The Third Canadian Edition of Introduction to Sociology, represents a thorough, comprehensive revision of the previous editions to update the content and approach to sociology for contemporary Canadian sociology students. The goal has been to provide a comprehensive 21st century resource suitable for both classroom lecture and on-line learning courses. Chapters have grown in length and more emphasis has been placed on providing analytical sections in order to suit the needs of on-line instruction where lectures are not part of the curriculum. In-class instructors who adopt the book can shorten chapters and select material to fit the structure of lecture courses. Overall the book has been reorganized on a more systematic basis to provide a focused course of study designed to give students a well organized and comprehensive introduction to the discipline.  Chapters begin with an introductory example that illustrates a sociological issue relevant for the chapter topic and end with a review of theoretical positions or an analysis that helps to sums up the implications of the chapter materials. Effort has been made throughout to bring in contemporary topics and research, update concepts and theoretical debates, provide more inclusive material and address a more diverse audience.

Overall changes include:

• Systematic revision throughout: adding content, introducing new concepts, reorganizing chapters, updating topics, providing new sociological analysis and research, expanding Making Connections examples and raising the level of sociological material to 1st year Canadian university standards.
• Numerous changes have been made to the text to improve contemporary relevance, provide meaningful detail and context, update statistical information, add empirical research, modernize theoretical debates, replace U.S. material with Canadian content, standardize chapter structure, remove outmoded language, include more Indigenous and minority group material, and enhance streamlining and clarity.
• Expanding thematic focus to include more material on Indigenous and minority groups, pandemics, climate change, decolonization, globalization, white nationalism movements and issues of disinformation.
• Shifting analytical focus from functionalism, critical sociology and symbolic interactionism to more broad (and current) frameworks of positivist sociology, critical sociology and interpretive sociology
• 3rd person narration made consistent throughout.
• Addition of numerous Open Source photos, graphs and other visual information throughout. Replacement of images from earlier editions that did not have clear Creative Commons copyright designations and review of all images used for copyright compliance.
• Addition of new key terms throughout.
• Removal of two chapters from the 2nd Edition: Chapter 16: Education and Chapter 18: Work and Economy.
• Reorganization of chapter order and reorganization of some material between chapters. For example, Chapter 22: Social Interaction becomes Chapter 6: Social Interaction in a more logical sequence between Chapter 5: Socialization and Chapter 7: Groups and organizations. Chapter 8: Media and Technology becomes Chapter 16: Media and Popular Culture, while the section on technology and social change in Chapter 8 is added to Chapter 18: Social Movements and Social Change.
• Chapter 10: Global Society and Chapter 16: Media and Popular Culture have been completely rewritten.
• Revising Learning Objectives for each chapter to cover new chapter material and emphasize active learning approaches.
• Updating all the end materials including Key Terms, Section Summary, Quiz (multiple choice questions), Short Answer Questions, and Further Research.

Chapter 1: An Introduction to Sociology

1.1:  What Is Sociology?

• Addition of section Studying Patterns: How Sociologists View the Relationship between Society and the Individual.
• New concepts: structure, social scripts and individual agency.

1.3: Theoretical Perspectives

• Addition of Table 1.1 to summarize and simplify the relationship between types of human knowledge, paradigms of sociological theory and knowledge interests.
• New textbox  Making Connections: Classical Sociologists: Talcott Parsons and the AGIL Schema: A Sociological Explanation of Everything
• Addition of section on Social Constructivism under the category of Interpretive Sociology.

Net addition of 7 new concepts to Key Terms

Chapter 2: Sociological Research

2.1: Approaches to Sociological Research

• New section on Critical Research Strategies to supplement positivist and qualitative methodologies.
• New concepts: critical research strategies, critical pedagogy, decolonization.

2.2: Research Methods

• Expanded section on Participant Observation: New material on Loïc Wacquant’s participant observation of boxers in Southside Chicago and on Rosenhan’s “On Being Sane in Insane Places.”.
  • New concept: carnal sociology
• Expanded section on Ethnography: New material on Latour and Woolgar’s ethnography of science
  • New concept: thick description

Net addition of 8 new concepts to Key Terms

Chapter 3: Culture

3.1: What Is Culture?

