Introduction to Sociology 3e PDF Download – Conerly, Holmes et al. (OpenStax) BS Sociology

Introduction to Sociology 3e is the OpenStax textbook for the first university course in sociology, written by a team led by senior contributing authors Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes and Asha Lal Tamang, and you can download it free as a PDF from the official OpenStax site. Its 21 chapters begin with the discipline, its history and its research methods, then cover culture, society, socialization, groups, deviance and media. They go on to inequality by class, nation, race, gender and age, and to the institutions of family, religion, education, government, work and health, and they end with population, the environment and social movements.

The book builds on three classic perspectives, functionalism, conflict theory and symbolic interactionism, and applies them chapter after chapter, which fits an introductory BS Sociology course. Most of its data and cases come from the United States, and this page says so plainly. It gives a summary, key points, a tip, a common mistake and two practice questions for every chapter, plus a study plan, so you know what to read first before you open the official book.

Book Overview

Chapter List

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Sociology

Difficulty: Easy · Key topics: society, culture, sociological imagination, micro-level and macro-level, Comte, Durkheim, Marx, Weber, Du Bois, functionalism, conflict theory, symbolic interactionism

The opening chapter defines sociology as the scientific and systematic study of groups and societies, from small groups to very large ones. It explains the sociological imagination of C. Wright Mills, the difference between micro-level and macro-level analysis and the warning against reification. It then traces the discipline from Comte, Martineau, Marx, Spencer, Simmel, Durkheim and Weber to American founders such as Du Bois, Addams, Cooley and Mead. The chapter closes with the three main theoretical perspectives and a short case for studying sociology for better citizenship and for careers.

Key Points:

• Sociology studies groups, societies and social interaction; micro-level work looks at small groups and individuals, and macro-level work looks at large trends.
• The sociological imagination links a person’s choices to the history and social structure around them, and reification is the error of treating an abstract idea such as culture as if it were a real thing.
• Comte reintroduced the word sociology in 1838, and Durkheim founded the first European sociology department, at Bordeaux, in 1895.
• Du Bois’s 1896–1897 study of Philadelphia’s African American community, built on hundreds of interviews, brought rigorous empirical method into American sociology.
• Functionalism sees society as interrelated parts, conflict theory sees competition for limited resources, and symbolic interactionism studies meaning in everyday interaction.
• Merton’s manifest functions are the intended results of a social process, and latent functions are the unintended ones.

Memory Tip: Sort the three perspectives by scale. Functionalism and conflict theory are macro-level views of the whole society, while symbolic interactionism is the micro-level view of person-to-person meaning.

Common Mistake: Treating the three theories as rivals where only one can be right. The chapter presents them as lenses, each with its own criticism, and most real studies use more than one.

Important Questions:

• What is the sociological imagination? It is C. Wright Mills’s idea of seeing the link between a person’s behavior and experience and the wider culture and history that shaped it. For example, a decision to marry depends on personal feelings and also on how acceptable marriage is in that society.
• Which of the main theories works at the micro level, and who named it? Symbolic interactionism works at the micro level. George Herbert Mead is seen as its founder, and his student Herbert Blumer coined the term and set out its basic premises.

Chapter 2: Sociological Research

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: scientific method, hypothesis, variables, reliability, validity, surveys, field research, ethnography, experiments, secondary data analysis, informed consent, value neutrality

This chapter shows how sociologists turn a question into evidence. It walks through the six steps of the scientific method, from asking a question and reviewing the literature to forming a hypothesis, designing a study, drawing conclusions and reporting results, and it defines variables, operational definitions, reliability and validity. It contrasts the interpretive framework and critical sociology with that model. It then compares surveys, field research, experiments and secondary data analysis, and ends with research ethics, the ASA code, informed consent and value neutrality, using cases such as Tuskegee and Milgram.

Key Points:

• The six steps are: ask a question, review the literature, form a hypothesis, design and conduct the study, draw conclusions, and report results.
• A hypothesis predicts how an independent variable affects a dependent variable, and an operational definition says exactly how each term will be measured.
• Reliability means a study can be repeated with the same results, while validity means the measure captures what it is meant to measure.
• Closed-ended questions give quantitative data (numbers), and open-ended questions or interviews give qualitative data (words).
• The Hawthorne effect is a change in behavior because people know they are being watched.
• Secondary data analysis is nonreactive, and content analysis gives a systematic way to record what is found in existing sources.
• Value neutrality, a concept from Max Weber, means gathering and reporting data objectively even when it contradicts personal views.

Memory Tip: Say the steps as a story: ask, read, guess, test, conclude, report. Each verb matches one of the six steps in order.

Common Mistake: Mixing up reliability and validity. A measure can give the same answer every time (reliable) and still miss what you meant to measure (not valid).

Important Questions:

• What is the first step of the scientific method? Ask a question or choose a research topic. The topic must be narrow enough to study within a place and a time frame, so a question such as whether societies can be happy forever is too vague.
• Why is a random sample an effective way to choose participants? In a random sample every person in the population has the same chance of being picked, so the sample is more likely to represent the whole population and the results can be generalized.

Chapter 3: Culture

Difficulty: Easy · Key topics: society and culture, cultural universals, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, values, norms, folkways and mores, symbols, language, Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, subculture, counterculture, cultural lag, globalization

The chapter separates society, a group of people, from culture, their shared values, beliefs, norms, language, practices and artifacts, and it covers material and nonmaterial culture. It explains cultural universals, ethnocentrism, xenocentrism, culture shock and cultural relativism. It then goes through values, norms, sanctions, symbols and language, including the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, and describes high, low and popular culture, subcultures and countercultures. It finishes with cultural change through innovation, diffusion, cultural lag and globalization, and with how each theoretical perspective reads culture.

Key Points:

• Cultural universals, such as the family unit, are patterns found in every society, though how they work varies; Murdock studied them through systems of kinship.
• Ethnocentrism judges other cultures by your own standards, xenocentrism believes another culture is better, and cultural relativism assesses a culture by its own standards.
• Norms can be formal or informal; mores carry moral weight, folkways are traditions without a moral basis, and sanctions enforce both as a form of social control.
• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis says language shapes how people perceive reality, which is also called linguistic relativity.
• A subculture is a smaller group within a larger culture, while a counterculture rejects the dominant culture’s values and creates its own rules.
• Innovations come from discovery or invention, diffusion spreads them across borders, and cultural lag is the gap before society accepts them.

