OER Text MaterialsUnderstanding and Changing the Social World, Section: 18.4Section 4 summarizes medicine and healthcare in the U.S. This section begins with a brief history of medicine in the U.S. It then moves to a discussion of healthcare as an industry and gives a basic overview of the U.S. healthcare system. This overview is approachable and appropriate for an introduction to sociology course. Some issues with U.S. healthcare, such as lack of insurance, shortage of providers, lack of sleep of physicians and racial and gender differences in care, are presented. A major weakness of this section is that there is not mention of the Affordable Care Act. This is a major deficiency and quickly dates the material in the chapter. The chapter appears to cover too much and in doing so does not cover any topic very carefully. Instructors should be cautioned to encourage critical thinking around the issues presented in this section. Also missing from both sections is the relationship between culture and  health.

OER Text MaterialsSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, Section: 18.3Section 3 outlines the impact of social class, race and gender on health. This section is a social epidemiological view of health and illness. The section on gender and health does a nice job discussing the impact of masculinity on health. The section concludes with a discussion of mental illness and focuses on gender differences in mental illness.

OER Text MaterialsSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, Section: 18.2Section 2 begins by summarizing international disparities in health and illness. Several tables and figures illustrate these disparities, but some of these are fairly dated, for example one figure is based on data from 2004. The section concludes with a brief discussion of healthcare in industrialized nations. This section focuses on a brief description of differences in who pays for healthcare across countries. A notable weakness of this chapter is a lack of discussion of the relationship between culture and health and cross-cultural competency.

OER Text MaterialUnderstanding Social ChangeTypes of Collective Behavior Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, 20.1 & 21.1The first part of the 20.1 section of Sociology defines social change. This text does not discuss other forms of collective behavior.  Section 21.1 defines collective behavior and identifies different forms of collective behavior, including types of crowds, protests and riots. This section defines social movements and discusses disasters, rumors, mass hysteria, moral panics, and fads and crazes.

OER Text materialSocial MovementsSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, 21.3.2 addresses ideas of why social movements emerged, including shared discontent, structural strain, relative deprivation, resource mobilization and political opportunity theory.

OER Text materialSocial MovementsIntroduction to Sociology 2e, OpenStax, 21.2.4. This section discusses the stages of a social movement, and other theoretical perspectives on social movements, including a more detailed discussion on framing than tends to be the case.  It also provides a limited introduction to new social movement theory.

OER Text materialSocial MovementsSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, 21.3.1This section defines social movements and describes reform, revolutionary, reform, political, reactionary movements, self-help, and religious movements.

OER Text MaterialsSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, Section: 15.2Section 2 applies the three sociological perspectives to the family. A great summary chart is provided at the beginning of the chapter.

OER Text MaterialSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, Section: 15.6Section 6 covers violence against intimates, dating violence on campus and child abuse. This is an OK overview for an introduction to sociology course.

Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, Sections: 15.3-15.5Section 3 defines marriage and discusses trends related to the marriage in the U.S. and cross-nationally. Section 4 outlines changes and issues affecting American families. Section 4 includes a discussion of cohabiation, working mothers, Section 5 4 styles of parenting and briefly discusses spanking. Also differences in parenting styles by social class, with a focus on views on spanking, is presented.

OER Text MaterialsSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, Section: 15.1The chapter starts with a definition of family and other definition of key terms related to family arrangements such as nuclear and extended family. Family arrangements across cultures are briefly presented. Considerable attention is given to changes in the American family over time and is organized into key periods such as during and after industrialization. This is a great historical overview of American families.

OER Text MaterialsSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, Sections: 15.3-15.4Section 3 defines marriage and discusses trends related to the marriage in the U.S. and cross-nationally. Trends related to children are also discussed. Data from 2010 census is used. Section 4 also discusses changes in the American family and current issues related to families such as cohabitation, divorce, working mothers and daycare and same-sex marriage. The section on same sex marriage needs updated to reflect current policy. The text currently states that only five states allow same sex marriage. This is a significant short-coming of this chapter.

OER Text materialPower and AuthoritySociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World, 14.1.1This section defines power from a sociological perspective

OER Text materialTheories of Power and SocietySociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World. This section reviews pluralism and power elite theory, assessing brief weaknesses of both.

OER Text materialPolitics in the United StatesSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World. 14.4.2, 14.4.3 The influence of felony disenfranchisement law and the existence of PACs and lobbying on political policy and economy are briefly reviewed.

OER Text materialTypes of Political SystemsSociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World. This section describes and explores the strengths and weaknesses of monarchies, democracies, and authoritarian and totalitarian structures.

OER Text MaterialPower and AuthorityTheories of Power and SocietyUnderstanding and Changing the Social World, 14.1.2 explains Weber’s three types of authority and 14.1.3 explains the difficulty of maintaining charismatic authority.