Social Issues In America

Truly comprehensive in scope - and arranged in A-Z format for quick access - this eight-volume set is a one-source reference for anyone researching the historical and contemporary details of more than 170 major issues confronting American society. Entries cover the full range of hotly contested social issues - including economic, scientific, environmental, criminal, legal, security, health, and media topics. Each entry discusses the historical origins of the problem or debate; past means used to deal with the issue; the current controversy surrounding the issue from all perspectives; and the near-term and future implications for society. In addition, each entry includes a chronology, a bibliography, and a directory of Internet resources for further research as well as primary documents and statistical tables highlighting the debates.

What we call "North America" today is a human space that has been constructed over the centuries, perceived from time immemorial by its original inhabitants as a unified whole, and named Turtle Island. What is North America today? Is it more than the sum of its parts? Does it qualify as a distinct global region? Is it just a market or also something else? This book explores several neglected aspects of the key relationships between Canada, Mexico and the United States. Studies of societal relations in North America have typically been limited to trade, investment and intergovernmental relations. In contrast, the authors in this book address other vital issues which bind this global region together, including Indigenous peoples, security, migration, civil societies, democracy, identities and culture. Via a thorough examination of these issues, the historical, sociological, economic, and political aspects of regional linkages are highlighted. Rather than dealing with each country in isolation, each chapter in this collection considers North America as a single unit of analysis, therefore systematically addressing the regional dynamic as a whole, and engaging the country-specific differences in a truly comparative way. By providing the analytical tools needed, this important book makes sense of the different aspects of the complex societies of contemporary North America.

Hilary Weaver has drawn together leading Native American social workers, researchers, and academics to provide current information on a variety of social issues related to Native American children, families, and reservations both in the USA and in Canada. Divided into four major sections, each containing an introduction, this book places the historical foundations of Native American social work in context in order to fully provide the reader with a comprehensive survey on various aspects of working with Native American families; community health and wellness; and community revitalization and decolonization. This groundbreaking volume should be read by both educators and students in social work and other helping professions in the USA and Canada as well as all human service professionals working with Native Americans.

A sobering account of a disenfranchised American working class and important policy solutions to the nation's economic inequalities One of the country's leading scholars on economics and social policy, Isabel Sawhill addresses the enormous divisions in American society--economic, cultural, and political--and what might be done to bridge them. Widening inequality and the loss of jobs to trade and technology has left a significant portion of the American workforce disenfranchised and skeptical of governments and corporations alike. And yet both have a role to play in improving the country for all. Sawhill argues for a policy agenda based on mainstream values, such as family, education, and work. Although many have lost faith in government programs designed to help them, there are still trusted institutions on both the local and the federal level that can deliver better job opportunities and higher wages to those who have been left behind. At the same time, the private sector needs to reexamine how it trains and rewards employees. This book provides a clear-headed and middle-way path to a better-functioning society in which personal responsibility is honored and inclusive capitalism and more broadly shared growth are once more the norm.

Significant readings touching various social problems facing America.

In this book, Frank McVeigh and Loreen Wolfer take an historical approach to examine the causes and conflicts behind ten major social problems that have existed for nearly 230 years. Using a critical thinking perspective of the history, sociology, politics, and economics of the period, the authors analyze social problems as a series of conflicts between those with power and those who were at one time virtually powerless. Embedded in this analysis is a discussion of how the shift from a Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft society has influenced how we address these problems. Using these themes, McVeigh and Wolfer provide thought-provoking insight into the ways individuals, groups, and social institutions change over time, gaining or losing power. The book contains a preface by Arthur Shostak, Drexel University.

Homelessness had become a social problem that was primarily not about solving the nation's housing crisis. The pressing question becomes: How (and why) did homelessness become the social problem in its own right, one that was only tangentially related to the problem of inappropriate or insufficient housing? Why, when people demanded that something be done about homelessness, did they get specific policies and unintended outcomes? Cynthia Bogard is not content with the shorthand answers that rested on bias and ideology, such as "conservative politics bred conservative policies" or "American individualism precludes government investment in housing." This did not explain homelessness sufficiently, especially given all the advocacy and research that had occurred in the 1980s and 1990s. Examining these "claimsmaking activities," as constructionists call them, however, is a daunting task because the activities engaged in by people in the attempt to persuade others are fluid, subtle, and complicated as are the responses to these social actions. This raised a second set of issues that the author is concerned with: How can we adequately represent and sociologically examine this very complicated human activity of social problems construction? Who does the construction, and to what effect? Bogard's answer to these questions is a book that can be read in two ways and on multiple levels. For those who are interested in the story of the career of homelessness as a social problem in America's two "national" cities, the book should be read from the beginning through the conclusion as a straight narrative. The technical matter in the appendix can be ignored. But for those readers with an interest in social problems constructionism, however, this book is meant as a "cook-book" of sorts. Each chapter emphasizes a feature of constructionism, such as an important group of claims makers or an important aspect of the claims making process. The work highlights a major feature in advanced societies: the intersection of interests and claims. Social constructions may be real, but they are comprised of no less real social interests. The work marks a real departure and advance over the original formulations of construction theory in social research. Cynthia J. Bogard is associate professor of sociology at Hofstra University.