• Expanded section: Is Music a Cultural Universal?

3.2: Elements of Culture

• New section on Cultural Practices.
• Expanded section of Language
  • New concepts: codes, binary opposition, structuralism

3.3: Culture as Innovation: Pop Culture, Subculture, and Global Culture

• Expanded sections on Postmodern Culture, Subculture, Global Culture, Diaspora and Hybridity

3.5: Theoretical Perspectives on Culture

• Expanded section on Theoretical Perspectives on Culture

Net addition of 1 new concept to Key Terms

Chapter 4: Society and Modern Life

4.1: Types of Societies

• Expanded sections on “Post-Industrial Societies” and “Post-Natural Societies: The Anthropocene”
  • New concepts: digital divide, reflexive subjectivity, network enterprise, global cities, network society.

4.3: Living in Capitalist Society

• Summary section on “Living in Contemporary Society” substantially rewritten and expanded with new material including “Updating Durkheim: Postmodern Society and Neo-Tribalism,” “Updating Marx: Neoliberalism and the Post-Fordist Economy,” and “Updating Weber: Algorithmic Rationality, Digital Capitalism, and Technopopulism.”
  • New concepts: postmodern society, neo-tribes, communities of feeling, siloization, mode of regulation, neoliberalism, Fordism, welfare state, flexible accumulation  lean production, precarious employment, niche market consumption, information society, algorithms, actuarialism, surveillance capitalism,  data colonialism, technopopulism.

Net addition of 29 new concepts to Key Terms.

Chapter 5: Socialization

5.1: Theories of Self Development

• Expanded section: Four Stages of Child Socialization.
• Expanded section: Socialization of Gender
• Expanded textbox section on Sweden’s gender neutral pre-schools: Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: What a Pretty Little Lady!

5.2: Why Socialization Matters

• Expanded section on twin studies: Nature versus Nurture
• Expanded section: Individual and Society
• New section: Structural Functionalism, Critical Sociology, and Symbolic Interactionism

5.3 Agents of Socialization

• Expanded section: Peer Groups
• Replaced textbox Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: Controversial Textbooks” with “Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: Mike Mountain Horse: Socialization on First Day at Residential School
• Expanded section: The Workplace
• Expanded section: The Mass Media

5.4: Socialization Across the Life Course

• Removed textbox Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: Gap Year: How Different Societies Socialize Young Adults
• Expanded textbox Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: The Long Road to Adulthood for Millennials
• Expanded section on residential schools: Resocialization

Net addition of 6 new concepts to Key Terms.

Chapter 6: Social Interaction

Chapter 22: Social Interaction from 2nd Canadian Edition becomes Chapter 6: Social Interaction in the 3rd Canadian Edition.

6.1: Micro-Level Interaction

• Expanded section: Emotional life
  • New concept: structure of feeling.
• Addition of new textbox: Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: The Emotional Life of COVID-19
• New section: Feeling Rules
• Addition of new textbox: Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: Do Funeral Selfies Violate Deeply Held Feeling Rules?
• New section:  Emotional Management
• Expanded section on Social Construction of Reality: New material on Howard Becker and conspiracy theory

Net addition of 3 new concepts to Key Terms.

Chapter 7: Groups and Organizations

Chapter 6: Groups and Organizations from 2nd Canadian Edition becomes Chapter 7: Groups and Organizations in the 3rd Canadian Edition.

7.2: Groups

• Expanded section on In-Groups and Out-Groups:  New material on the Robber’s Cave Study, realistic conflict theory and scapegoating.
  • New concepts: realistic conflict theory, scapegoating
• Expanded section on Large Groups: New material on intermediary sized groups including teams, bands and gangs
• Expanded section on Conformity and Groupthink: New material on Milgram and Zimbardo experiments and findings.

