New Books by Dartmouth Authors: Sociology

We all know that good study habits, supportive parents, and engaged instructors are all keys to getting good grades in college. But as Janice M. McCabe shows in this illuminating study, there is one crucial factor determining a student's academic success that most of us tend to overlook: who they hang out with. Surveying a range of different kinds of college friendships, Connecting in College details the fascinatingly complex ways students' social and academic lives intertwine and how students attempt to balance the two in their pursuit of straight As, good times, or both.             As McCabe and the students she talks to show, the friendships we forge in college are deeply meaningful, more meaningful than we often give them credit for. They can also vary widely. Some students have only one tight-knit group, others move between several, and still others seem to meet someone new every day. Some students separate their social and academic lives, while others rely on friendships to help them do better in their coursework. McCabe explores how these dynamics lead to different outcomes and how they both influence and are influenced by larger factors such as social and racial inequality. She then looks toward the future and how college friendships affect early adulthood, ultimately drawing her findings into a set of concrete solutions to improve student experiences and better guarantee success in college and beyond.

For many years, attention in both public and intellectual fields was concentrated on the benefits of civil society. However, with the demand for greater state regulation of the economy and the increasing realisation that states of the fourth world will never advance without the enforcement of a rule of law, the tenor of debate is now changing. This topical book offers a historical account of state forms in the 21st century. It focuses on what makes states effective, thus offering a different approach to existing literature which has tended to focus on the predatory characteristics of states. The book covers all the major state forms of this century, from the US and EU to India and China, as well as a number of key 'failed' states, such as Iraq and Zimbabwe. Key definitions and terms are clearly explained thoroughout. Written leading figures in the field, and addressing one of the key questions in politics today, this is a much-needed addition to the literature.

In politics, ideas matter. They provide the foundation for economic policymaking, which in turn shapes what is possible in domestic and international politics. Yet until now, little attention has been paid to how these ideas are produced and disseminated, and how this process varies between countries. The National Origins of Policy Ideas provides the first comparative analysis of how "knowledge regimes"--communities of policy research organizations like think tanks, political party foundations, ad hoc commissions, and state research offices, and the institutions that govern them--generate ideas and communicate them to policymakers. John Campbell and Ove Pedersen examine how knowledge regimes are organized, operate, and have changed over the last thirty years in the United States, France, Germany, and Denmark. They show how there are persistent national differences in how policy ideas are produced. Some countries do so in contentious, politically partisan ways, while others are cooperative and consensus oriented. They find that while knowledge regimes have adopted some common practices since the 1970s, tendencies toward convergence have been limited and outcomes have been heavily shaped by national contexts. Drawing on extensive interviews with top officials at leading policy research organizations, this book demonstrates why knowledge regimes are as important to capitalism as the state and the firm, and sheds new light on debates about the effects of globalization, the rise of neoliberalism, and the orientation of comparative political economy in political science and sociology.

The fourth edition of Symbols, Selves, and Social Reality takes an in-depth approach to introducing students to social psychology from a sociological perspective by focusing on the origins, guiding assumptions, methods, and empirical applications of the leading perspective in this field,symbolic interaction. Written for social psychology courses within the field of sociology, this text offers a comprehensive yet brief guide to symbolic interaction, while presenting strong, vivid examples that ground abstract concepts. The fourth edition of Symbols, Selves, and Social Realityprovides a new chapter on emotions, which introduces students to interactionist approaches to emotion and provides students with explanations of currently salient emotion theories.The new edition also includes more coverage of race, class, and sexuality, making this textbook both accessible and significant to its inevitably diverse audience of undergraduates. The incorporation of real-world examples and topical issues lends to the contemporary focus of this textbook andallows students to draw connections and think critically about the world around them. The authors engage students with topics that are relevant to their everyday lives, such as self-presentation through social media. A chapter on collective action utilizes recent global events and social movementsto analyze various phenomena of social interaction.The text integrates recent sociological studies throughout its discussions, offering a more research-oriented perspective than its competitors. All of these features are supplemented with helpful end-of-chapter pedagogical tools, such as questions for discussion and suggested readings, which alsoset this textbook apart from its competitors. The fourth edition not only offers a thorough introduction to social psychology and symbolic interactionism, but also interests students by appealing to their personal connections with the subject matter at hand.

The Green Movement protests that erupted in Iran in 2009 amid allegations of election fraud shook the Islamic Republic to its core. For the first time in decades, the adoption of serious liberal reforms seemed possible. But the opportunity proved short-lived, leaving Iranian activists and intellectuals to debate whether any path to democracy remained open. Offering a new framework for understanding democratization in developing countries governed by authoritarian regimes, Democracy in Iran is a penetrating, historically informed analysis of Iran's current and future prospects for reform. Beginning with the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Misagh Parsa traces the evolution of Iran's theocratic regime, examining the challenges the Islamic Republic has overcome as well as those that remain: inequalities in wealth and income, corruption and cronyism, and a "brain drain" of highly educated professionals eager to escape Iran's repressive confines. The political fortunes of Iranian reformers seeking to address these problems have been uneven over a period that has seen hopes raised during a reformist administration, setbacks under Ahmadinejad, and the birth of the Green Movement. Although pro-democracy activists have made progress by fits and starts, they have few tangible reforms to show for their efforts. In Parsa's view, the outlook for Iranian democracy is stark. Gradual institutional reforms will not be sufficient for real change, nor can the government be reformed without fundamentally rethinking its commitment to the role of religion in politics and civic life. For Iran to democratize, the options are narrowing to a single path: another revolution.

An inside look at the racial and class divides between Head Start and private pre-K classrooms for children and their families The benefits of preschool have been part of our national conversation since the 1960s, when Head Start, a publicly funded preschool program for low-income children, began. In the past two decades, forty-four states have expanded access to preschool, often citing preschool as an anti-poverty policy. Yet, as Casey Stockstill shows, two-thirds of American preschools are segregated--concentrating primarily poor children of color or affluent white children in separate schools. Stockstill argues that, as a result, segregated preschools entrench rather than disrupt inequality. Stockstill spent two years observing children and teachers at two preschools in Madison, Wisconsin. Madison, like many other small and medium cities in the United States, is segregated, with affluent and middle-class white people and working class or low-income people of color occupying different sectors of the city. Stockstill observed one preschool that was 95% white and another that was 95% children of color. She shows that this segregation was more than a background variable or inconvenient image; segregation had an impact on children's experiences in multiple ways, but especially in the ways they spent their time, the supervision and instruction they received, and the ways they learned and socialized with other children. Stockstill shows that even in high-quality preschools that on paper have similar resources, de facto segregation creates different school experiences for children that ultimately reinforce racial and class inequality. False Starts suggests that as we continue to invest in preschool as an anti-poverty policy, we need a fuller understanding of how segregated classroom environments impact children's educational outcomes and their ability to thrive.