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HOW DO SOCIOLOGISTS KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW? AN EXAMINATION OF
SOCIOLOGY TEXTBOOKS FOR EVIDENCE OF SOCIOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC
THINKING
Stephanie Medley-Rath*
Indiana University Kokomo
*Stephanie Medley-Rath, Department of Sociology, Indiana University Kokomo, 2300 S.
Washington Street, Kokomo, IN 46904, U.S.A. Email: [email protected].
I thank my undergraduate research assistants, Rebekah Morgan, who helped prepare the data and
do some preliminary coding, and Nicholas Novosel, who helped locate literature. I thank
Kathleen S. Lowney, Catherine White Berheide, Danielle MacCartney, and Luis Nuño for
providing feedback on this manuscript. An Indiana University Kokomo Grant in Aid funded this
research.
KEY WORDS: Textbooks, Research methods, Sociology curriculum, Scientific thinking,
Sociology literacy framework, Sociology of knowledge
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ABSTRACT
I use qualitative content analysis to uncover how textbooks illuminate the process by which
sociologists know what they know. I use the Sociology Literacy Framework (SLF) (Ferguson
and Carbonaro 2016) to guide analysis, looking at how textbooks report on the research process
and present research findings. Using a sample of 27 textbooks for introductory courses (N = 19)
and intermediate elective courses (N = 8) from 12 publishers (copyright dated: 2015-2020), I
found weak support for developing the research-focused SLF skills. Textbooks fail to explain
and describe how sociologists know what they know. Instead, texts use false equivalence
arguments and shortcuts to scientific credibility, among other means. Textbooks do an adequate
job describing society using basic descriptive statistical data from think tanks or government
sources but provide almost no instruction on how scholars gather or analyze data or draw
conclusions about their data.
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INTRODUCTION
Textbooks are a source of making the research process visible to students (see
Lewthwaite and Holmes 2018). There is broad agreement that sociology graduates should have
some research skills. To this end, scholars of teaching and learning in sociology argue that
research methods instruction should figure prominently throughout the sociology curriculum
(Berheide 2005; Greenwood 2013; Gunn 2017; Howery and Rodriguez 2006; Kain 1999; Markle
2017; Medley-Rath 2021; Medley-Rath and Morgan n.d.; Parker 2011; Pike et al. 2017; Weiss
1987; Wilder 2010; Williams et al. 2016; Williams and Sutton 2011). Overall, all undergraduate
sociology programs require a Research Methods course, and most (77.9 percent) require
Statistics (Sweet, McElrath, and Kain 2014). Required Research Methods and Statistics courses,
however, may leave instructors (wrongly) assuming that students receive sufficient
methodological instruction in these courses (see Sweet et al. 2014).
One of the most important things students in introductory sociology should know is “the
scientific nature of sociology” (Persell, Pfeiffer, and Syed 2007:305). Moreover, Greenwood
(2013:233) argues introductory sociology courses “may be the first time students learn about
using science to study social behavior and how to apply it to their own lives.” Her premise
suggests that learning about research methods should occur during that first course and not wait
until Research Methods.
Further, developing sociology students’ research skills allows students to consume
research (Beuving and de Vries 2020; Burgess 1990; Small 2018). Beuving and de Vries (2020)
argue that the Western cultural context calls for improved instruction regarding qualitative
research (see also Small 2018). They point out the supremacy of big data, the publicness of
academic discussions (e.g., Twitter, Ted Talks), and the public’s declining trust in science more
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broadly as justification for developing students’ qualitative and quantitative research skills. The
importance of consuming research in everyday life has been made more evident by the number
of Americans using dubious sources to support their Covid-19 vaccine-refusal.
A strength of sociology is its range of methodological tools used to study the social
world, but this range of tools challenges instructors in developing a coherent set of skills among
students. The Sociology Literacy Framework (SLF) (Ferguson 2016a; Ferguson and Carbonaro
2016) provides a structure for instructors regarding students’ knowledge and development of
competencies in sociology courses, including research skills (see also Pike et al. 2017). I use the
SLF research-focused competencies and sociology of knowledge framework to identify how
textbooks explain how sociologists know what they know. I use qualitative content analysis of
27 sociology textbooks (19 books for introductory courses and eight books for intermediate
elective courses). I focus my analysis on those instances where textbooks present data, report
scholarship, and make claims about social phenomena.
THE SOCIOLOGY OF SOCIOLOGY TEXTBOOKS
Textbooks matter. Textbooks “communicate the vocabulary and syntax of a
contemporary scientific language” (Kuhn [1962] 1970:136). According to Fleck, “textbook
science [is] for initiation into the esoteric circle [specialized experts]” (Fleck [1935] 1981:161).
Sociology textbooks “are intrinsically important to the constitution and maintenance of the
discipline” (Lynch and Bogen 1997:482; see also Dunham, Cannon, and Dietz 2004; Fitzgerald
2012; Perrucci 1980; Tischler 1988). Therefore, sociology textbooks should reflect the
discipline (Tischler 1988). The literature on sociology textbooks, however, finds that they do not
reflect the discipline. For example, scholars report finding a gap between the sociology found in
Introductory Sociology textbooks and that found in journals and monographs (Hamilton and
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Form 2003). Textbooks include dated terms (Best and Schweingruber 2003; Dong 2008),
debunked ideas (Nolan 2003), myths (Schweingruber and Wohlstein 2005), and incorrect
definitions (Puffer 2009). When new topics are incorporated, textbooks rely on journalistic
accounts rather than sociological research for these topics (Carroll 2017; see also Babchuk and
Keith 1995).
A topic’s inclusion often is a marketing strategy, not a reflection of current thinking on a
topic, a topic’s use by scholars, or a topic’s usefulness to help students learn more complex
material (see also Greenwood 2013). How and why topics are left out is due to both “too much”
information available (see Abrutyn 2013), and sociology’s long-standing sexism (McDonald
2019), racism (Morris 2015; Wright 2012), ethnocentrism, homophobia, and ableism. Textbooks
and textbook sociology emerge from several competing interests, including authors, publishers,
and potential adopters. Further, textbooks have many “cooks in the kitchen” – the author, editor,
copyeditor, graphic designer, and so on – influencing the final product.
Overall, we know little about how sociology instructors use textbooks (Schweingruber
2005). Researchers suggest that instructional content likely reflects textbook content (Dennick-
Brecht 1993; Graham 1988), with some variation based on institution-type (Friedman 1991) or
course level. In contrast, research on syllabi for Introductory Sociology and Social Problems
courses finds that topic coverage does not reflect what the pedagogical literature recommends or
textbook content (Lowney, Price, and Gonzalez Guittar 2017).