7.3: Networks

• Expanded section on Dyads, Triads, and Social Networks: New material on the analysis of networks.
• Addition of new textbox: Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Social Network Analysis: Super-Spreader Events, Global Networks, and Social Bubbles

7.4: Formal Organizations

• Expanded and updated textbox Making Connections: Sociological Research: Secrets of the McJob

7.5: A Sociological Analysis of the Holocaust

• New expanded summary section: A Sociological Analysis of the Holocaust

Net addition of 6 new concepts to Key Terms.

Chapter 8: Deviance, Crime, and Social Control

Chapter 7: Deviance, Crime, and Social Control from 2nd Canadian Edition becomes Chapter 8: Deviance, Crime, and Social Control in the 3rd Canadian Edition.

8.1: Deviance and Social Control

• Material on Becker, moral panic and homosexuality moved from introductory section to Deviance and Social Control to later in the chapter

8.2: Theoretical Perspectives on Crime and Deviance

• Expanded introduction to Theoretical Perspectives on Crime and Deviance
• New section: Positivism
  • New concept: defect model
• Expanded section: Émile Durkheim and Functionalism
• Expanded section on Social Disorganization Theory and Control Theory: New material on research into social disorganization theory and public policy
• Expanded section on Merton’s strain theory including new diagram.
• Expanded section on Critical Sociology
  • New concept: penal-welfare complex.
  • Updated research and examples of white collar crime.
• Expanded section on Interpretive Sociology: New material on concepts of criminalization, Othering and identity formation.
• New section on Micro sociology: The Foreground of Crime and Deviance
  • New concepts: foreground variables, moral emotion, confrontational tension/fear barrier

8.3: Crime and the Law

• Updated introduction to Crime and Law: Removed outdated example and added example of Viola Desmond; Moved material on moral panics to new summary section 8.4. Public Policy Debates on Crime
• Expanded section on Crime Statistics: New material on Statistics Canada’s Crime Severity Index
• Updated section on The Declining Crime Rate in Canada: New statistics including the slight rise in crime rates since 2012.
• Expanded section on Prisons and their Alternatives.

8.4: Public Policy Debates on Crime

• New summary section added: Public Policy Debates on Crime

Net addition of 1 new concept to Key Terms.

Chapter 9: Social Inequality

Major reorganization of the chapter including shifting material between sections, creating a new stand alone section (9.3) on Social Classes in Canada, and moving section on Global Inequality to Chapter 10: Global Society

Introduction: new section on concept of Habitus

9.1:  What Is Social Inequality?

• New section: Equality of Condition and Equality of Opportunity
• New section: Wealth, Income, Power and Status
• Updated textbox on Making Connections: Case Study: The Commoner Who Could Be Queen.
• New section on Social Class: Reorganization of material on class, Marx and Weber debate, and Materialist and Interpretive Factors

9.2: Social Inequality in Canada

• New section: Measuring Degrees of Social Inequality

9.3: Social Class and Social Mobility

• Expanded section on the Owning Class.
• Addition of new textbox: Making Connections: Social Policy and Debate: Fractions of the Capitalist Class: The Rise of Carbon Capital
• New section combines The Middle Class and the Traditional Working Class
• New section: The Working Poor and the Under Class
• Removed textbox: Making Connections: Sociological Research: Turn-of-the-Century “Social Problem Novels”: Sociological Gold Mines

9.4: Theoretical Perspectives on Social Inequality

• Expanded section on Critical Sociology: New material on intersectionality.
• Expanded section on Interpretive Sociology: New material on micro-dynamics of status interactions, cultural capital and conspicuous consumption.

Net addition of 5 new concepts to Key Terms.

Chapter 10: Global Society

Substantially rewritten. New chapter except for some of the material on Global Wealth and Poverty

New introduction on globalization and global level sociology.

10.1: Colonialism and the Origins of Global Society is new

10.2: Global Wealth and Poverty: Substantially rewritten and redundancy between Chapter 9 and Chapter 10 of the 2nd Edition has been eliminated.

10.3: Contemporary Global Society is new.

Net addition of 51 new concepts to Key Terms.

