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Social Prisms
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Social Prisms
Reflections on Everyday Myths and Paradoxes


January 1999 | 272 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
"This is a superb book. By presenting basic sociological topics in terms of the paradoxes they contain, O'Brien situates the discipline and its subject matter in historical and intellectual context, while using examples that are contemporary, accessible, and of interest and relevance to students. I look forward to using Social Prisms in my sociology courses and to the animated class discussions that I'm sure her book will engender." --Anita Ilta Garey, University of New Hampshire "Pine Forge Press has done it again! Social Prisms bolsters the well-deserved reputation of Pine Forge Press for publishing serious and innovative yet interesting and accessible works for undergraduate sociology courses. Students will enjoy O'Brien's frequent references to the popular culture (sports, television, movies) which is so central to their existence outside the classroom, and be challenged by her call to embrace rather than resolve the many paradoxes of contemporary social life in America." --David Yamane, University of Notre Dame

 
Prologue
 
The Paradox of Reduction
Some Observations on Sociology as Science

 
 
The Case of the Designer Genes
Reconsidering the Nature/Nurture Binary

 
 
To Belong or Not to Belong? Paradoxes of Community
 
Which Box Do I Check? Paradoxes of Social Difference
 
How Do We Cut the American Pie? The Myth of Meritocracy
 
Family Equations
Whose Family? Whose Values?

 
 
The Paradox of Value in the Age of Certainty
Reflections on Max Weber and Georg Simmel

 
 
Epilogue
Paradoxes of Subjectivity

 

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