By Margaret L. Andersen, Howard F. Taylor, Kim A. Logio
About this ebook
Sociology: The Essentials, Ninth Edition introduces the sociological perspective by connecting individual experience with social institutions and inequality. Margaret L. Andersen, Howard F. Taylor, and Kim A. Logio examine culture, socialization, class, race, gender, family, education, religion, and social change for students taking an introductory sociology course.
Inside this title
Sociological theories and research methods for questioning everyday assumptions
Current listed price $22.99Regular price $51.00Digital ebook
Questioning familiar assumptions is the starting point for this introduction to sociology. The text explains how research and theory can reveal social patterns behind individual experiences, introducing functionalist, conflict, symbolic interactionist, and feminist perspectives. Research methods and ethics frame the evaluation of evidence about social life.
Culture and socialization lead into discussions of stratification and the intersections of class, race, ethnicity, and gender. Coverage of family, education, religion, government, and the economy connects these patterns with social institutions, while globalization and social change extend the scale of analysis. The ninth edition serves introductory students, including non-majors studying how personal circumstances relate to wider social forces.
Study guide included
Inside Sociology: The Essentials, 9th Edition.
Personal trouble and public arrangement are two views of the same event. Andersen, Taylor and Logio introduce sociology as the habit of linking them, using theory and evidence to show how shared rules hold social life together while steering very unequal chances to different groups.
The opening chapters cover the sociological perspective, culture and research methods, then socialization, interaction, groups and deviance. Stratification follows, spanning class, global inequality, race, gender and sexuality. Later chapters treat families, religion, education, health care, the economy and politics, and a closing chapter applies the same tools to environment, population and change. Throughout, the authors move from a single encounter to the wider arrangements that give it meaning, and they ask readers to weigh competing theoretical accounts against the evidence each would predict.
Connect biography to social structure
An individual's difficulty becomes sociological evidence when it is set against a patterned context. Comparing cases reveals how policy, labour markets, family expectations or place shape what people can do. Theory decides what a researcher looks for: functionalist accounts ask about stability, conflict accounts ask about resource control, interactionist work asks how meanings form in encounters, and each implies different evidence.
Set one account beside comparable cases
Let theory decide what counts as evidence
Check sampling and ethics in each method
Chapters 1–3
Show how rules are learned
Culture carries symbols, values, rules, objects and technologies, and people absorb it through language and interaction, though groups read the same rule differently. Socialization continues across the life course as family, peers, school, work and media introduce new roles, sometimes pulling in opposite directions. Status and role, group pressure and organizational routine then shape conduct, and labelling can change both treatment and self-image.
Follow a rule into everyday practice
Watch for competing expectations in one role
Note how a label alters later chances
Chapters 2 and 4–7
Trace who reaches resources
Stratification names durable differences in resources, prestige and power. Class reaches housing, health, schooling and risk through income, wealth, occupation and networks, and the book sorts estate, caste and class systems while asking how mobility works inside each. One person's climb says little about whether the ladder itself has changed, and global inequality is explained through trade, colonial history and political power.
Separate income from wealth and networks
Ask whether mobility changes the ladder
Weigh modernization against world-systems accounts
Chapters 8–9
See how categories shape opportunity
Racial categories and their meanings shift across societies and periods, yet they bite when institutions use them to sort housing, schooling, work or policing. Prejudice at the personal level and discrimination at the institutional level are distinct problems requiring distinct evidence. Gender expectations are taught, enforced and contested, and sexuality is shaped by norms, identity and recognition, so overlapping positions can hide variation inside a group.
Ask how each category was defined
Separate personal bias from institutional practice
Look inside group averages for variation
Chapters 10–12
Compare institutions through routines
Families arrange care across many household forms; religion supplies community, meaning and authority; education passes on knowledge while also issuing credentials; health care access reflects funding and organization. Work allocates reward and politics allocates authority, and a rule in one setting can reshape options in another. The test is to compare stated policy with what users actually meet.
Name the need each institution organizes
Trace rules across institutional boundaries
Set policy against lived experience
Chapters 13–15
Analyse change and uneven exposure
Births, deaths and migration alter a population's size, makeup and age profile, and their local effect depends on housing, labour and services. Rates and age structure compare places better than raw counts built on different baselines. Environmental harm follows land use, political power and access to resources, so any proposed change should be read for who is exposed, who pays and who decides.
Use rates rather than raw counts
Map exposure against access to protection
Identify who decides and who absorbs cost
Chapter 16
Chapter and section map
The Sociological PerspectiveCh. 1
Doing Sociological ResearchCh. 3
Socialization and the Life CourseCh. 4
Social Class and Social StratificationCh. 8
Race and EthnicityCh. 10
Gender and SexualityChs. 11–12
Families and Religion through Economy and PoliticsChs. 13–15
Environment, Population, and Social ChangeCh. 16
Key takeaways
Convert a private story into a sociological question by comparing people who face different institutional conditions.
Keep individual attitudes distinct from the rules and resources that keep producing unequal outcomes.
Before arguing for change, name who decides, who gains and who absorbs the cost.
Students in introductory sociology courses, plus general readers who want a structured way to connect everyday experience with institutions, inequality and the forces behind social change.
Topics covered
introductory sociology
sociological perspective
social stratification
race and ethnicity
gender and sexuality
social institutions
social change
Cengage textbook
Questions about this ebook.
Edition, audience, and study-guide details at a glance.
What is Sociology: The Essentials, 9th Edition about?
Sociology: The Essentials, Ninth Edition introduces the sociological perspective by connecting individual experience with social institutions and inequality. Margaret L. Andersen, Howard F. Taylor, and Kim A. Logio examine culture, socialization, class, race, gender, family, education, religion, and social change for students taking an introductory sociology course.
Which edition of Sociology: The Essentials, 9th Edition is this?
This listing is for the 9th edition. Check the title, ISBN, and book details above before ordering, especially if your course or reading list names a specific edition.
Who is Sociology: The Essentials, 9th Edition for?
Students in introductory sociology courses, plus general readers who want a structured way to connect everyday experience with institutions, inequality and the forces behind social change.
Does this page include a study guide?
Yes. This page includes an original study guide with six thematic sections, key takeaways, and a chapter and section map for structured reading.
