Make the familiar strange
Dalton Conley set out to write something that didn’t feel like a textbook, but rather a guide that would help readers learn how to challenge what most take for granted about society. You May Ask Yourself offers something different for instructors who think that all textbooks are the same. Rather than framing chapters around theories and statistics, many of which go out of date quickly, Conley uses a readable, irreverent writing style with personal anecdotes that reveal how social structures can affect our lives. He serves as an expert guide through the discipline, making pivotal stops along the way to point out key concepts and theories, explain empirical gold nuggets, or to chat with top researchers in the field.
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New content updates
New examples reinforce how sociological thinking applies to today’s world, including social media, crime rates since the start of the pandemic, critical race theory, the post-pandemic economy, and the environment.
NEW “Thinking Like a Sociologist” interactives
New interactives in the Norton Illumine Ebook help students develop important skills, including critical thinking, data literacy, research strategies, and interpersonal skills, for a variety of career paths.
New Learning Objectives and streamlined chapters
New Learning Objectives help students focus on central ideas of each chapter. Chapters have also been reorganized and streamlined to improve the flow and connections between the major ideas covered.
About the Author
Dalton Conley is a professor of sociology at Princeton University. In 2005, Conley became the first sociologist to win the prestigious National Science Foundation's Alan T. Waterman Award, which honors an outstanding young U.S. scientist or engineer. He writes for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, Slate, and Forbes.
What Instructors Are Saying
“I love it, and so do my students. I have both adult and regular-aged college students, and dual-enrollment high school students, and both groups like the text and the InQuizitive game. (That's what they call it!) I think he gives a nice broad view of the subject areas in Intro, and the students are stimulated to ask questions based on the readings.”
—Geri Sawicki, Modesto Junior College
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