Memory Tip: Folkways are the “folk” habits, like how you greet people, while mores are the “moral” rules, like the ones you would be shocked to see broken.

Common Mistake: Using culture and society as the same word. The chapter says a society is the group of people, and culture is what that group shares.

Important Questions:

• What is the difference between folkways and mores? Mores are norms that embody moral views, so breaking them is judged seriously. Folkways are everyday traditions without a moral basis, so breaking them brings only mild disapproval.
• What does the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis claim? It claims that people understand their world through the cultural meanings built into their language, so language shapes perception and behavior. Lera Boroditsky’s experiments with German and Spanish speakers, whose languages give nouns a gender, are the chapter’s example.

Chapter 4: Society and Social Interaction

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: types of societies, Durkheim, mechanical and organic solidarity, anomie, Marx, alienation, Weber, rationalization, social construction of reality, roles and status, dramaturgy

This chapter begins with a day in the life of a teenager in sub-Saharan Africa, then classifies societies by technology: hunter-gatherer, pastoral, horticultural, agricultural and feudal societies, then industrial and postindustrial or information societies. It compares how Durkheim, Marx and Weber explained modern society, through solidarity, class conflict, alienation and rationalization. It closes with the social construction of reality, covering roles, ascribed and achieved status, role strain, role conflict, Goffman’s presentation of self, the Thomas theorem and self-fulfilling prophecies.

Key Points:

• Preindustrial societies run from hunter-gatherer to feudal, the Industrial Revolution produced industrial society, and information societies now rest on digital technology and services.
• Durkheim contrasted mechanical solidarity, based on similarity in simple societies, with organic solidarity, based on interdependence in complex ones.
• Anomie, literally “without law”, is a state where collective norms weaken, and it appears in times of social uncertainty such as war or an economic shock.
• Marx saw the bourgeoisie, who own the means of production, in conflict with the proletariat, who sell their labor, and he described workers’ alienation.
• Weber’s focus was class, status and power, and he warned that rationalization taken too far traps people in an iron cage.
• Ascribed statuses are not chosen, achieved statuses are earned, role strain is too much demanded of one role, and role conflict is two roles pulling against each other.

Memory Tip: Mechanical solidarity is like identical parts in a machine, all alike, and organic solidarity is like the organs of a body, each different and each needed.

Common Mistake: Confusing role strain with role conflict. Strain happens inside one role, such as a parent’s many duties, and conflict happens between roles, such as parent and employee.

Important Questions:

• What is the difference between mechanical and organic solidarity? Mechanical solidarity holds small, simple societies together through shared beliefs and similar work. Organic solidarity holds larger, industrial societies together because specialized people depend on each other.
• What is the Thomas theorem? It says that if people define a situation as real, it becomes real in its consequences. A self-fulfilling prophecy is a case where a false belief leads people to act in ways that make it come true.

Chapter 5: Socialization

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: self, looking-glass self, Mead, moral development, Kohlberg, Gilligan, nature and nurture, agents of socialization, hidden curriculum, anticipatory socialization, resocialization, total institution

The chapter defines socialization as how people learn the norms, beliefs and values of their society. It starts with theories of the self, from psychological views to Cooley’s looking-glass self and Mead’s idea that the self grows through seeing yourself through others’ eyes, then Kohlberg’s moral stages and Gilligan’s gender critique. It weighs nature against nurture using twin studies. It then covers the agents of socialization, from family and peers to school, workplace, religion, government and media, and closes with socialization across the life course, including resocialization in total institutions.

Key Points:

• Cooley’s looking-glass self (1902) says we build our self-understanding from how we think others see us.
• Mead held that the self develops through social interaction and that people learn to take the perspective of others, an ability we are not born with.
• Kohlberg studied moral development, and Gilligan argued his research used only male subjects and so could carry gender bias.
• Twin studies compare identical twins raised apart to separate the effects of nature (genes) from nurture (social environment).
• Family is the first agent of socialization, followed by peer groups, school, workplace, religion, government and mass media.
• The hidden curriculum is what schools teach beyond the subjects, such as timeliness and following rules.
• Resocialization removes old behaviors and replaces them with new rules, most strongly in total institutions such as prisons.

Memory Tip: Think of the looking-glass self as a mirror made of other people’s reactions, and of resocialization as swapping the old rulebook for a new one.

Common Mistake: Treating nature and nurture as an either-or choice. The chapter says both shape us, and sociology focuses on how society’s influence shows up in patterns across class and gender.

Important Questions:

• Why did Gilligan criticize Kohlberg’s theory of moral development? Kohlberg’s research was conducted only on male subjects, so his stages might reflect male patterns. Gilligan asked whether women would have responded differently and added a gender dimension to the theory.
• What is resocialization, and when does it happen? It is the removal of behaviors that were useful in a previous role and their replacement with new ones. It happens in places such as boarding schools, senior care centers and prisons, and it is usually more stressful than ordinary socialization.

Chapter 6: Groups and Organization

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: primary and secondary groups, in-groups and out-groups, reference groups, dyads and triads, leadership styles, conformity, bystander effect, formal organizations, bureaucracy, McDonaldization

The chapter opens with the Tea Party and #MeToo movements to show how groups drive change. It defines a group and separates it from an aggregate or a category, then describes primary and secondary groups, in-groups, out-groups and reference groups. It moves on to group size and structure, including Simmel’s dyad and triad, expressive and instrumental leaders, democratic, authoritarian and laissez-faire styles, conformity and the bystander effect. The last section covers formal organizations, Etzioni’s three types, Weber’s bureaucracy and Ritzer’s McDonaldization of society.

Key Points:

• A group is at least two people who interact often and share a sense of identity, while a category such as Millennials shares a trait but does not interact.
• Cooley’s primary groups are small and emotional, with an expressive function, and secondary groups are larger and task-focused, with an instrumental function.
• Sumner’s in-group and out-group concepts explain belonging, and they can also feed ethnocentrism, racism and other prejudice.
• In a dyad, if one person leaves the group ends, but a triad can survive the loss of one member.
• The bystander effect, linked to diffusion of responsibility, makes people less likely to help when others are present.
• Etzioni’s formal organizations are normative (voluntary), coercive and utilitarian, and Weber’s bureaucracy has a hierarchy of authority, a clear division of labor, explicit rules and impersonality.
• Ritzer’s McDonaldization stresses efficiency, predictability, calculability and control.

