Sociology in Our Times 10th edition by Kendall - Diana (2014) Hardcover

Decent textbook, definitely written by an author who has a biased point of view in some aspects of society, notably racial relations between whites and people of color. This was not an issue for me, but I can see some being extremely offended by what they read. It was fairly easy to understand Kendall's text and she uses a lot of repetition to try and cement main points in the student's head. I got an A in my class, so I'm generally satisfied.

Probably the worst textbook I've ever read. Reading this was like pulling teeth and screeching nails across a chalkboard. Suicide crossed my mind more than once. Most of the terminology is common sense. Save yourself some migraines and just study the bold highlights.

Rented this book for a community college class, pages were very bent, pages were heavily marked with highlighter, and sticky notes were still sticking out of the book.

Overall, the book itself is okay, I cannot tell if the book itself is unorganized or if my professor teaching the class is unorganized. I think some of the subsections aren't clearly labeled so I am never sure if a subheader falls under the larger header or if it is a topic on its own.

As one of the most recently-developed social sciences, not to mention one that seems to be consistently popular with college students, sociology is a field that truly needs a good comprehensive text. Put quite simply, this is it. Diana Kendall, a well-respected scholar and author in the field, has managed to put together a text that manages to cover all of the major subfields of the field, presenting a lot of information on each, and giving a good general overview. All of the major subpoints of sociology are covered: population studies, race/gender/ethnic relations, collective behavior, criminology, and more. In addition to providing a solid block of information for each subtopic, Kendall further invigorates her text with well-placed contemporary and classical photographs, graphs, charts, and other peripheral information. She also prefaces each chapter with a real-life example relating to the forthcoming information, a quiz about the information contained within (which sometimes will yield surprising results!), and more. Throughout the individual chapters, she also sprinkles dialogue boxes with separate takes on individual subissues relating to the major topic at hand and shows readers how they can get involved. As a bonus for the college student, certain editions of the book feature a CD with access to additional material, and a free four-month subscription to Infotrac, a well-known scholarly index.
Kendall writes well, and she presents a lot of information. Therein, however, lies my only complaint about this text: certain chapters feel overlong. Granted, sociology is a diverse field, and this book attempts to cover it all between a single set of covers. Still, some chapters are so jam-packed with information that they become somewhat tiresome. Nevertheless, it is all good information -- and all worth reading. It is a small complaint, on the whole, that does not detract from the overall quality of the text.
In summary, this is an excellent introductory text both for a college text and for the individual reader.

This book is a great alternative for your sociology class. It has all the information required although it may be in different pages or chapters. It is a much much cheaper alternative since most college textbooks are overpriced. This textbook is cheap, in good condition and will give you the information you need to pass your class.

I have taught sociology for over 30 years and for the last ten have been forced to use the evolving editions of this text. The best I can say for it is that it's not a lot worse than most textbooks--which are essentially written by committees and marketing departments--and unfortunately probably does represent the field accurately.

The core problem with his book though, and the field, is that its latent master value is equality, modified by a little self-serving credentialism. Anytime anyone is found to be unequal, the implicit cry is "Injustice!" Well, not so fast. There are plenty of instances in which inequalities are unjust, but no doubt plenty that are just. It doesn't seem to dawn on this author that equality is not the sole criterion of justice. Of course, ever so subtly the text implies that some inequalities are just. You never get the sense that she feels that she shouldn't get paid more than the average person or that the publisher of this text shouldn't wildly overprice it. I guess it's OK for liberal elites to do better than the rest, though besides them I suppose people ought to be equal.