The scholarship on textbook sociology overwhelmingly focuses on textbooks for a
specific course (e.g., Introductory Sociology). Few studies focus on how introductory and
elective course texts cover the same topic (e.g., Pearce and Lee 2021). Most textbook studies
focus on topic coverage (e.g., race). There are numerous studies of textbooks for Introductory
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Sociology, none on texts for Social Problems, and few studies of books for elective courses in
sociology (see Tables 1 and 2).
[INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]
[INSERT TABLE 2 ABOUT HERE]
HOW SOCIOLOGISTS KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW
Scholars have studied the presentation of sociology as a science in textbooks. Keith and
Ender (2004) report that the authors of sociology textbooks understand sociology to be scientific,
though they do not consistently or coherently reflect this view in the texts they write (see also
Lynch and Bogen 1997). In criminology, Rhineberger (2006) finds that textbooks report different
data (i.e., government statistics like those from the Uniform Crime Report) compared to the data
criminologists collect that informs a lot of what they know about crime. The literature suggests
that textbooks are not adequately demonstrating how sociological (or criminological) knowledge
is known.
Understanding how sociological knowledge is known is reflected in the Sociology
Literacy Framework (SLF). The SLF was defined by Ferguson and Carbonaro (2016) and
endorsed by the American Sociological Association (Pike et al. 2017). The SLF outlines
fundamental concepts and competencies that students should have upon degree completion.
These concepts are the sociological eye, social structure, socialization, stratification, social
change, and social reproduction. The competencies are: (1) “apply sociological theories to
understand social phenomena,” (2) “critically evaluate explanations of human behavior and
social phenomena,” (3) “apply scientific principles to understand the social world” (i.e.,
application), (4) “evaluate the quality of social scientific methods and data” (i.e., evaluation), (5)
“rigorously analyze social scientific data” (i.e., analysis), and (6) “use sociological knowledge to
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inform policy debates and promote public understanding” (Ferguson and Carbonaro 2016:154).
My study focuses on competencies three, four, and five, which most closely align with
illuminating how sociologists know what they know and center developing research skills among
students.
My research contributes to several gaps in the literature. First, my sample includes
textbooks across the undergraduate sociology curriculum by including texts for several distinct
sociology courses. Second, I focus on the overall narrative to uncover how textbooks show
students how sociological knowledge is known rather than quantitative measures of topic
coverage (e.g., section headers). Third, I draw on a sociology of knowledge theoretical
framework with the SLF to provide a framework for analysis. This is the first study to evaluate
evidence of the SLF in sociology textbooks.
METHODS
Sample
I used purposive convenience sampling to select textbooks (see Appendix) for
Introduction to Sociology, Social Problems, Race, Class, Gender, and Family courses. I chose
textbooks for intermediate-level elective courses on inequality (i.e., Race, Class, or Gender) and
Family to have textbooks covering similar topics as usually found in Introduction to Sociology
and Social Problems textbooks.
I selected 27 books for the sample (19 for introductory courses and eight for intermediate
elective courses). My inclusion criteria are in the Appendix. There were 64 textbooks for
Introduction to Sociology, of which 14 met inclusion criteria (see Table 3). There were 20
textbooks for Social Problems courses, of which five met inclusion criteria (see Table 4). There
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were 47 textbooks for courses on Race, Class, Gender, or Family, of which eight texts met
inclusion criteria (see Table 5).
I analyzed three chapters for each text: (1) the introduction, (2) marriage and family, and
(3) an area of inequality (race, class, or gender, randomly selected) (see Tables 3-5). For family
texts, I analyzed two areas of inequality in addition to the introductory chapter. My analysis aims
to understand how textbooks embed methods instruction throughout the book; therefore, I did not
analyze standalone methods chapters. Social Problems textbooks, however, tend to cover
research methods in the first chapter.
[INSERT TABLE 3 ABOUT HERE]
[INSERT TABLE 4 ABOUT HERE]
[INSERT TABLE 5 ABOUT HERE]
Research Questions and Analysis
I report the results for these guiding questions: (1) Does the author refer to how a study
was done, or were only results reported? (2) When study results are shared, are quantitative (i.e.,
statistics), qualitative data (i.e., interview snippets), or both reported? (3) Are there other
noteworthy things that emerge about doing research/teaching students how to do research? (4)
Are research methods infused throughout the text? I looked for descriptions of methodological
approaches, research design, sampling procedures, measurement of variables, data collection
methods, research questions, and hypotheses. I analyzed how textbooks talked about these ideas
in the context of sharing sociological research.
I used qualitative content analysis (Schreier 2012). I focus on the emergent manifest and
latent themes about research rather than how frequently textbooks discuss research methods or
report results. By closely reading each chapter and using qualitative content analysis, this
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research can uncover latent content missed by studies focusing on counting content described in
chapter headings or the index (Shin 2014). I coded each text, focusing on those chunks of text
where they discussed research methods or findings. I prepared a research memo on each chapter
in the sample. These memos included quoted material and initial thoughts on what was occurring
in the data and connecting the data to the research-focused competencies in the SLF.
A chunk of text about research may report and contextualize data. For example:
Children of working parents spend most of the day at school. But after school, about 4.5
million youngsters (11 percent of five- to fourteen-year-olds) are latchkey kids who must
fend for themselves (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). Traditionalists in the ‘family values’
debate charge that many mothers work at the expense of their children, who receive less
parenting. Progressives reply that such criticism unfairly blames women for wanting the
same opportunities men have long enjoyed. (Macionis [2012] 2019:418)
I coded this paragraph with these codes: misleading (most “latchkey” kids skew older) (Laughlin
2013), false equivalence (traditionalists and progressive), sexist (never mentions fathers), dated
(single source from 2013 and the term “latchkey”), quantitative (numerical data), missing
sources (no references cited beyond the source for the numerical data), and official or
government source (citation to the U.S. Census Bureau).
Next, I evaluated my codes to see how they reflect the research-focused competencies in
the SLF. In the previous example, readers can check the reported data. The U.S. Census report
shows that most children in self-care were middle-school-aged. Moreover, the report does not
use the term “latchkey” but instead uses “self-care” (Laughlin 2013). This example does not
model scientific thinking because it uses misleading statistics, dated and value-laden terms, and
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fails to incorporate sociological research on how mother’s or father’s time spent with children
matters (e.g., Milkie, Nomaguchi, and Denny 2015).
