The Real World

 The third edition has new examples drawing from everyday life, mass media, and popular culture, including more material from college and professional sports. Each chapter also includes four relevance boxes (On the Job, In Relationships,
Changing the World, and Global Perspectives) that expose students to the sociological implications of everyday events.

 Every chapter includes two Data Workshops that can be completed in class, as homework, or online. The Data Workshops give students a chance to apply the theoretical ideas from the textbook to their own lives and actually do some sociology. The Data Workshops focus on “Analyzing Everyday Life” and “Analyzing Mass Media and Popular Culture.” Each Data Workshop is integrated with our StudySpace website and our Coursepack, so they’re easy to assign whether an instructor teaches online or in the classroom.

 New tools—including an interactive instructor’s guide and enhanced coursepack—allow professors to create an experience for their students that seamlessly integrates multimedia examples, student activities, and content from The Real World into their sociology courses.

 Recognizing that medical sociology represents one of the largest subfields in the discipline, the authors have written a new chapter on Health, Illness, and Medicine, which looks at the social forces that shape medicine as a social institution. Also, in response to user feedback, the authors have significantly revised and streamlined the introductory theory chapter.