Framing 21st Century Social Issues
About the Book Series
The goal of this new, unique Series is to offer readable, teachable "thinking frames" on today’s social problems and social issues by leading scholars, all in short 60 page or shorter formats, and available for view on http://routledge.customgateway.com/routledge-social-issues.html
For instructors teaching a wide range of courses in the social sciences, the Routledge Social Issues Collection now offers the best of both worlds: originally written short texts that provide "overviews" to important social issues as well as teachable excerpts from larger works previously published by Routledge and other presses.
Due Process Denied: Detentions and Deportations in the United States
1st Edition
By Tanya Golash-Boza
February 06, 2012
Due process protections are among the most important Constitutional protections in the United States, yet they do not apply to non-citizens facing detention and deportation. Due Process Denied describes the consequences of this lack of due process through the stories of deportees and detainees. ...
How Ethical Systems Change: Abortion and Neonatal Care
1st Edition
By Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Elyshia Aseltine
December 16, 2011
Roe v. Wade came like a bolt from the blue, but support had been building for years. For many, the idea that life in the womb was not fully protected under the Constitution was simply not acceptable. Political campaigns were organized and protests launched, including the bombing of clinics and the ...
How Ethical Systems Change: Tolerable Suffering and Assisted Dying
1st Edition
By Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Elyshia Aseltine
December 16, 2011
Medical advances prolong life. They also sometimes prolong suffering. Should we protect life or alleviate suffering? This dilemma formed the foundation for a powerful right-to-die movement and a counterbalancing concern over an emerging culture of death. What are the qualities of a life worth ...
How Ethical Systems Change: Eugenics, the Final Solution, Bioethics
1st Edition
By Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Julie Beicken
December 15, 2011
Mandatory sterilization laws enacted in dozens of states coast-to-coast and approved by the U.S. Supreme Court formed the initial pillar for what became the Final Solution. Following WWII, there was renewed interest in a more inclusive view of social worth and the autonomy of the individual. Social...
How Ethical Systems Change: Lynching and Capital Punishment
1st Edition
By Sheldon Ekland-Olson, Danielle Dirks
December 15, 2011
Slavery, lynching and capital punishment were interwoven in the United States and by the mid-twentieth century these connections gave rise to a small but well-focused reform movement. Biased and perfunctory procedures were replaced by prolonged trials and appeals, which some found messy and ...
Rapid Climate Change: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions
1st Edition
By Scott G. McNall
January 29, 2011
The book reviews the science of climate change and explains why it is one of the most difficult problems humanity has ever tackled. Climate change is a "wicked" problem bound up with problems of population growth, environmental degradation, and world problems of growing social and economic ...
Empire Versus Democracy: The Triumph of Corporate and Military Power
1st Edition
By Carl Boggs
January 24, 2011
In Empire Versus Democracy, Carl Boggs traces the authoritarian trajectory of American politics since World War II, with emphasis on the growing concentration of corporate and military power that has accompanied the United States assumption of leading superpower on the world scene. The rise of the ...
Changing Times for Black Professionals
1st Edition
By Adia Harvey Wingfield
December 27, 2010
This book is a study of the challenges, issues, and obstacles facing black professional workers in the United States. Though they have always been a part of the U.S. labor force, black professionals have often been overlooked in media, research, and public opinion. Ironically, however, their ...
The Future of Higher Education
1st Edition
By Dan Clawson, Max Page
December 27, 2010
Higher education is more important than ever, for individual success and for national economic growth. And yet higher education in the United States is in crisis: public funding has been in free fall; tuition has skyrocketed making colleges and universities less accessible; basic structures such as...
Contentious Identities: Ethnic, Religious and National Conflicts in Today's World
1st Edition
By Daniel Chirot
December 21, 2010
This book analyzes widespread global ethnic conflicts that tear asunder nations and regions, such as the former Yugoslavia. Dan Chirot casts his analysis in a discussion of the conflict between national and ethnic identity, discovering that ethnic identity, rooted in centuries of tradition and ...
Waste and Consumption: Capitalism, the Environment, and the Life of Things
1st Edition
By Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi
December 21, 2010
This book examines the link between waste and consumption through a cultural approach that integrates environmental concerns with reflections on the role that consumption has come to occupy in our contemporary capitalist societies. The mutual relationship between capitalism and consumption is ...
Why Nations Go to War: A Sociology of Military Conflict
1st Edition
By Mark P. Worrell
December 21, 2010
The United States has been involved in many wars, sometimes for noble causes like defeating Nazism, and, at other times, it has compromised its own ideals, leading to a lot of soul searching and regrets. Some wars are celebrated as glorious achievements (World War II), some are ‘forgotten’ (Korea),...