Excerpt: Caring for Our Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States

Clawson, Dan, and Naomi Gerstel. [2002] 2005. "Caring for Our Young: Child Care in Europe and the United States". Pp. 263-270 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

Clawson and Gerstel contrast public child-care in the United States with that of France and Denmark to demonstrate the lack of quality in American social programs.

Restructuring of welfare, employment, and family patterns has led to more American parents seeking child care because they need or want it. Preschool is now a cultural norm, experts "increasingly emphasize the potential benefits of child care", and Congress encourages child care to help kids through school later on (thus keeping them out of jail) and keep mothers working and families together.

Excerpt: The Forest and the Trees

Johnson, Allan G. [1997] 2005. "The Forest and the Trees". Pp. 6-13 in Understanding Society, 2nd ed., edited by Margaret L. Andersen, Kim Logio, and Howard Taylor. Belmont, CA: Thomson Learning, Inc.

In his research, Johnson deals a lot with the issue of diversity. He describes briefly how diversity enhances productivity but serves as the basis for internal division amongst work groups. "People tend to think of things only in terms of individuals, as if a society or a company or a university were nothing more than a collection of people living in a particular time and place", he says. Many of today's problems and topics are seen as originating from personal flaws or attributes, personal thoughts or abilities, as certain societies (especially in the West, especially in the United States) apply an individualistic outlook to the world. This outlook itself is problematic, as it hinders our sociological imagination.