Memory Tip: Expressive leaders look after feelings and instrumental leaders look after tasks, so ask whether the leader’s main job is “how we feel” or “what we must finish”.

Common Mistake: Calling any collection of people a group. A crowd at a bus stop is an aggregate, because the people do not interact or share a group identity.

Important Questions:

• How do primary and secondary groups differ? A primary group is small and tied by long-term, face-to-face emotional bonds, like a family. A secondary group is larger and more impersonal and exists for a goal, like a classroom or an office.
• What are the three types of formal organizations? Etzioni named normative or voluntary organizations (joined for shared interests), coercive organizations (people are pushed to join, such as prisons) and utilitarian organizations (joined for a material reward, such as a job).

Chapter 7: Deviance, Crime, and Social Control

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: deviance, sanctions, social control, strain theory, social disorganization, power elite, labeling theory, differential association, control theory, crime statistics, criminal justice system

Starting from the change in marijuana laws, the chapter shows that deviance depends on context and on how people respond. It explains social control and formal and informal, positive and negative sanctions. It then applies the three paradigms: Durkheim and Merton’s strain theory for functionalists, Marx and Mills’s power elite for conflict theorists, and labeling, Sutherland’s differential association and Hirschi’s control theory for interactionists. It ends with types of crime, how crime is measured, the public’s view of crime and the three branches of the criminal justice system.

Key Points:

• Deviance is a violation of norms and is broader than crime, which is a violation of a legal code.
• Sanctions can be positive or negative and formal or informal, and together they maintain social control and social order.
• Durkheim argued deviance is necessary because punishment reaffirms shared values, and Merton’s strain theory ties deviance to blocked access to approved goals.
• Labeling theory separates primary deviance from secondary deviance, where a person takes on the deviant label, which can become a master status.
• Sutherland’s differential association says deviance is learned in groups, and Hirschi’s control theory says weak social bonds make deviance more likely.
• The criminal justice system has three branches (police, courts, corrections), and about 2.3 million people were incarcerated in the United States at the end of 2018.

Memory Tip: Match each theory to the question it asks. Strain asks “can they reach the goal legally?”, labeling asks “who stuck the label?”, and control asks “what holds them back?”.

Common Mistake: Assuming deviant means illegal or bad. The chapter says deviance is defined by context and reaction, and acts such as sit-ins and refusing to move to the back of a bus were deviant in their time.

Important Questions:

• How do deviance and crime differ? Deviance covers any violation of social norms, some of which are crimes and some are not. Crime is a violation of formally enacted legal codes, and society treats it as the more serious matter.
• What is labeling theory? It studies how a deviant label is ascribed to a person by others. People who are labeled may come to believe it, which leads from primary to secondary deviance, and Sykes and Matza showed how labeled teenagers use techniques of neutralization to deny it.

Chapter 8: Media and Technology

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: technology, digital divide, knowledge gap, net neutrality, online privacy, types of media, attention economy, media consolidation, technological diffusion, gatekeeping, surveillance

The chapter treats technology as the application of science to everyday problems and looks at who gets access to it. It covers the digital divide and the knowledge gap, constant contact, online privacy and security, and the net neutrality debate. It then follows media from newspapers, radio, television and film to new media, and looks at advertising in the attention economy and the homogenization of news. It also covers media globalization, media consolidation and technological diffusion, and applies functionalism, conflict theory, feminist views and symbolic interactionism to media and technology.

Key Points:

• Technology is the application of science to the problems of daily life, and unequal access to it creates the digital divide.
• The knowledge gap is the lack of information and marketable skills that follows from unequal exposure to technology.
• Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers should treat all internet data equally.
• Utility patents cover new inventions, design patents cover appearance, and plant patents cover new plant varieties.
• Media consolidation puts content in fewer hands, and an oligopoly is a market controlled by a few firms.
• Gatekeeping is the sorting of information by powerful people and institutions, and panoptic surveillance describes constant watching, as in Bentham’s design and Orwell’s 1984.
• Narcotizing dysfunction, a functionalist idea from Lazarsfeld and Merton, is when people are so overwhelmed by media input that their involvement becomes awareness instead of action.

Memory Tip: Link the three perspectives to three media questions: what does it do for society (functionalism), who controls it (conflict) and what does it mean to people (interactionism).

Common Mistake: Thinking the digital divide only means having a device. The chapter shows the divide continues into the knowledge gap, because using information well is a separate skill from reaching it.

Important Questions:

• What are the digital divide and the knowledge gap? The digital divide is the unequal access to technology between groups or countries. The knowledge gap is its effect, the lack of knowledge and marketable skills that keeps people without technology from gaining ground.
• What is gatekeeping in media? It is the sorting of the huge amount of available information into what reaches the public, done by powerful individuals and institutions. It shows how control over media and technology can shape what society sees.

Chapter 9: Social Stratification in the United States

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: stratification, closed and open systems, caste, class, meritocracy, status consistency, social mobility, class traits, poverty, global stratification, Davis-Moore thesis

The chapter defines social stratification and contrasts closed systems (estate, slavery and caste) with open class systems, adding meritocracy as an ideal no society has reached. It describes the upper, middle and lower classes in the United States, class traits, the kinds of social mobility, standard of living, and absolute and relative poverty. A short section introduces models of global stratification. It ends with the three theoretical perspectives, including the Davis-Moore thesis and Tumin’s reply, and Veblen’s idea of conspicuous consumption.

Key Points:

• Closed systems allow little movement between levels, and caste systems fix social standing at birth, including jobs and marriage partners.
• A class system is open and based on wealth, income, education, family background and occupation, so people can move between classes.
• A pure meritocracy, where standing depends only on effort and merit, has never existed.
• Status consistency is how similar a person’s rank is across wealth, education and occupation.
• The chapter describes about one percent of Americans as the extremely wealthy, owning roughly one-third of the country’s wealth, with the middle class split into upper and lower parts.
• Mobility can be upward or downward, intergenerational or intragenerational, and structural when economic change moves many people at once.
• Davis and Moore argued stratification rewards the people who fill vital, demanding jobs, while Tumin said it can deny talented people their chance.