In contrast, DeFronzo and Gill (2020:19) write:
Mitchell Duneier’s (2000) Sidewalk is an important participant observer study. In this
five-year effort the author observed, interviewed, and worked as an assistant for poor
sidewalk book and other merchandise vendors, many of them homeless persons, and sold
magazines himself on three New York City blocks. Duneier’s research revealed the
struggles and strategies of these individuals trying to earn a living in their typically illegal
businesses.
DeFronzo and Gill (2020) describe the method (participant observation), study length (five
years), and the setting (merchandise vendor in New York City). However, the snippet falls short
in that only vague findings are shared (struggles and strategies) and overly emphasizes the
illegality of sidewalk vendors. This example is closer to modeling an application of scientific
principles but does not provide enough detail for students to know how Duneier did his research
or understand his findings.
RESULTS
Because textbooks are the product of multiple interests, I give agency to textbooks in this
manuscript. That is, I report what textbooks say rather than what authors write. This stylistic
choice recognizes that authors, publishers, graphic designers, copyeditors, and adopters influence
the textbook content. For specific examples, I refer to the textbook by its authors. Readers should
not classify a textbook as good or bad based on a single illustration from this manuscript because
many of the textbooks have strengths and weaknesses.
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It is beyond the scope of this manuscript to focus on all aspects of the SLF in the data, as
my objective is to understand the story told in textbooks about how sociologists know what they
know. My plan was to connect the themes in my results to the research-focused SLF
competencies. However, there was only modest evidence of application of scientific principles.
The second two skills (i.e., evaluation and analysis) were largely absent. Therefore, results are
organized by emergent themes rather than by the research-focused SLF skills. While the SLF
proposes that students will be able to apply scientific principles, evaluate sociological research,
and analyze data, my approach is whether the textbooks provide enough details for students to
learn to do these things. Overall, textbooks model unscientific and asociological thinking, failing
to apply, evaluate, or analyze.
Textbooks more often place extensive research details in insets (i.e., outlined boxes) and
end-of-chapter activities rather than the main body. For instance, Shepard (2018:206) includes a
detailed example explaining Donna Eder’s 1995 research on middle schoolers as an inset.
Shepard identifies what Eder observed (i.e., rituals and daily speech routines of 12- to 14-year-
olds), how she collected data (i.e., observations during lunch and extracurricular activities and
informal interviews), and her findings. Shepard provides ethical details (i.e., informed consent)
and practical details (i.e., audio-recording of the interviews). Shepard delivers a lot of
information that helps students see how sociologists use scientific principles but did not explain
how data were analyzed or how theory was used. To provide this much detail for every reported
study is likely unrealistic, but textbooks should be able to do this some of the time and should do
this in the main body of the text to demonstrate its importance.
Overall, textbooks lack detail about how sociologists do research for students to
understand how sociologists know what they know. Textbooks share study results – whatever
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might fit into one or two sentences and mostly leave out an explanation of the data used, how
data were collected or analyzed, information about the sample or research site, or limitations of
the data. One exception to this is that textbooks do use examples of conceptualizing variables.
Textbooks use shortcuts to establish scientific credibility, including reporting sample sizes and
study length, author credentials, and by using adjectives to describe research. I broaden Ferguson
and Carbonaro’s (2016b) meaning of the “apply scientific principles” competency to include
evaluating the quality of sources of sociological claims. Textbooks made claims without sources,
making it difficult for students to learn from where findings come and they use sources from a
range of claims makers (e.g., peer-reviewed research to anecdotes from the author’s classroom),
treating them all as equally credible.
False Equivalence Arguments
Textbooks use false equivalence arguments to present disagreement among scholars or
perspectives. Books use peer-reviewed sources for one side and no citations, dated peer-reviewed
sources, or non-peer-reviewed sources for the other side (and there are never more than two
sides). Instead of showing how sociologists use peer-reviewed research to understand social
phenomena, textbooks treat all sources of information as equally valid. For example, Kendall
(2017:313) suggests disagreement among scholars:
Why does gender inequality increase in agrarian societies? Scholars cannot agree on an
answer; some suggest that it results from private ownership of property.…However,
some scholars argue that male dominance existed before the private ownership of
property. (Firestone, 1970; Lerner, 1986)
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This example illustrates how textbooks fail to use sources and rely on dated sources to present
disagreement. Textbooks sometimes cited reprinted dates without the original publication date,
making the debate appear ongoing (e.g., Thompson, Hickey, and Thompson 2019).
Textbooks present debates as occurring between sociologists and others (e.g., social
conservatives). For instance, Griffiths, Keirns, Strayer, Vyain, and Bry (2017:309) write: “The
question of what constitutes a family is a … debate in family sociology, … in politics and
religion. Social conservatives tend to define the family … Sociologists, … define family… .”
The text provides no citations for this debate. Moreover, the text treats sociological research as
equivalent to the opinions of unidentified social conservatives and suggests agreement among
sociologists.
Textbooks also compare things that, while having the appearance of being similar, are
not. For example, Macionis (2019:322–24) includes separate sections on violence against women
and violence against men. This organizational choice appears to be balanced because he
addresses men and women. However, violence against women and violence against men are
qualitatively different experiences, and the examples he uses are categorically different forms of
violence. Macionis addresses relationship violence (e.g., rape) and structural violence (e.g.,
female genital mutilation) for women. For men, he covers murder and suicide. He begins the
section on violence against men with: “If our way of life encourages violence against women, it
may encourage even more violence against men” (Macionis 2019:323). The only sources used in
the section on men were for murder and suicide statistics. Macionis could talk about categories
of violence (i.e., relationship, structural) and still talk about how men and women are affected by
both rather than attempting to make the case that men have it worse.
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Reinforcement of Commonsense Explanations
Many textbooks start with the premise that sociology is different from common sense and
debunks commonsense beliefs about social phenomena. Texts, however, reinforce commonsense
understanding. Multiple textbooks, for instance, construct single parenthood, divorce, and
cohabitation as responsible for adverse childhood outcomes (e.g., Barian 2019; Macionis 2019;
Olson, DeFrain, and Skogrand 2019; Ritzer and Murphy 2019; Shepard 2018). Authors blame
divorce, single parenthood (often single mothers or “out-of-wedlock births” [Desmond and
Emirbayer 2016:371]), or both, for childhood poverty.