Chapter 11: Race and Ethnicity

Introduction: Updated statistics

11.1: Racial, Ethnic, and Minority Groups

• Expanded sections on What is Ethnicity? What is Race? What are Minority Groups? and Multiple Identities
  • New concepts: five race theory, ancestry, BIPOC, ethnic identity, subaltern groups, miscegenation, exogamy
• New textbox: Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: Race in the New Era of Human Genetics Research

11.2: Stereotypes, Prejudice, and Discrimination

• Expanded or new sections on Stereotypes, Prejudice and Racism, White Privilege
  • New concepts: White supremacy, ethnocentrism, systemic racism
• Updated statistics in Income Inequality among Racialized Canadians
• Updated textbox Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: The Residential School System

11.3: Theories of Race and Ethnicity

• Expanded or new sections on Positivism, Critical Sociology, Interpretive Sociology
  • New concepts: identity, representation, orientalism, primitivism, stigma

11.5: Race and Ethnicity in Canada

• Removed textbox  Making Connections: Social Policy and Debate: Sports Teams with Indigenous Names
• Updated Asian Canadians: Current Status with material on Covid-19 “dual pandemic” racism

Net addition of 12 new concepts to Key Terms.

Chapter 12: Gender, Sex, and Sexuality

12.1: The Difference between Sex, Gender and Sexuality

• New section on Gender Roles: Masculinities and Femininities
  • New concepts: hegemonic masculinity, emphasized femininity
• Updated language in section on Gender Identity

12.2: Gender and Society

• Expanded section on Gender and Socialization
• Expanded section on Feminist Theory
  • New concept: Postgenderism
• Expanded section on Interpretive Sociology and Symbolic Interactionism
  • New concepts: machismo, binary oppositions

12.3: Sex and Sexuality: substantially rewritten

• Expanded introduction to Sex and Sexuality
• New section on The Control of Women’s Sexuality
• New Section: The Diversity of Sexualities
• Removed sections on Sexual Attitudes and Practices, Sexuality around the World, Sexuality in Canada
• Expanded section on Positivism and Structural Functionalism

Net addition of 18 new concepts to Key Terms.

Chapter 13: Aging and the Elderly

13.2: The Process of Aging

• Updated information on physician-assisted suicide in Canada

Chapter 14: Marriage and Family

Introduction: Expanded content on fluid relationships and common-law marriage

14.1: What Is Marriage? What Is a Family?

• Reorganized section on What Is Marriage? What Is a Family?
• Expanded introduction to What Is Marriage? What Is a Family? with Canadian Indigenous and historical material
• New sections on Marriage Patterns as Social Forms and Confluent Love and Cohabitation
• Expanded section on What is love (for a sociologist)?
• Expanded section on The Global, Macro, Meso and Micro Family

14.2: Variations in Family Life

• New section on Blended Families

14.3: Challenges Families Face

• Expanded sections on Functionalism and Critical Sociology

Net addition of 12 new concepts to Key Terms.

Chapter 15: Religion

No substantial changes.

Chapter 16: Media and Popular Culture

Entirely new chapter except for some of the material on Types of Media and Technology in section 16.1 and the text box Making Connections: Sociological Research: Just “Friend” Me: Students and Social Networking

New focus of the chapter:

• the nature of mediated society
• digital and social media
• positivist, critical and interpretive analyses of the role of media in society
• media and postmodern culture

Net addition of 40 new concepts to Key Terms (i.e. the original Chapter 8: Media and Technology).

Chapter 17: Government and Politics

17.1 Power and Authority

• New textbox Max Weber: Classical definitions of politics and the state

17.2 Democratic Will Formation

• Updated section Political Demand and Political Supply to cover Canadian 2021 election

17.3. The De-Centring of the State: Terrorism, War, Empire, and Political Exceptionalism

• New textbox Making Connections: Big Picture: What are the Powers of the Federal Emergencies Act?

17.4: Theoretical Perspectives on Government and Power

• Updated textbox: Making Connections: Social Policy & Debate: Politics and the Image

Removed several concepts from Key Terms that were no longer used in the chapter. Net loss of 2 concepts from key terms.