Memory Tip: Intergenerational mobility compares you with your parents (between generations), and intragenerational mobility compares you with your own earlier self (within one lifetime).

Common Mistake: Believing the United States is a pure meritocracy. The chapter says no society has ever based standing entirely on merit, because wealth, family background and cultural beliefs also play a part.

Important Questions:

• How do caste and class systems differ? A caste system is closed, so a person cannot change the standing they were born into. A class system is open, based on factors such as wealth, education and occupation, so people can move up or down.
• What is the Davis-Moore thesis? It says unequal rewards are functional because they motivate talented people to train for the most important positions. Critics such as Melvin Tumin replied that stratification can keep qualified people from higher-level jobs.

Chapter 10: Global Inequality

Difficulty: Hard · Key topics: global stratification, world systems approach, core and peripheral nations, World Bank income groups, Gini coefficient, relative and absolute poverty, feminization of poverty, slavery, modernization theory, dependency theory

Opening with the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh, the chapter treats inequality both between nations and within them. It compares ways of classifying countries: Cold War first, second and third world labels, Wallerstein’s core, semi-peripheral and peripheral nations, and the World Bank’s income groups. It then covers types of poverty, who is poor in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, the consequences of poverty and modern slavery. It ends by setting modernization theory against dependency theory.

Key Points:

• Global stratification means unequal resources among nations, and sociologists also look at gaps within nations and at discrimination based on race, gender and religion.
• Wallerstein’s world systems approach ranks countries as core, semi-peripheral or peripheral in a global economic hierarchy.
• The World Bank puts a nation in the high-income group at a gross national income of at least $12,536 per person (2019 data), and low income at $1,035 or less.
• Relative poverty means being unable to meet your society’s average standard of living, absolute poverty means lacking basic necessities, and subjective poverty depends on how people see their own situation.
• Most of the world’s poorest countries are in Africa, but most of the world’s poorest people live in Asia.
• The Human Development Index combines lifespan, education and income, and the approach was developed by the Pakistani economist Mahbub ul Haq, who produced the first annual Human Development report.
• Modernization theory says industrialization and technology move countries forward, while dependency theory says core nations exploit peripheral ones and keep them dependent.

Memory Tip: Modernization theory says “follow the path” of industrial nations, and dependency theory says “the path is blocked by the owners of the road”.

Common Mistake: Using labels such as developed and developing as neutral facts. The chapter warns that they carry an ethnocentric bias, which is why scholars use income-based or world-systems terms.

Important Questions:

• How do modernization theory and dependency theory differ? Modernization theory says poor countries lack industrialization and can improve through technology and growth. Dependency theory calls that view Eurocentric and says core nations exploit peripheral nations, creating a cycle of dependence.
• What are relative, absolute and subjective poverty? Relative poverty is falling below your society’s average standard of living, and absolute poverty is lacking basic needs such as food. Subjective poverty is about how people perceive their own situation.

Chapter 11: Race and Ethnicity

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: race, ethnicity, minority group, intersection theory, culture of prejudice, prejudice, discrimination, racism, redlining, pluralism, assimilation, genocide, segregation, model minority

The chapter opens with the death of Trayvon Martin and racial profiling, then sets out the key terms: race as a social construct, ethnicity as shared culture, and minority groups defined by lack of power. It applies functionalism, conflict theory, interactionism and intersection theory, and explains the culture of prejudice. It separates prejudice, discrimination and racism and offers a section on being antiracist. It then describes intergroup relations from pluralism to genocide and gives the history of Native, African, Asian, White and Hispanic Americans.

Key Points:

• Race is a social construct, ethnicity describes shared culture, and a minority group is defined by its lack of power rather than by its size.
• Prejudice is thoughts and attitudes, discrimination is action, and racism is prejudice and discrimination used to justify inequality and to keep advantages for a dominant group.
• Redlining and racial steering are housing practices that show how institutional discrimination works, and systemic racism is built into social systems.
• Intersection theory, from Crenshaw and Patricia Hill Collins, says race, class and gender cannot be analyzed separately.
• Pluralism is the “salad bowl”, assimilation means taking on the dominant culture, and amalgamation is the “melting pot” that forms a new group.
• Genocide, expulsion and segregation sit at the harsher end of intergroup relations, and de jure segregation is enforced by law while de facto segregation arises without it.
• The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 ended Chinese immigration, and the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 gave tribes most of the rights in the Bill of Rights.

Memory Tip: Prejudice is “pre-judging” in the head, and discrimination is “doing” something about it. Racism joins both with power.

Common Mistake: Using race and ethnicity as synonyms. Ethnicity is based on shared culture, such as language, religion and traditions, while race is a socially defined grouping based on physical or social qualities.

Important Questions:

• How do prejudice, discrimination and racism differ? Prejudice is the beliefs and feelings someone holds about a group, usually formed without personal experience. Discrimination is action against a group, and racism is prejudice and discrimination used to justify inequality by claiming one race is superior.
• What are pluralism, assimilation and amalgamation? In pluralism, groups keep their own identity, like a salad bowl. In assimilation, a minority gives up its identity for the dominant culture, and in amalgamation, groups combine into a new one, like a melting pot.

Chapter 12: Gender, Sex, and Sexuality

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: sex and gender, gender roles, gender identity, sexual orientation, gender socialization, gender stratification, glass ceiling, feminism, queer theory, heteronormativity, sex education

The chapter begins by separating sex, the biological characteristics that differentiate males and females, from gender, the social and cultural characteristics of masculine and feminine behavior, and it explains gender roles, gender identity, sexual orientation and discrimination against LGBTQ people. It then follows gender socialization through family, school, peers and media, the stratification and pay gap that result, and the feminist movement. It applies the four theoretical views, then compares sexual attitudes around the world and in the United States and introduces queer theory.

Key Points:

• Sex is biological and gender is social and cultural, and the two do not always match; transgender people strongly identify with a gender other than the one assigned at birth.
• Gender roles are society’s expectations of how men and women should look and behave, and gender identity is a person’s deeply held sense of their own gender.
• Children know about gender roles by age two or three and hold them firmly by four or five, learned through family, education, peer groups and mass media.
• Gender stratification shows up in the glass ceiling and the pay gap, and misogyny is prejudice against women.
• Feminist theory is a form of conflict theory that examines how gender inequality is maintained and how it can change.
• Queer theory questions the rigid split of gender into fixed roles and the way we are taught to think about sexual orientation.
• The chapter describes U.S. attitudes toward sexuality as fairly conservative compared with other industrialized nations, which shapes sex education.