These claims ignore research demonstrating that single parenthood is not correlated with
poverty in Western Europe to the degree it is in the United States (see Brady, Finnigan, and
Hübgen 2017; Schaefer, Matteingly, and Johnson 2016). Occasionally textbooks point out that
“[i]ncome inequality accounts for a large part of the adverse effects of single parenting on …
children (Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan 2002)” (Shepard 2018:325). Shepard spends
comparably more space (i.e., three paragraphs) and support (i.e., nine citations from 1977 to
2010) about the harmful effects of single parenthood on children. Books also repeat
commonsense explanations without any sources: “Women are left alone to raise children as the
men leave because they cannot support them or because the mothers are more likely to qualify
for welfare if the father is absent” (Ritzer and Murphy 2019:276). Leon-Guerrero (2019) covers
both teen pregnancy and infant abandonment under the same section header suggesting the two
are linked yet provides no evidence the two are related. Textbooks produce a logic that promotes
causal claims where correlations (at best) exist, reinforcing commonsense explanations rather
than sociological explanations of social phenomena.
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Shortcuts to Scientific Credibility: Sample Sizes, Study Length, Credentials, and Adjectives
Textbooks establish the credibility of research by reporting sample sizes, study length,
the credentials of the scholars, and use adjectives to describe a study (e.g., “definitive study”).
However, none of these strategies establish the scientific credibility of the research or provide
students with sufficient information to evaluate the quality of the research.
Textbooks reported sample sizes and study length to provide quantitative evidence that
makes research more credible to an audience lacking research methods literacy. Sample sizes
were reported for both qualitative and quantitative studies but not always precisely. For example,
Ferris and Stein (2018) report Edin and Kefalas’ (Promises I Can Keep) sample size precisely:
162. In contrast, Desmond and Emirbayer (2016:375) report the sample size as “over 160.”
While true, the exact sample size is known. This lack of precision also appears when more recent
results are referenced but go unreported. Textbooks also report how long a researcher spent on
their study. Schaefer (2020), for instance, describes Elijah Anderson’s 1990 study of
Philadelphia as a 14-year fieldwork study. Textbooks, however, never explain why research can
take a long time or why reporting the length of the study or sample size matters.
Both sample sizes and study length are quantitative measures that do not determine study
quality. Textbooks report these kinds of quantitative measures to promote the trustworthiness of
the results, especially for qualitative studies. Students come away with the notion that
sociologists talk to or survey many people over a long period, and the more people they talk to
and the longer they do it, the better. Further, textbooks do not show how to evaluate qualitative
research without resorting to quantitative measures.
Another shortcut to scientific credibility that textbooks use is reporting a scholar’s
discipline (e.g., sociologist, family researcher, social scientist, biologist), institution (e.g.,
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Stanford, University of Washington), or both. Textbooks contextualized studies by identifying
the discipline from which they came and then used institutional affiliations to strengthen the
credibility of the research, and often stood in for the names of scholars and in place of formal
citations. For example, “some anthropologists and psychologists believe the higher degree of
nurturance among women is innate, whereas others believe it is learned” (Stinnett et al.
2016:62).
Another strategy textbooks use to establish scientific credibility is using adjectives to
convince readers of the trustworthiness of their sources. For example, Kendall (2017) describes a
“definitive study” (p. 306) and a “comprehensive study” (p. 317). Textbooks use adjectives to
convince readers that the research is credible instead of providing sufficient details for readers to
draw their own conclusions.
Occasionally, textbooks used several of these strategies at once. A representative case
from Ferris and Stein (2018:370) uses study length, sample size, and adjectives: “Kathryn Edin
and Maria Kefalas (2005) spent five years [i.e., study length] doing in-depth research [i.e.,
adjectives] with 162 low-income single mothers [i.e., sample size] to understand their attitudes
about parenthood and marriage.” This example stresses less relevant details at the expense of
including more useful information. It remains unknown how Edin and Kefalas recruited research
participants, their data (e.g., interview transcripts), or how they analyzed their data. It is
impractical to share all relevant details of a study but using shortcuts to establish scientific
credibility does not reflect the standards used by sociologists and does not give students practice
in evaluating the quality of social scientific methods or data.
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Sources of Claims
Moving a step earlier than evaluating the quality of social scientific methods and data, I
evaluated the quality of sources of claims. Textbooks range in their ability to support this skill.
Texts draw on research and claims from other fields (e.g., biology, psychology, anthropology),
classroom and popular culture anecdotes, think tanks or government sources (e.g., the U.S.
Census Bureau, PEW), other textbooks, journalist accounts, peer-reviewed research, and critics.
Moreover, textbooks relied on dated sources, failed to include citations to support claims, and
used sources unclearly. It is beyond the scope of this study to analyze all sources used in
textbooks. However, a few patterns emerged.
Textbooks presented academic debates between sociology and other disciplines. An
illustrative case from Eitzen, Zinn, and Smith (2018:199) asked, “Is Gender Biological or
Social?” and concluded the first paragraph with “let us review the evidence for each position.”
The evidence for biology takes up twice as much space as the evidence for social. Both sections
include two sources each. Further, each position is about “gender roles,” not gender as used in
the introductory paragraph. The section concludes with “a sociological perspective” or the social
construction of gender, and the following sections support a sociological perspective. Henslin
(2017) does something similar with race. He cites an economist, a physical anthropologist, a
philosopher, a sociologist, and a journalist, to report on the human genome and the number of
races. He fails to address how sociologists construct race.
Textbooks include anecdotes from popular culture alongside official or government
sources and peer-reviewed sources. For instance, Thompson, et al. (2019) do not distinguish
between the credibility of sources. They write, “Men and women are different. This has been
confirmed in medical journals, self-help and dating guides, novels, movies and television shows
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ad nauseum” (Thompson et al. 2019:272). In contrast, Korgen (2019) shares statistics on
unemployment from the federal government, then shares results from a peer-reviewed study and
concludes the paragraph with a layperson’s experiment from a viral video. In this case, Korgen
(2019:190) labels the anecdote as a “layperson’s experiment,” setting it off from government
data and peer-reviewed research. Anecdotal evidence was not always marked as such. For
example, anecdotal evidence sometimes came from in-class activities with the author’s students
(e.g., Ferrante 2015; Ray and Sharkey 2019; Schwartz and Scott 2018).
Writing an initial textbook is a challenging task, and the frequency at which adopters
expect authors to update them is unsustainable, so we should expect some reliance on dated
sources. Further, some dated references may be considered classics and will have a long life in
textbooks (e.g., C. Wright Mills, W. E. B. Du Bois). However, often, it is unclear why books
continue to use some dated sources, such as Murdoch’s 1949 and 1957 studies on polygamy as if
no one else has studied the topic in the past 70 years.
