Praised for its writing style that reads like a book you’d pore over at the corner café, this best-selling core text starts in a familiar place - the everyday world - and then introduces sociological concepts and institutions as they impact the student’s daily existence.
Full of vivid, real-world examples and touching personal vignettes, this text offers a solid introduction to basic sociological concepts and helps students realize their role in constructing, planning, maintaining, and fixing society.
David M. Newman earned his BA from San Diego State University in 1981 and his graduate degrees from the University of Washington in Seattle (MA 1984, PhD 1988). After a year at the University of Connecticut, David taught at DePauw University for more than 30 years. He currently teaches at Colgate University. David teaches courses in contemporary society, deviance, mental illness, family, social inequality, and research methods. He has published numerous articles on teaching and has presented research papers on the intersection of gender and power in intimate relationships. Recently most of his scholarly activity has been devoted to writing and revising several books, including Sociology: Exploring the Architecture of Everyday Life: Brief Edition (SAGE, 2020); Identities and Inequalities: Exploring the Intersections of Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality (McGraw-Hill, 2021); and Families: A Sociological Perspective (McGraw-Hill, 2009). His most recent book, A Culture of Second Chances: The Promise, Practice and Price of Starting Over in Everyday Life (Lexington Books, 2019), examines the cultural meaning, institutional importance, and social limitations of “second chance” and “permanent stigma” narratives in everyday life.