Memory Tip: Sex is what a doctor records at birth, and gender is what society adds on afterward. This is why the two can differ.

Common Mistake: Using sex and gender as one word. The chapter says sociologists keep them apart because gender expectations are learned and can change, while biological sex is a different category.

Important Questions:

• Why do sociologists distinguish sex from gender? Sex refers to biological characteristics, while gender refers to socially and culturally learned masculine and feminine behavior. Separating them lets researchers study how expectations are taught and how they create inequality.
• What are the main agents of gender socialization? The chapter names four: family, education, peer groups and mass media. Each teaches children what is expected of boys and girls, and narrow expectations contribute to stratification between men and women.

Chapter 13: Aging and the Elderly

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: gerontology, cohort, life expectancy, Baby Boomers, dependency ratio, primary and secondary aging, thanatology, ageism, elder abuse, disengagement theory, activity theory, continuity theory

The chapter begins with a grandmother and her grandchildren and then studies aging populations with census data, cohorts, life expectancy and the young-old, middle-old and old-old phases. It covers the graying of the United States, the Baby Boomers and aging around the world. It then covers biological, social and psychological change, aging and sexuality, and death and dying, followed by the challenges of poverty, ageism and elder mistreatment. It closes with functionalist, conflict and interactionist theories, including disengagement, activity and continuity theory.

Key Points:

• Gerontology is the study of aging, and social gerontology looks at its social side; a cohort is a group born in the same period, such as the Baby Boomers (1946–1964).
• The world had 703 million people aged 65 or over in 2019, a number projected to double to 1.5 billion by 2050.
• Primary aging is biological change, while secondary aging comes from controllable factors such as diet and exercise.
• Thanatology is the study of death and dying, and hospice care focuses on comfort near the end of life.
• Ageism is stereotyping and discrimination against older people, and elder abuse grows with physical frailty and dependence on caregivers.
• Disengagement theory says people withdraw from roles as they age, activity theory says staying active keeps people well, and continuity theory says people keep familiar patterns.

Memory Tip: Rank the three aging theories by how much they ask older people to do: disengagement (step back), continuity (keep your habits), activity (stay busy).

Common Mistake: Assuming old age means poverty and decline for everyone. The chapter reports that elderly poverty has fallen since 1960, when almost 35 percent lived on poverty-level income, though many people remain at risk.

Important Questions:

• What are activity, disengagement and continuity theories? Disengagement theory says aging people and society withdraw from each other. Activity theory says older people stay healthier by remaining active, and continuity theory says they adapt by keeping the roles and habits they have always had.
• What is ageism? Ageism is stereotyping and discrimination based on age, such as assuming an older driver is simply bad at driving. It leads to false beliefs about what older people can do.

Chapter 14: Relationships, Marriage, and Family

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: marriage, family, family of orientation, monogamy and polygamy, bilateral and unilateral descent, cohabitation, same-sex couples, single parents, divorce, intimate partner violence, child abuse

Starting from a couple deciding whether to marry, the chapter defines marriage and family and shows how definitions differ across cultures. It covers marriage patterns, monogamy and polygamy, lines of descent and residence, and why the family life cycle model has faded. It then describes variations in family life: single parents, blended and foster families, cohabitation, same-sex couples and staying single, plus the functionalist, conflict and interactionist views. The last section covers divorce and remarriage, the effect on children, intimate partner violence and child abuse.

Key Points:

• Sociologists define family by how a society sanctions relationships among people linked by blood, marriage or adoption.
• The family of orientation is the one you grow up in, and the family of procreation is the one you start.
• Monogamy is one spouse at a time and polygamy is more than one, while bigamy, marrying while still married to someone else, is a felony in most states.
• Bilateral descent traces kinship through both parents, while unilateral descent can be patrilineal, matrilineal or ambilineal.
• In 2017, 32 percent of U.S. children lived with a single parent only, up from 25 percent in 2008.
• U.S. divorce peaked at 22.6 per 1,000 married persons in 1980 and has since declined.
• Intimate partner violence covers abuse between spouses, partners and cohabiting or same-sex couples, and more than half of it goes unreported.

Memory Tip: “Orientation” is where you were pointed (born into), and “procreation” is where you produce the next generation.

Common Mistake: Assuming everyone agrees on what counts as a family. In the chapter’s 2010 survey, 99.8 percent counted a husband, wife and children, but only 39.6 percent counted an unmarried couple without children, so children were the key indicator.

Important Questions:

• What is the difference between bilateral and unilateral descent? Bilateral descent counts both the mother’s and the father’s sides as kin, which is typical in the United States. Unilateral descent traces kinship through one side only, either the father’s (patrilineal), the mother’s (matrilineal) or either (ambilineal).
• How does divorce affect children? Divorce is stressful for partners and children alike, and the long-term studies cited in the chapter say children are generally not better off after divorce. Only in high-conflict homes do children benefit, and most divorces come from lower-conflict homes, where the divorce hurts children more than an unhappy marriage would.

Chapter 15: Religion

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: Durkheim, Weber, Marx on religion, religious beliefs and rituals, ecclesia, denomination, sect, cult, monotheism, world religions, liberation theology, megachurch, secularization

The chapter starts from Durkheim’s definition of religion as a system of beliefs and practices related to sacred things. It shows how Durkheim, Weber and Marx approached religion, then applies functionalism, conflict theory and symbolic interactionism, and defines religious experience, beliefs and rituals. It classifies religious organizations as ecclesia, denomination, sect and cult and religions by what is worshipped, then surveys seven world religions and philosophies. The final section looks at religion and social change, liberation theology, megachurches and secularization in the United States.

Key Points:

• Durkheim defined religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, and the chapter calls religion a social institution and a cultural universal.
• Weber saw religion as a possible force for social change, and Marx saw it as a tool that helps capitalist societies keep inequality in place.
• Religious organizations, in order of decreasing influence in society, are ecclesia, denomination, sect and cult.
• Religions can be classified as monotheism, polytheism, atheism, animism or totemism, depending on what or who is worshipped.
• The seven religions covered are Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity.
• Liberation theology began in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s and combines Christian principles with political activism against injustice and poverty.
• A megachurch is a Christian church with a regular weekly attendance of more than 2,000 people.