Textbooks claim the relevancy of older sources, however, without using newer sources to
support those claims. For example, Conley (2019) cites a study from 1984 about media
stereotypes of Middle Easterners and Arabs. He continues, “Little has changed since this study
came out over 30 years ago, although after 9/11, the emphasis shifted away from stereotypes of
Arabs as extremely rich and toward one of Middle Easterners as terrorists” (Conley 2019:365).
The shift from a positive stereotype (i.e., rich) to a negative stereotype (i.e., terrorist) is a
significant shift that Conley dismisses. Further, he includes no citation for the post-9/11
stereotypes.
The placement of sources makes it hard to track which source (if any) supports a claim
made in a textbook. Textbooks place citations at the end of paragraphs instead of the sentence
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with the claim (e.g., Andersen 2020; Coates, Ferber, and Brunsma 2018). This practice leaves
readers (wrongly) assuming the citations support all claims made in the paragraph. Desmond and
Emirbayer (2016) and Khan, Sharkey, and Sharp (2019) use endnotes to cite their sources, which
further obscures the sources of their claims. Desmond and Emirbayer (2016:19), however,
include the name of the scholar and their discipline (and sometimes nation) (e.g., “[e]volutionary
biologist Joseph Graves, Jr.”) within the body of the text.
Textbooks also refer to research and trends without including sources. It is unknown if
books exclude references because some sociological claims are established, making citations
unnecessary, or something else is occurring. Missing citations can look like this case “both
married men and married women live longer, have fewer health problems, have more sex, save
more money, and have fewer psychological problems, such as depression, than do unmarried
men and women” (Ritzer and Murphy 2019:273). They include no sources supporting their five
claims about cisgender heterosexual married couples.
How or why a source fits a claim is sometimes uncertain. For example, Khan, et al.
(2019:3) write about how Mark Granovetter is a sociologist who has “studied a wide variety of
topics” and how “individual behavior can be influenced by the actions of those around us,” like a
riot. The textbook fails to clarify if Granovetter studied riots or if his other research helps
sociologists understand riots.
The lack of transparent citation practices in textbooks leads to other confusing
conclusions. For instance, Lamanna, Riedmann, and Stewart (2018:18) report “research shows
that when children and adolescents have deeper religious connections, they tend to have less
premarital sex and to be older when they have their first sexual experience and, as adults, more
willing to care for their aging parents (Eggebeen and Dew 2009; Gans, Silverstein, and
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Lowenstein 2009; but see Stark 2009; Wilderman and Percheski 2009).” It is unclear what
“deeper religious connections” means or how much older this group is compared with less
religious children and adolescents at first sexual experience (or what sexual experience means).
The authors identify two trends as being correlated with religion, first sexual experience and
caring for aging parents, which appear unrelated to each other. By placing citations at the end of
sentences with multiple claims, textbooks leave readers without a map of each claim’s origin.
Conceptualizing Variables
Textbooks have an opportunity to explain how to conceptualize variables and how
decisions about both affect results. Some books took small steps in this direction. For instance,
Croteau and Hoynes (2020:288) state: “Because precise definitions of asexuality vary, research
findings about the number of people who are asexual also vary considerably.” The textbook,
however, fails to define asexuality for readers and instead offers a list of possible definitions. In
contrast, Andersen (2020:83) explains that emotional labor is a term from Arlie Hochschild
(1983), “referring to the work people do to manage the emotions of others” in paid labor.
Andersen points out that housework is unpaid and therefore “does not fit the classic definition of
emotional labor.” Andersen appears to be speaking to how scholars and journalists (Beck 2018)
misuse Hochschild’s term but does not directly address this misuse. Instead, she gives it a chance
to continue by emphasizing that housework “technically” is not emotional labor, leaving an
opening that it might be emotional labor. Cohen (2018:129) reports the contrast between how
researchers define lower class compared with how research participants define it:
Only 7.9 percent of the population identifies as ‘lower class’ in the G.S.S. [General
Social Survey], but based on their economic conditions, most sociologists believe that
this group is larger. …the official poverty rate was 13.5 percent in 2015.
21
Overall, it is unusual for textbooks to devote much space to conceptualizing variables in the
context of presenting research results. However, the most consistent example of explaining
where a definition comes from was how textbooks define family (and households). Multiple
books report using the U.S. Census definition of family and often expand that to include
households. Some texts point out the limitations of the U.S. Census definition and discuss
religious and legal understandings of the term family (e.g., DeFronzo and Gill 2020).
Basic Descriptive and Inferential Statistics
Textbooks focus on certain kinds of data over other types of data. Texts provide
substantial amounts of basic descriptive statistical data, primarily from governments or think
tanks. Inferential statistical data and qualitative data, however, are nearly absent. Textbooks
report findings from qualitative studies but do not explain what these data looks like, how they
are analyzed, or what claims sociologists can make about them.
Students encounter a plethora of basic descriptive statistical data in sociology textbooks:
percentages, frequencies, rates, means, and medians. Few books explain these terms in the
sampled chapters (see exceptions, Desmond and Emirbayer 2016; Kennedy, Norwood, and
Jendian 2017; Lauer and Lauer 2019). There was only one instance of a textbook explaining a
frequency distribution (Lauer and Lauer 2019). Texts may explain these statistical terms in a
research methods chapter, which I did not analyze.
Rarely does a text share inferential statistics or attempt to discuss statistically significant
research findings. Lauer and Lauer (2019:26) are an exception and explain significance and test
of significance and that studies presented in their book have significant results. Stinnett and
colleagues (2016:22) refer to statistical significance in the context of reporting a study’s results,
but do not explain why that matters:
22
In fact, one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of the propensity to divorce is
the age at which persons marry. Virtually every study of marital dissolution undertaken
since the late 1960s has found both spouses’ age at marriage to be statistically significant
with respect to the probability of divorce. (South 1995)
Of note, elective course textbooks explained statistical terms better, possibly because they rarely
have a separate research methods chapter.
DISCUSSION
Textbooks claim to help students learn how to think sociologically. However, books from
across the undergraduate sociological curriculum do not consistently model sociological or even
a generous version of scientific thinking. Other scholars have found sociology textbooks lacking
in their use of a scientific framework and promotion of asociological thinking (Keith and Ender
2004; Lynch and Bogen 1997). Undergraduate sociology textbooks do not integrate the most
basic research skill in the SLF: applying scientific principles. Instead, students receive false
equivalence arguments, reinforcement of commonsense explanations, an emphasis on shortcuts
to scientific credibility, and sources of claims from unreliable sources. Textbooks are better at
describing how to conceptualize variables and provide multiple encounters with basic descriptive
statistical data.