This equality silliness is especially pronounced in the author's feminism. She is constantly changing the subject to women. For instance, she gives two short paragraphs on the Enlightenment (which is actually kind of important) though--Guess what?--one paragraph is about "women in the Enlightenment." Well, you can ask about women in the Enlightenment if you want to--but then you could ask about slaves too (which she doesn't). Students who have never heard of the Enlightenment come away from from her discussion assuming that the biggest issue at that time was whether women's opinions were heard. Sorry, that wasn't the biggest issue, and the text basically distorts history to say it was. Worse, later when she runs through the issues of group conformity, she shifts without explanation to the issue of obedience to authority, and then omits versions of those experiments that linked them to group conformity. (I suspect she was copying from the Maciones text, which included the relevant versions of the experiments, but didn't bother with them because she didn't follow the developing argument.) Anyway, after thoroughly mangling the presentation, she then lands on an experiment that "proves" men will sexual harass women if the conditions are conducive to it. For all I know, this was a decent experiment and the findings sound, but it is obvious to me that she is in such a rush to get to the sexual harassment study that she overlooked other studies that logically led to it.

There are other examples, but the author is always in such a rush to make her feminist points that she frequently screws up other things along the way. My guess though is that sociology doesn't attract the "best and the brightest" (a documented fact) and is increasingly attracting so many women that the field has darn near become a wing of Women's Studies.

I also do not like many of the chapter examples she uses. The example in the first chapter about credit cards is not well done, and a lot of students end up thinking that sociology and economics are roughly the same thing. It's just a weak example, poorly presented.

And, she never gives any evidence of intellectual ability--or of having done her homework. Despite way too many pages, she can never seem to develop a point to its culmination. C. Wright Mills is half-presented in the first chapter, and when she discusses cultural relativism she concludes that it is fine as long as it doesn't violate human rights--giving no hint that human rights are themselves contested. Oh, and in that discussion she wrongly uses Marvin Harris' work as an illustration of cultural relativism, when in fact it is an argument for cultural materialism. Later, she contrasts Kenneth Jackson's history of suburbs with someone else's, but gets Jackson wrong. It is probably the nature of the beast that textbook authors can't read most of the sources they cite, but this woman has a remarkable ability to be wrong about the works she discusses as well as a surprising knack to miss any important idea that might be in them. This text is a quintessential example of how you really can't simplify material without changing it.

Now, a lot of my criticisms would apply to other texts, and probably no text is ever really good. This is an inherent problem with textbooks. However, having used perhaps a dozen different textbooks over the years, I would have to say that this ranks toward the bottom. I haven't followed the textbook field, so don't know the popular choices now, but the Maciones text that I believe cornered the market prior to this one was better.

Let me add that I say all this as a sociologist, a liberal, and a feminist. I probably agree with the author's opinions 90% of the time, and must reluctantly agree that this text probably accurately reflects the sorry state of the discipline. However, the text just does a poor job at teaching about ideas, issues, and facts in a thought-provoking way. It's really a politically correct waste of time and money for anyone with a head on their shoulders.

book was okay, lots of highlighted stuff but when i didn't need it anymore and returned the item, i was NOT impressed by my refund at all. It would've been cheaper and better if i had kept it. Not impressed at all.

There are a number of good sociology textbooks available, and one can choose almost any of them with confidence. However, this is definitely one of the best. It is accessible, yet the author does not talk down to the student. The illustrations are pertinent and timely. The choice of topics is comprehensive. It is a broad-ranging textbook, yet, at the same time, is focused and direct.
The instructor who chooses to use Sociology in Our Times can be comfortable with the choice. The student who is fortunate enough to have a teacher who chose Sociology in Our Times should be confident that they have had a good exposure to Sociology. If one learns the material in this book they will be well-grounded in Sociology.

I am a college professor. I made a major mistake assigning this book because it has a considerable number of errors. It is amazing to me that the book is in its 9th edition and has so many problems. Lesson learned: read more carefully before assigning a text. Warning: don't trust the testbank. For example, the testbank for the 8th edition has questions based on the 7th edition, and the two chapters are not always the same. Check out chapter 14 for many examples.

If you can't fall asleep, read this book, because it will put you to sleep. It is SO boring, and provides very little substantive information that you don't already know through common sense. It's written for a junior high readership, certainly not for the college kid who wants to actually learn something.