Memory Tip: Remember the organization ladder as a drop in mainstream influence: ecclesia (whole society), denomination, sect (breaks away), cult (newest and smallest).

Common Mistake: Judging whether a religion is true or false. The chapter studies religion as a social institution, so the questions are about its functions, its conflicts and the meanings people give to sacred symbols.

Important Questions:

• How did Durkheim define religion? He described it as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things”, meaning things set apart and forbidden. The chapter uses it to show why religion exists in every society.
• What are the four types of religious organization? In order of decreasing influence they are ecclesia, denomination, sect and cult. A sect is an offshoot of a larger religious group with beliefs and practices that deviate from it, and many well-known Christian denominations began as sects.

Chapter 16: Education

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: formal and informal education, cultural transmission, universal access, manifest and latent functions, hidden curriculum, tracking, credentialism, Brown v. Board of Education, No Child Left Behind, school choice

The chapter describes education as the social institution through which a society passes on knowledge and culture. It compares formal and informal education, access to schooling worldwide and the resource gaps that affect every education system. It applies functionalism (manifest and latent functions), conflict theory (cultural capital, tracking, credentialism), feminist theory and symbolic interactionism with its labeling. It ends with issues in U.S. schools: Brown v. Board of Education, busing, No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds, standardized tests, disability law, school choice, and remote and hybrid schooling during COVID-19.

Key Points:

• Formal education is taught in the school system, informal education covers everyday practical living, and cultural transmission passes a society’s norms and values on.
• Manifest functions are intended and visible, such as socialization, while latent functions are unintended, such as meeting a partner at school.
• Conflict theorists say schools reinforce inequality through cultural capital, tracking and the hidden curriculum.
• Credentialism is the emphasis on certificates or degrees as proof of skill, and grade inflation is awarding students higher grades than they have earned.
• Almost two-thirds of the world’s 862 million illiterate people are women, which feminist theory links to unequal treatment of girls.
• Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) allowed “separate but equal” schools, and Brown v. Board of Education (1954) ended that precedent.
• No Child Left Behind (2001) tied federal funding to tests in grades three to eight and led to “teaching to the test”.

Memory Tip: Manifest is “meant”, the purpose written on the school’s door, and latent is “lurking”, the side effect nobody planned.

Common Mistake: Treating the hidden curriculum as a plot. The chapter uses the term for the lessons schools teach beyond the subjects, such as discipline and obedience, which functionalists and conflict theorists read differently.

Important Questions:

• What are the manifest and latent functions of education? Manifest functions are the intended, visible ones, such as socialization and teaching skills. Latent functions are unintended side effects, such as making friends or finding a partner.
• What did Brown v. Board of Education change? Before 1954 schools followed Plessy v. Ferguson, which allowed racial segregation under “separate but equal”. Brown overruled it, declaring state laws that set up separate schools for Black and White students unequal and unconstitutional, though it met resistance in many communities.

Chapter 17: Government and Politics

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: power, authority, Weber’s three types of authority, monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship, democracy, voter participation, judicial system, power elite

The chapter starts with a Florida referendum on voting rights and then separates power, the ability to control others, from authority, influence based on legitimacy. It sets out Weber’s traditional, charismatic and legal-rational authority. It compares forms of government (monarchy, oligarchy, dictatorship and democracy, including constitutional monarchies and totalitarian dictatorships) and then looks at politics in the United States: voter participation, race, gender and class, and the judicial system. It closes with functionalist, conflict and interactionist views of power, including Mills’s power elite.

Key Points:

• Power is the ability to control or direct others, and authority is power that people accept as legitimate.
• Weber’s traditional authority rests on custom, charismatic authority on a leader’s personal qualities, and legal-rational authority on laws and written rules.
• An absolute monarchy gives the ruler complete power, while a constitutional monarchy limits it, and many constitutional monarchies began as absolute ones.
• An oligarchy is rule by a small elite, a dictatorship is rule by one person or a very small group, and a democracy gives citizens an equal voice.
• In any election year roughly half of Americans do not vote, and the Voting Rights Act was signed by President Lyndon Johnson.
• Functionalists say government plans society, meets social needs, keeps order and manages international relations, while conflict theorists, following Mills and Domhoff, stress a power elite.

Memory Tip: Weber’s authority types come from where legitimacy lives: in the past (traditional), in the person (charismatic) and in the rules (legal-rational).

Common Mistake: Using power and authority as synonyms. Power can come from force, but authority depends on people seeing it as legitimate.

Important Questions:

• How do power and authority differ? Power is the ability to control or direct others, even against their will. Authority is influence that rests on perceived legitimacy, so people comply because they accept the leader’s right to lead.
• What are Weber’s three types of authority? Traditional authority rests on long-accepted custom, such as a hereditary monarch. Charismatic authority rests on a leader’s personal qualities, and legal-rational authority rests on laws and rules, not on a particular person.

Chapter 18: Work and the Economy

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: economy, agricultural and industrial revolutions, capitalism, socialism, convergence theory, globalization, global commodity chains, polarization of the workforce, outsourcing, automation, underemployment

The chapter opens with the U.S. wage gap and recent economic conditions, then defines the economy as the social institution that exchanges and manages a society’s resources. It traces economies from hunter-gatherer trade through the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions to postindustrial information societies. It compares capitalism, socialism and market socialism, and introduces convergence theory. After the theoretical perspectives, it covers globalization, global assembly lines and commodity chains, and ends with work in the United States: polarization, women in the workforce, immigration and poverty.

Key Points:

• The first true economies began when people started raising crops and domesticating animals, during the Agricultural Revolution.
• Capitalism has private ownership and a drive for profit, while socialism has government ownership and aims to share work and wealth equally.
• Market socialism is a subtype of socialism that borrows traits of capitalism, such as limited private ownership or consulting market demand, and convergence theory says capitalist and socialist economies grow more alike.
• Globalization is the integration of governments, cultures and financial markets through international trade into a single world market.
• Global assembly lines build one product over several international transactions, as in the chapter’s example of Apple designing in the United States and assembling elsewhere.
• Polarization means job growth at the low-wage manual end and the high-skill end, driven by outsourcing and automation.
• Underemployment and structural unemployment follow when jobs change faster than workers’ skills.