For this study, I am using a generous and broad understanding of conceptualization of
variables. Most often, textbooks explain how they arrive at a definition for a key term (e.g.,
family) or to point out why our understanding of a topic is more limited (e.g., asexuality).
Textbooks do not speak of this as conceptualizing a variable, but it provides a rudimentary
process model. This area already has some existing groundwork that textbooks could develop.
23
The most common data shared in textbooks are basic descriptive statistical data. No
matter how interesting attitudinal data and demographic data are, they do not tell us why or how
something is. Students must also learn how to interpret this data and how to ask sociological
questions about them. Textbooks offer mixed results regarding teaching students how to interpret
this data and little to no instruction on using this information to ask sociological questions.
Sociology textbooks should demonstrate how sociologists know what they know.
Shedding light on this process serves as a means of cognitive socialization for students and
instructors (see Zerubavel 1997). At a minimum, textbook authors and publishers should revise
their texts to model sociological and scientific thinking. Textbooks should explain how
sociologists arrived at a particular finding—considering that Americans are choosing to take
medications intended for horses rather than get vaccinated to prevent Covid-19, understanding
the contours of how experts know what they know is critical and our responsibility. The most
basic means of doing this is by consistently using scientific principles as the basis of claims
made in texts.
To meet the sociological competency, “evaluate the quality of social scientific methods
and data,” textbooks should explain how data are analyzed, include research examples primarily
from sociology using qualitative and quantitative data, and eliminate shortcuts of establishing
scientific credibility. Authors owe it to readers to provide more explanation.
Textbooks offer an abundance of basic descriptive statistics from think tanks and
government sources, suggesting a missed opportunity for teaching students from where data
come. Many of the origins of basic descriptive statistics used by textbooks are accessible to
students (e.g., U.S. Census). We should teach students how to access this data, make sense of
them, and explain how sociologists use data from think tanks and government sources.
24
Other scholars have analyzed textbooks using section headers, the index, reference lists,
or a combination of the three. My analysis demonstrates that qualitative approaches to the body
of texts are necessary. For example, quantitative analyses of reference lists would miss the
positioning anecdotes from in-class activities as credible sources. Moreover, studies looking at
reference quality miss how textbooks use these sources in the body of the text. Using more peer-
reviewed sources over other kinds of sources makes a textbook appear more scholarly than may
be warranted.
For instructors looking to adopt a textbook, I recommend reading the chapter on family.
Pay attention to whether the author relies on stereotypes about families from the 1980s (i.e.,
overemphasis on divorce or teen pregnancy as social problems) without acknowledging that
these areas have improved. Further, the family chapter is excellent to identify if and how the
author promotes racist, sexist, and homophobic views. I observed textbooks associating social
problems with Black families over other types of families, positioning same-sex parents as
potentially inferior to heterosexual parents, and an association of family with women (e.g.,
working mothers, single mothers). Further, examine if the textbook covers polygamy and note
whether they cite any source for the topic from this century.
Strengths and Limitations
A strength of this study is that I include textbooks from across the undergraduate
sociology curriculum and my sampling procedure. This research is the first study (to my
knowledge) that incorporates Social Problems textbooks, textbooks from various elective
courses, along with books for Introduction to Sociology. I decreased the likelihood of publisher-
induced issues by sampling across publishers. Some problems may be linked to a publisher using
the same copyeditor rather than the author's intent. I also include one open education resource
25
from OpenStax, which to my knowledge, is the first time sociologists have used this text as data
despite its widespread use by instructors. My sampling procedure, however, has two limitations.
First, it is still a convenience sample. While I compiled a complete list of possible textbooks, I
could not access all books identified for inclusion. Second, by focusing on standard texts, many
textbooks for elective courses were excluded. It is unknown if nonstandard books are better at
modeling sociological and scientific thinking.
One may argue that these textbooks were developed before Ferguson and Carbonaro’s
(2016b) SLF was published. While this is correct, their framework did not emerge out of thin air
but reflects agreement among leading scholars of teaching and learning in sociology about what
students should be able to do after specific courses and the granting of their degrees. Further, the
SLF provides a framework to examine how textbooks explain how sociologists know what they
know, which texts should be doing regardless of the existence of the SLF.
Future Research
One question raised by this study is why some topics remain in sociology textbooks. We
are in an era of information overload, so everything included should help develop a sociological
perspective and scientific thinking. Analyzing textbooks for content to be removed may be
useful. Space devoted to one topic comes at the expense of other issues and at the cost of
providing more direct instruction on research skills.
Sociology textbooks also include coverage of research from other disciplines (e.g.,
psychology, anthropology, and biology). Is this necessary? What do sociologists have to say
about the topic being considered? For this area, scholars should examine introductory textbooks
across disciplines to identify overlap. Are other fields as generous with covering sociology as
26
sociology is with covering their domain? Researchers could examine chapters on socialization,
race, and gender across disciplines to explore this issue.
My sample only included print or PDF versions of sociology textbooks. I do not know
what publishers have in electronic interactive books, course cartridges for learning management
systems, or companion websites. As texts become available as digital-only products (e.g.,
Pearson’s catalog), it is more critical to understand what is in them. Further, instructors will
likely become more dependent on the whole package of learning activities and resources
provided by the publisher because digital products are harder to modify or edit (combined with
the increasing reliance on adjunct labor). Scholars should analyze the content of popular
supplementary materials like the Crash Course Sociology and Khan Academy videos.
Lastly, I am analyzing the data visualization using the sample in this study. My
undergraduate research team coded all the figures, charts, and tables to identify their frequency,
type of visualization, kinds of statistical data presented, overall complexity, and data sources
using. That analysis is ongoing but will shed light on another avenue for developing student
research skills.
CONCLUSION
Overall, sociology textbooks do not show how sociologists know what they know.
Instead, they model thinking that is asociological and reinforces unscientific thinking. Despite
the call for incorporating research methods instruction throughout the sociology curriculum since
the 1980s, textbooks have not responded. It is a big ask for textbooks to place greater emphasis
on research methods instruction if instructors are not asking for it.
