You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist

You May Ask Yourself emphasizes the "big ideas" of the discipline, and encourages students to question what they've taken for granted most of their lives. Author Dalton Conley captures students with his conversational style, explaining complex concepts through personal examples and storytelling, and integrating coverage of social inequality throughout the textbook. His irreverent approach to textbook writing has won praise from students and instructors alike.

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. He is the author of Honky (2001) and The Pecking Order: A Bold New Look at How Family and Society Determine Who We Become (2004). His other books include Being Black, Living in the Red: Race, Wealth, and Social Policy in America (1999), The Starting Gate: Birth Weight and Life Chances (2003), and Elsewhere, U.S.A. (2009). You can follow Dalton Conley on Twitter at @daltonconley.

Review :
Rather than bombarding students with lots of statistics, Dalton Conley seems more concerned with getting the 'big ideas' of the discipline across, and to encourage them to ask meaningful questions.--Michael Nofz, University of Wisconsin-Fond du Lac Your students will be captured by Conley's conversational style and drawn into reading the text before they know what hit them. Conley provides a thorough discussion of theory with relevant past and contemporary examples. Further, he challenges the students to question what they've taken for granted most of their lives.--Cheryl Maes, University of Nevada, Reno Conley's text has filled an important niche for the community college needs. It is affordable, readable, colorful, and yet has fewer pages to read, which is an important consideration for my beginning-level community college students, and has examples that my young students can relate to.--Sharon Warner Methvin, Mt. Hood Community College Hip, splashy, youthful, concise, emotive, provocative, unpretentious, sharp, with a fresh take on the issues.--Jennifer Schultz, The University of Arizona You May Ask Yourself represents a departure from the typical cookie-cutter approach that characterizes most introductory texts. The best sociology textbooks read like storybooks, and students are actually interested in doing the readings. This book has the potential for approaching that standard.--Ralph Pyle, Michigan State University