Memory Tip: Think of the economy as a moving owner: in capitalism private owners hold the tools, and in socialism the state does, and in the real world most countries mix the two.

Common Mistake: Treating capitalism and socialism as pure, separate systems. The chapter explains that actual economies share features, such as public programs like Medicare in the United States, which is the point of convergence theory.

Important Questions:

• What is the difference between capitalism and socialism? Capitalism is based on private ownership and the pursuit of profit, with prices and wages set by supply and demand. Socialism is based on government ownership of goods and production, with the aim of sharing work and wealth equally.
• What is polarization of the workforce? It is the split of jobs into low-level, low-paying manual work and high-level, high-paying work based on abstract skills, while midlevel jobs decline. Outsourcing and automation drive it.

Chapter 19: Health and Medicine

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: medical sociology, stigma, contested illness, social epidemiology, morbidity and mortality, medicalization, disability, public and private healthcare, sick role, commodification of health

Starting with the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, the chapter introduces medical sociology and the social construction of health, covering the cultural meaning of illness, stigma, the illness experience and medical knowledge. It then compares health in high-income and low-income nations through social epidemiology and looks at health in the United States by race, income, gender, mental health and disability, and at medicalization. After comparing healthcare systems in the United States and elsewhere, it applies Parsons’s sick role, the conflict view of commodified health and the interactionist view of medicalization.

Key Points:

• Medical sociology studies how humans manage health, illness and healthcare, and culture, not biology, decides which illnesses are stigmatized.
• Social epidemiology studies the causes and distribution of disease, and morbidity is illness rate while mortality is death rate.
• High-income nations face obesity-linked diseases, while low-income nations face infectious disease, high infant mortality and poor water and sanitation.
• In 2018 average life expectancy for White males was about five years longer than for Black males (78.8 against 74.7 years).
• Medicalization turns behavior once seen as bad or deviant into a medical condition, and demedicalization reverses it.
• The WHO separates impairment (a physical limitation) from disability (the social result).
• Parsons’s sick role gives the sick person certain rights and duties, and conflict theorists say capitalism commodifies health.

Memory Tip: Morbidity has a “b” like “being ill”, and mortality has an “m” like “mourning”, so they are illness rate and death rate.

Common Mistake: Thinking illness is purely biological. The chapter says illness has biological and experiential parts, and society decides what is stigmatized, what counts as a disability and what is contested.

Important Questions:

• What is the sick role? Talcott Parsons described it as the pattern of expectations for sick people and their caregivers. The sick person is not blamed for the condition but must try to get well and seek competent help.
• What is medicalization? It is the process by which aspects of life once seen as bad or deviant are redefined as sickness needing medical treatment. Demedicalization is the reverse, and interactionists call the first case the medicalization of deviance.

Chapter 20: Population, Urbanization, and the Environment

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: demography, fertility and mortality, Malthusian theory, demographic transition, urbanization, concentric zone model, suburbs and exurbs, gentrification, climate change, pollution, environmental racism

The chapter opens with fracking and its costs, then introduces demography through fertility, mortality, migration, sex ratio and population pyramids. It compares four population theories (Malthusian, zero population growth, cornucopian and demographic transition) and looks at U.S. immigration patterns. The urbanization section covers the growth of cities, suburbs and exurbs, white flight, gentrification and city growth worldwide. The last section covers climate change, pollution of water, soil, air and by waste, and environmental racism, where minority neighborhoods carry more of the hazards.

Key Points:

• Population composition depends on fertility, mortality and migration, and a population pyramid shows age and sex structure.
• Malthus predicted that growth beyond the earth’s carrying capacity would be checked, while cornucopian theory says human ingenuity will solve environmental and social problems.
• Demographic transition theory describes a predictable move as societies go from unindustrialized to industrialized.
• Sjoberg named three prerequisites for a city: a good environment, advanced technology that produces a food surplus, and strong social organization.
• The concentric zone model describes a city as rings of land use, and white flight and gentrification describe movement out of and back into cities.
• Climate change means long-term shifts in temperature from human activity, especially greenhouse gases.
• Environmental racism is the disproportionate placement of hazards such as toxic waste facilities in minority and low-income neighborhoods.

Memory Tip: Malthus is the pessimist (people outrun food) and the cornucopians are the optimists (the world is a horn of plenty because people invent).

Common Mistake: Treating pollution as an equal risk for everyone. The chapter says everyone is affected, but poor and disadvantaged neighborhoods and nations carry a greater share of the burden.

Important Questions:

• How do Malthusian theory and cornucopian theory differ? Malthus argued that population growth would outrun the food supply and be checked by hardship. Cornucopian theory says human ingenuity can resolve any environmental or social problem that growth creates.
• What is environmental racism? It describes how neighborhoods populated mainly by people of color and by low-income groups are burdened with more hazards, such as toxic waste facilities and dumps. It shows that environmental harm is linked to social inequality.

Chapter 21: Social Movements and Social Change

Difficulty: Medium · Key topics: collective behavior, crowds, emergent norm theory, value-added theory, social movements, types and stages, resource mobilization, framing, new social movement theory, causes of social change, modernization

The final chapter starts with the images people link to social movements and then defines collective behavior, a noninstitutionalized activity with crowd, mass and public forms. It covers three theories of collective behavior: emergent norm, value-added and assembling. It then describes social movements at local, state and global levels, Aberle’s types, the four stages, the role of social media and resource mobilization, framing and new social movement theory. It ends with social change, driven by technology, social institutions, population and the environment, and with modernization.

Key Points:

• Collective behavior is noninstitutionalized activity that many people voluntarily take part in, and it takes crowd, mass and public forms.
• Turner and Killian’s emergent norm theory says crowd norms are fluctuating, Smelser’s value-added theory lists conditions that must stack up, and McPhail’s assembling perspective treats crowd members as rational.
• Aberle’s five types of movement are reform, revolutionary, religious or redemptive, alternative and resistance movements.
• The four stages of a social movement are preliminary, coalescence, institutionalization and decline.
• Resource mobilization says success depends on acquiring resources, mainly time and money, and framing uses diagnostic, prognostic and motivational frames.
• A social movement organization (SMO) belongs to a social movement industry (SMI), and together industries form the social movement sector.
• The four drivers of social change are technology, social institutions, population and the environment, and modernization is increasing specialization and differentiation.