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Appendix. Sampling Procedure
First, I found textbooks for inclusion in July 2019 by searching the following sociology
textbook publishers’ websites: Cengage, Kendall Hunt, McGraw-Hill, OpenStax, Oxford
University Press, Pearson, Roman & Littlefield, SAGE, Wessex, and WW Norton.1 I searched
each website first for Sociology, and then I narrowed the search for textbooks marketed for
specific courses (e.g., Social Problems, Gender, Race & Ethnicity). Eligible books had copyright
dates between 2015-2022, which captured the most recent edition for sale and were available on
the search day. I identified 131 textbooks for possible inclusion in this study.
Second, I used Amazon sales rank on July 22, 2019, to identify the top-selling sociology
textbooks. The Amazon sales ranking provides updated hourly sales rankings of products in
various categories. I used this strategy to get a general sense of each textbook’s popularity. This
tool is imperfect because students buy and rent books from multiple sources and buy texts for
other purposes (e.g., MCAT preparation). Other limitations of the Amazon sales ranking are that
open education resources and self-published textbooks will not appear. Popularity via sales may
skew the sample towards books adopted by larger universities (Mallory and Cormack 2018) and
does not indicate quality (Babchuk and Keith 1995).
Third, I asked textbook representatives for each publisher for their three most popular
textbooks to confirm the Amazon sales ranking. Textbook representatives did not consistently
provide helpful information. Some representatives thought I was looking to adopt one of these
texts even though I explicitly stated that this was for a research project. My experience with
1One publisher was identified in September, Wessex, Inc. Their Amazon sales ranking was searched on September 30, 2019. Only the top seller from Wessex was included because both of their top two sellers used to be published by Cengage. Flat World Knowledge was excluded because I could not obtain copies through interlibrary loan or digital copies with save or print functionality.
41
getting helpful information from textbook representativeness on textbook popularity sheds some
doubt on the accuracy that other scholars have received about the popularity of a given text.
Fourth, to increase the breadth of voices, I included no more than two books from each
publisher per course, and each author was only represented once in the sample. Some authors
have popular textbooks for multiple courses, which meant that not all the textbooks in the sample
were ranked as the two most popular from the publisher. Given the larger number of Introductory
Sociology students, these texts were ranked higher than Social Problems texts by the same
authors. For instance, I used Pearson's fourth-ranked Social Problems textbook to avoid overlap
with authors of Introduction to Sociology textbooks. Further, I included the introductory
sociology textbook from OpenStax (i.e., an open education resource) and the self-published, A
Sociology Experiment.
Fifth, I excluded nonstandard textbooks: readers, workbooks, compilations of case
studies, annual editions, or taking sides-style texts. I reviewed books online using the publisher’s
website, Amazon, and Google Books to assess if I could make the text work for this study. Other
tests were excluded because their approach was too different (e.g., humanist), were for
anthropology or psychology courses rather than sociology courses, or they did not have the
desired chapters for this study to sample.
Lastly, I excluded three texts2 because I could not obtain a copy through a textbook
representative, interlibrary loan, or a colleague; or was only available electronically (with no
print or save functionality). I decided against purchasing textbooks or paying for electronic
access to include them in the study.
2 I could not obtain no-cost copies of Mooney, Knox, and Schact (2017) Understanding Social Problems (Cengage), Knox (2018) M&F, and Mendenhall, Plowman, and Trump (2016) Intimate Relationships: Where Have We Been? Where are We Going? (Kendall Hunt).
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Table 1. Previous Scholarship on the Content of Introduction to Sociology Textbooks Topic Nation Publication Affirmative action United States Beeman, Chowdhry, and Todd 2000 Atlanta Sociological University and W.E.B. DuBois
United States Wright 2012
Charles Horton Cooley United States Reitzes and Hall 1982 Disability United States Taub and Fanflik 2006 Durkheim Canada Mallory and Cormack 2018
Puffer 2009 Durkheim and the Hawthorne effect
United States Nolan 2003
The environment United States Lewis and Humphrey 2005 Liu and Szasz 2019
Gender United States Hall 1988 Manza and Van Schyndel 2000
Global multiculturalism United States Shin 2014 Glossaries United States Best and Schweingruber 2003 “Hispanic” women United States Marquez 1994 Human-animal relationship United States Alger and Alger 2003 Myths about crowds United States Schweingruber and Wohlstein 2005 Myths about slavery United States Pearce and Lee 2021 Overall content United States Friedman 1991 Overall content United States Lynch and Bogen 1997
Perrucci 1980 Overall content United Kingdom Platt 2008 Overall content Turkey Kaynak and Tacoğlu 2019 Overall content United Kingdom and
France Schrecker 2008
Parsons United Kingdom Mahlert 2021 Power United States Paap 1981 Race and ethnicity United States Dennick-Brecht 1993
Hamilton and Form 2003 Stone 1996
Race and Gender United States Ferree and Hall 1990 Clark and Nunes 2008 Hall 2000 Race, Class, and Gender United States Ferree and Hall 1996 Puentes and Gougherty 2011 References United States Babchuk and Keith 1995 Sociology of scientific knowledge
United States Kurtz and Maiolo 1968 Lynch and Bogen 1997
Sexuality or heterosexism United States Phillips 1991 Suarez and Balaji 2007
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Sidestepping of human nature
United Kingdom and Australia
Leahy 2012
Subject headers United States Keith and Ender 2004 Substructure-superstructure relations
United States Oyinlade, Christo, and Finch 2020
Symbolic interaction United States Carrothers and Benson 2003 Work Canada Dixon and Quirke 2014 World religions United States Carroll 2017
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Table 2. Previous Scholarship on the Content of Sociology Textbooks for Elective Courses Course Topic Nation Publication Criminology Research methods