Chapter 18: Social Movements and Social Change

Chapter 21: Social Movements and Social Change from 2nd Canadian Edition becomes Chapter 18: Social Movements and Social Change in the 3rd Canadian Edition.

New introduction on the sociology of social change

18.1 Collective Behaviour

• Expanded sections on Flashmobs, Forms of Collective Behaviour and Theoretical Perspectives on Collective Behaviour

18.2 Social Movements

• Added contemporary examples and expanded sections on Levels of Social Movements
• Added MeToo and Trucker Convoys as examples to textbox Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: Social Media and Social Change: A Match Made in Heaven?
• Expanded sections on Resource Mobilization Theory and New Social Movement Theory
• Repurposed 2nd Edition introduction section as new summary section: Summary: Functionalist, Critical, and Interpretive Perspectives on Social Movements
• New textbox Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World:The Rise of White Nationalism

18.3 Social Change

• New introduction
• Repurposed and expanded material on technology driven change from Chapter 8: Media and Technology from the second edition.
• Repurposed and expanded sections on What is Technology?, Categorizing Technology, Technology and Social Change, Technological Globalization
• Expanded textbox Making Connections: Big Picture: The Dystopian Techno-Future: From A Brave New World to Cyberpunk
• Removed sections Social Institutions, Population, Environment

Net addition of 15 new concepts to Key Terms

Chapter 19: The Sociology of the Body: Health and Medicine

Introduction expanded to discuss Covid-19 pandemic

19.1  The Sociology of the Body and Health

• New textbox: Making Connections: Big Picture: The Biopolitics of Infectious Disease
• Removed textbox: Making Connections: Big Picture: Has Breast Cancer Awareness Gone Too Far?

19.2 Global health

• Statistics and information updated

19.3 Health in Canada

• Focus on social determinants of health model.
• Added Figures 19.8 and 19.9 to illustrate hospitalization rates and self-reported health by socioeconomic groups
• Expanded section on Mental Health to include anti-psychiatry movement perspective
• Expanded section on Disability to include material on neurodiversity perspective

19.4 Theoretical Perspectives on Health and Medicine

• Added material on Positivist Sociology to Positivist Sociology and Functionalism
• Added material on phenomenology of illness to Interpretive Sociology
• New textbox: Making Connections: Big Picture: Medicalization of Alcoholism and Demedicalization of Drapetomania

Net addition of 20 new concepts to Key Terms

Chapter 20:

Introduction expanded to focus on the Anthropocene

20.1 Demography and Population

• Updated statistics, population pyramids and Table 20.1. Varying Fertility,  Mortality, Migration by Country
• Added material on Malthus and new diagram of 5 stages of demographic transition.
• Updated statistics and figures in section on Current Global Population Trends

20.2  Urbanization

• Updated statistics
• Updated textbox Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: Suburbs Are Not All White Picket Fences: The Banlieues of Paris
• Reorganized sections and added material to Theoretical Perspectives on Urbanization.
• New sections on Positivism, Functionalism, and Social Ecology, Critical Sociology and Interpretive sociology
• New textbox on Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: What Happened to Affordable Housing?
• New textbox on Simmel’s Metropolitian Way of Life

20.3 The Environment and Society

• Introduction revised
• Added new section on Climate Change and Society including sections on Causes and Impacts of Climate Change, Equitable Mitigation and Environmental Racism, and Social Movements and Change
• New textbox on 10 key findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report released in 2023
• New textbox on Making Connections: Sociology in the Real World: Monster Trucks and Petro-Masculinity
• New textbox on Making Connections: Social Policy and Debate: Deep Ecology and the Concept of Appropriate Technology
• Removed sections on types of pollution
• Removed textbox on Making Connections: Social Policy and Debate: What Should Apple (and Friends) Do about E-Waste?
• Removed textbox on Making Connections: Social Policy and Debate: Would You Buy an Environmental Cause from This Woman?

Net addition of 18 new concepts to Key Terms