Memory Tip: Hold the stages as a life story: it is born (preliminary), grows together (coalescence), gets an office and staff (institutionalization) and may fade (decline).

Common Mistake: Assuming crowds are always irrational mobs. Early theorists said so, but the chapter shows later theories, such as emergent norm and assembling, treat crowd behavior as shaped by norms and rational choices.

Important Questions:

• What are the three main theories of collective behavior? Emergent norm theory says norms form and shift inside a crowd. Value-added theory, a functionalist view, says several conditions must be present for collective behavior, and the assembling perspective focuses on how individuals come together for collective action.
• What is resource mobilization theory? It explains a movement’s success by its ability to acquire resources, mainly time and money, and to mobilize people. The more resources it gathers, the greater its power.

Download Introduction to Sociology 3e PDF (Free)

Introduction to Sociology 3e is free from its official publisher, OpenStax. Click the button below to open the official OpenStax book page, where you can download the complete PDF or read every chapter online in your browser.

How to Study This Book

Introduction to Sociology 3e has 21 chapters and no appendices in its source files. The book does not divide itself into parts, so this page gives one block per chapter. According to its preface, the book starts with foundational theories and contexts and then moves through different areas of human and societal interaction. Every section begins with learning objectives and ends with a Section Summary, a Section Quiz and a Further Research feature, key terms are in bold and listed in a glossary, and four recurring boxes (Sociological Research, Sociology in the Real World, Big Picture and Social Policy and Debate) connect the ideas to current events.

Match the chapters to your course outline in blocks. Chapters 1 and 2 cover what sociology is, its history and theories, and how research is done. Chapters 3 to 6 cover culture, society and social interaction, socialization, and groups and organizations. Chapter 7 covers deviance and crime, and Chapter 8 covers media and technology. Chapters 9 to 13 cover inequality: class in the United States, global inequality, race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and aging. Chapters 14 to 19 cover the social institutions of family, religion, education, government, the economy and health, and Chapters 20 and 21 cover population, cities, the environment, social movements and social change.

Read Chapter 1 first, and read it carefully, because the three perspectives it introduces (functionalism, conflict theory and symbolic interactionism) come back in the theory section of nearly every later chapter. Chapter 2 should come before any assignment that asks you to design or judge a study. Chapters 4 and 6 build on the thinkers of Chapter 1: Durkheim, Marx and Weber return in Chapter 4, Cooley’s ideas come back in Chapters 5 and 6, and Goffman’s dramaturgy appears in Chapters 1 and 4. Read Chapter 9 before Chapters 10, 11 and 18, because stratification, mobility and the Davis-Moore thesis are used in all three, and read Chapters 11 and 12 together to see how intersection theory links race, gender and class.

Expect the most work in a few places. Chapter 1 asks you to remember many theorists and dates, Chapter 4 packs Durkheim, Marx and Weber into one section, Chapter 7 compares eight or more theories of deviance, Chapter 10 has several classification schemes with income figures, and Chapter 11 has long histories of five U.S. groups. For these, build comparison tables: one for the three perspectives in each chapter (what it studies, a key thinker, an example, a criticism), and one list of who coined which term. Chapters 3, 13 and 15 read more easily, but Chapter 15 still needs a clear list of the four religious organizations and seven world religions.

The practice material is the Section Quizzes and Short Answer prompts. Counted from the source files, there are 74 Section Quizzes with 371 questions and 74 Short Answer sets with 186 prompts, plus the Further Research features. The preface says odd-numbered Section Quiz answers are in an Answer Key at the end of the text, all quiz answers are in the Instructor Answer Guide, and Short Answer responses have no answers for students because they vary so much. Do the quiz after each section, and then write each short answer in three parts: a definition, the theory that explains it and a real example.

Know the limits before you rely on it. The book is an introduction, so it does not teach statistics or advanced research methods, and it mixes many topics at a basic level. Most of its data, laws and cases come from the United States: the Census Bureau and FBI figures, Plessy v. Ferguson and Brown v. Board of Education, No Child Left Behind, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, and the U.S. criminal justice system. Chapters 10, 13, 15 and 20 do look at the wider world, but Pakistan appears only in passing, so use local studies and examples from your teacher alongside it. Many figures date from 2010 to 2021, and the preface itself says portions of the text may become out of date, so check the OpenStax errata page. Chapters 11, 12, 14 and 19 deal openly with discrimination, sexuality, abuse and illness.

Used In These Programs

This book is used for the Introduction to Sociology course in BS Sociology. Browse all books tagged Sociology or the whole Social Science category in University Books.

Who Should Read This

Introduction to Sociology 3e is written for a student in the first sociology course of a BS Sociology program, and it assumes no earlier study of the subject. It suits you if you need the main theories, a first look at research methods and an overview of inequality, institutions and social change, and it uses no mathematics. It is also a sensible read-ahead for students in related social science programs. If you are coming from FA, the Punjab board Psychology (Nafsiyat) Class 11 and Civics Class 12 cover related ideas about individual behavior and government at a lighter level. It will not replace later courses in research methods, statistics or social theory, and its examples are mostly American, so for Pakistani society you will need your teacher’s local readings as well.

Applicable Universities

This book is useful for students at Pakistani universities offering BS Sociology and related social science programs, including University of the Punjab, University of Karachi, Quaid-i-Azam University, Virtual University, COMSATS, and other HEC-recognized institutions.

FAQs

Related Books

• Psychology (Nafsiyat) Class 11 FA Book – Punjab Board (the individual mind and behavior, a lighter-level contrast to the group and society view in Chapters 5 and 6)
• Psychology (Nafsiyat) Class 12 FA Book – Punjab Board (the next FA psychology book, useful background for socialization and health in Chapters 5 and 19)
• Civics Class 12 FA Book – Punjab Board (citizenship and government at FA level, to read alongside Chapter 17)
• Pakistan Studies Class 12 FA Book – Punjab Board (a local Pakistani counterpart to the mostly American examples in the book)

Introduction to Sociology 3e gives BS Sociology students a complete, free guide from the sociological imagination and research methods to inequality, institutions and social change. Browse more Social Science books or the whole University Books section.

Introduction to Sociology 3e, by senior contributing authors Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes and Asha Lal Tamang and other contributing authors. OpenStax, Rice University. Free under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Access for free at https://openstax.org/details/books/introduction-sociology-3e