and ethics United States Rhineberger 2006
Criminology Oppression of women
United States Wright 1995
Family Black families United States Bryant and Coleman 1988 Peters 1974
Family Families of color United States Dunham et al. 2004 Shaw-Taylor and Benokraitis 1995
Family Overall content United States Glenn 2009 Greenwood and Cassidy 1986, 1990 Spanier and Stump 1978
Race and Ethnicity White privilege United States Fitzgerald 2012 Research Methods Ethics Canada and
the United States
Dixon and Quirke 2018
Research Methods (Social Science)
Methods pedagogy
United States Lewthwaite and Holmes 2018
Sociology of Education
Symbolic interactionism
China Dong 2008
Theory Coverage of women
United States McDonald 2019
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Table 3. Introduction to Sociology Textbooks in the Sample (N = 14)
Author Copyright Textbook Title Publisher Chapters in Sample
Conley 2019
You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking like a Sociologist (6th ed)
WW Norton
Ch. 1: The Sociological Imagination: An Introduction Ch. 9: Race Ch. 12: Family
Croteau and Hoynes 2020 Experience
Sociology (4th ed) McGraw-Hill
Ch. 1: Sociology in a Changing World Ch. 11: Gender and Sexuality Ch. 12: Family and Religion
Ferrante 2015 Sociology: A Global Perspective (9th ed)
Cengage
Ch. 1: The Sociological Imagination Ch. 9: Race Ch. 12: Family
Ferris and Stein 2018 The Real World
(6th ed) WW Norton
Ch. 1: Sociology and the Real World Ch. 7: Social Class: The Structure of Inequality Ch. 12: Life at Home: Families and Relationships
Griffiths, Keirns, Strayer, Vyain, and Bry
2017 Introduction to Sociology (2nd ed) OpenStax
Ch. 1: An Introduction to Sociology Ch. 9: Social Stratification in the United States Ch. 14: Marriage and Family
Henslin 2017
Essentials of Sociology: A Down to Earth Approach (13th ed)
Pearson
Ch. 1: The Sociological Perspective Ch. 12: Race and Ethnicity Ch. 16: Marriage and Family
Kendall 2017 Sociology in Our Times (11th ed) Cengage
Ch. 1: The Sociological Perspective Ch. 11: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Ch. 15: Families and Intimate Relationships
46
Khan, Sharkey, and Sharp (editors)
2019 A Sociology Experiment
Self-Published
Ch. 1: A Sociology Experiment (Khan, Sharkey, and Sharp) Ch. 7: Race and Ethnicity (Ray and Sharkey) Ch. 8: Sociology of Families (Barian)
Korgen and Atkinson (editors)
2019 Sociology in Action (1st ed) SAGE
Ch. 1: Training Your Sociological Eye (Korgen) Ch. 9: Recognizing the Importance of Race (Korgen) Ch. 10: Understanding Institutions: Family (Froyum)
Macionis 2019 Society: The Basics (15th ed) Pearson
Ch. 1: Sociology: Perspective, Theory, and Method Ch. 11: Gender Stratification Ch. 14: Family and Religion
Ritzer and Murphy 2019 Essentials of
Sociology (3rd ed) SAGE
Ch. 1: An Introduction to Sociology in the Global Age Ch. 7: Social Stratification in the United States and Globally Ch. 10: Families
Schaefer 2020 Sociology in Modules (5th ed)
McGraw-Hill
Ch. 1: Understanding Sociology Ch. 10: Racial and Ethnic Inequality Ch. 13: The Family and Household Diversity
Shepard 2018 Sociology (12th ed) Wessex Inc
Ch. 1: The Sociological Perspective Ch. 8: Social Stratification Ch. 11: Family
Thompson, Hickey, and Thompson
2019 Society in Focus: An Introduction to Sociology (9th ed)
Rowman & Littlefield
Ch. 1: Discovering Sociology Ch. 11: Sex and Gender Ch. 13: Families
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Table 4. Social Problems Textbooks in the Sample (N = 5)
Author Copyright Textbook Title Publisher Chapters in Sample
DeFronzo and Gill 2020
Social Problems and Social Movements (1st edition)
Rowman & Littlefield
Ch. 1: The Sociology of Social Problems Ch. 4: Poverty Ch. 7: The Family
Eitzen, Zinn, and Smith 2018 Social Problems
(14th edition) Pearson
Ch. 1: The Sociological Approach to Social Problems Ch. 9: Gender Inequality Ch. 14: Families
Kennedy, Norwood, and Jendiana
2017
Think: Critical Thinking about Social Problems (1st edition)
Kendall Hunt
Ch. 1: Critical Thinking about Society Ch. 3: The Power of Culture
Lauer and Lauer 2019
Social Problems and the Quality of Life (14th edition)
McGraw Hill
Ch. 1: Understanding Social Problems Ch. 6: Poverty Ch. 12: Family Problems
Leon-Guerrero 2019
Social Problems: Community, Policy, and Social Action (6th edition)
SAGE
Ch. 1: Sociology and the Study of Social Problems Ch. 4: Gender Ch. 7: Families
aOnly two chapters in Kennedy, Norwood, and Jendian were included. There was not an appropriate third chapter to analyze.
48
Table 5. Textbooks for Courses in Race, Class, Gender, Stratification, and Marriage and Family in the Sample (N =8)
Author Copyright Textbook Title Publisher Chapters in Sample
Andersen 2020 Thinking About Women (11th edition)
Pearson
Ch. 1: Studying Women: Feminist Perspectives Ch. 5: Gender, Work, and the Economy Ch. 6: Gender and Families
Coates, Ferber, and Brunsma 2017
The Matrix of Race: Social Construction, Intersectionality, and Inequality (1st edition
SAGE
Ch. 1: Race and the Social Construction of Difference Ch. 3: The Social Construction and Regulation of Families Ch. 4: Work and Wealth Inequality
Cohen 2018
The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change (2nd edition)
WW Norton
Ch. 1: A Sociology of the Family Ch. 4: Families and Social Class Ch. 5: Gender
Desmond and Emirbayer 2016 Race in America
(1st edition) WW Norton
Ch. 1: Race in the Twenty-First Century Ch. 4: Economics Ch. 10: Intimate Life
Lamanna, Riedmann, and Stewart
2018
Marriages, Families, and Relationships: Making Choices in a Diverse Society (13th edition)
Cengage
Ch. 1: Making Family Choices in a Changing Society Ch. 3: Gender Identities and Families Ch. 9: Raising Children in a Diverse Society
Olson, DeFrain, Skogrand 2019
Marriages and Families: Intimacy, Diversity, and Strengths (9th edition)
McGraw Hill
Ch. 1: Perspectives on Intimate Relationships Ch. 7: Gender Roles and Power in the Family Ch. 8: Managing Economic Resources
49
Schwartz and Scott 2018
Marriages and Families: Diversity and Change (8th edition)
Pearson
Ch. 1: Marriages and Families over Time Ch. 3: Understanding Gender: Its Influences in Intimate Relationships Ch. 10: Evolving Work and Family Structures
Stinnett, Stinnett, DeGenova, and Rice
2016
Intimate Relationships, Marriages, and Families (9th edition)
Oxford University Press
Ch. 1: Intimate Relationships, Marriages, and Families in the Twenty-first Century Ch. 2: Gender Ch. 8: Work, Family Roles, and Material Resources
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