sales
Chapter 1: Transformations in the Multiple Domains of a Turbulent World
 
PART II: CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVES FOR UNDERSTANDING THE DYNAMICS OF SOCIAL CHANGE
Arnaud Sales
Chapter 2: A Re-Appraisal of Agency-Structure Theories to Understand Social Change
Alberto Martinelli
Chapter 3: Global Society and Polyarchic Governance
Nico Stehr & Bernd Weiler
Chapter 4: Social Transformations and Knowledge
 
PART III: RECOMPOSITION OF THE POLITICAL DOMAIN AND CHALLENGES TO CIVIL SOCIETY
Kay Lawson, Mildred Schwartz & Eva Etzioni-Halevy
Chapter 5: Political Sociology Responds to Change
Pierre Hamel, Henri Lustiger-Thaler & Louis Maheu
Chapter 6: Global Social Movements - Politics, Subjectivity and Human Rights
 
PART IV: THE TRANSFORMATION OF ORGANIZATIONS AND WORK
Stewart Clegg
Chapter 7: Transforming Organizations
Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay
Chapter 8: Transformations of Work in a Global Context - Employment Systems, Autonomy and Work-life Articulation as Main Challenges
Carla Lipsig-Mummé & Edward Webster
Chapter 9: Reconnections - Labour Sociologies in a Globalizing Era
Julia Evetts
Chapter 10: Returning to Professions
 
PART V: THE TRANSFORMATION OF LIFE WORLD AND CULTURE
Ann Denis
Chapter 11: Challenging Women's Domination and Striving for Equity and the Respect of Difference
Susan A. McDaniel
Chapter 12: Family Change and Lifecourse Development - Social Transformations on the Intimate Frontiers
Mattei Dogan
Chapter 13: The Waning of Religious Beliefs in Thirty European Countries - Empirical Evidence
Arturo Rodriguez Morató
Chapter 14: The Culture Society - An Heuristic for Analyzing Cultural Change in the Global Age
Joseph Maguire
Chapter 15: Power and Global Sport - Zones of Prestige, Emulation and Resistance
 
PART VI: TRANSFORMATION OF FRAMES AND CONDITIONS OF SOCIAL EXISTENCE
Sophie Body-Gendrot, Marisol Garcia & Enzo Mingione
Chapter 16: Comparative Social Transformations in Urban Regimes
William C. Cockerham & Geoffrey B. Cockerham
Chapter 17: Globalization and the Transformation of Disease and Health Care
Han Entzinger
Chapter 18: The Dynamics of Migration and Social Transformations

In a remarkable feat of collaboration, Arnaud Sales has persuaded several of the world's leading sociologists to contribute to a truly student-friendly text that ranges over the often quite subtle transformations that today's 'networked' world have made to both the concepts and objects of the discipline. Overall the book manages a welcomed reassertion of the continuing need for a broadly institutionalist, macro-sociological perspective.

Steve Fuller
Auguste Comte Professor of Social Epistemology, University of Warwick


o livro “Sociology Today” apresenta tanto uma síntese bastante acurada do contexto atualexperenciado pelas sociedades nacionais e global, e a multiplicidade de fenômenos implicados; quanto uma leituraatual das diferentes perspectivas teóricas que, com destaque, têm auxiliado na compreensão do processo de rápidatransformação social global experenciado nas últimas décadas.

Leandro Raizer
Instituto de Ciências Sociais Aplicadas

The edited volume from Arnaud Sales “Sociology Today” provides a concise anthology of sociological debates on social transformation processes. A strength of the book is the bringing together of diverse theoretical positions under a broadly defined institutionalist perspective which focuses on the interaction of strategies of action, institutions and social structures. In doing so, the book convinces with a well-structured layout which presents the extensive range of topics in a transparent manner.

Alexander Ebner
Soziologische Revue

Ce livre est foisonnant. La majorité des chapitres présente des analyses riches, des points de vue novateurs. Il présente un caractère nettement pédagogique par plusieurs aspects : La grande variété des champs couverts ; Chaque article est accompagné d'une liste de questions de discussion qui se présentent comme des exercices permettant au lecteur d'interroger sa compréhension du texte et éventuellement de l'approfondir ; Chaque article est aussi complété par une abondante bibliographie. Il est donc particulièrement adapté à une utilisation par des enseignants et des étudiants soucieux de trouver une revue des questions que se posent les sociologues par rapport à la globalisation du monde. Aux lecteurs qui ne trouveront pas l'équivalent en français, il propose un condensé des réflexions de sociologues anglophones sur ces questions.

Alain Degenne
Revue Française de Sociologie

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter 1


Arnaud Sales

Arnaud Sales holds a Doctorat d'État ès Lettres et Sciences Humaines, from Université de Paris 7-Denis Diderot. He is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Montreal, Canada. He is a specialist in economic sociology focusing on the interface of the economic and political fields. His research interests center on the relations between the public and private spheres, and the emergence of international private authorities; economic and administrative elites, and knowledge workers; the role of knowledge in social transformations. His publications include: La Bourgeoisie industrielle au Québec (PUM, 1979); Décideurs et... More About Author

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ISBN: 9781849204699
£48.99

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