Karen A. Cerulo's Books

Dreams of a Lifetime

How Who We Are Shapes How We Imagine Our Future

By: Karen A. Cerulo,Janet M. Ruane

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Dreams of a Lifetime

How Who We Are Shapes How We Imagine Our Future

By: Karen A. Cerulo,Janet M. Ruane

How social status shapes our dreams of the future and inhibits the lives we envision for ourselves Most of us understand that a person’s place in society can close doors to opportunity, but anything is possible when we dream about what might be, or so we think. Dreams of a Lifetime reveals that what and how we dream—and whether we believe our dreams can actually come true—are tied to our social class, gender, race, age, and life events. Karen Cerulo and Janet Ruane argue that our social location shapes the seemingly private and unique life of our minds. We are all free to dream about possibilities, but not all dreamers are equal. Cerulo and Ruane show how our social position ingrains itself on our mind’s eye, quietly influencing the nature of our dreams, whether we embrace dreaming or dream at all, and whether we believe that our dreams, from the attainable to the improbable, can become realities. They explore how inequalities stemming from social disadvantages pattern our dreams for ourselves, and how sociocultural disparities in how we dream exacerbate social inequalities and limit the life paths we believe are open to us. Drawing on a wealth of original interviews with people from diverse social backgrounds, Dreams of a Lifetime demonstrates how the study of our dreams can provide new avenues for understanding and combating inequality—including inequalities that precede action or outcome.

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Page Count

280

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0691229082

ISBN 13

9780691229089

Second Thoughts: Sociology Challenges Conventional Wisdom

Sociology Challenges Conventional Wisdom

By: Janet M. Ruane,Karen A. Cerulo

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Second Thoughts: Sociology Challenges Conventional Wisdom

Sociology Challenges Conventional Wisdom

By: Janet M. Ruane,Karen A. Cerulo

Do birds of a feather flock together or do opposites attract? Does haste make waste or should you strike while the iron is hot? Adages like these—or conventional wisdoms—shape our social life. This Fifth Edition of Second Thoughts reviews several popular beliefs and notes how such adages cannot be taken at face value. This unique text encourages students to step back and sharpen their analytic focus with 24 essays that use social research to expose the gray areas of commonly held beliefs, revealing the complexity of social reality and sharpening students’ sociological vision.

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Page Count

377

Publisher

SAGE

Published Date

ISBN 10

1412988098

ISBN 13

9781412988094

Second Thoughts

Seeing Conventional Wisdom Through the Sociological Eye

By: Janet M. Ruane,Karen A. Cerulo

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Second Thoughts

Seeing Conventional Wisdom Through the Sociological Eye

By: Janet M. Ruane,Karen A. Cerulo

Learning More About It Exercises SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: THE ECONOMY Essay 20 Welfare Is Ruining This Country A frequently expressed opinion when talk turns to welfare reform is that too many people are on the dole and too many recipients have other options. In this essay, we review some of the least understood dimensions of welfare and explore exactly where welfare moneys are going. Learning More About It Exercises Essay 21 Immigrants Are Ruining This Nation?Why don?t you go back where you came from?? This angry cry seems to be getting more and more familiar as the United States faces the highest levels of immigration in its history. Is immigration ruining this nation? This essay reviews the historical impact and future trends of immigration in the United States. Learning More About It Exercises SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: MEDIA AND TECHNOLOGY Essay 22 Technology Is Taking Over Our Lives This essay examines new communication technologies and explores their role in contemporary social life. We begin by considering the ways in which technology has changed the development of community and intimacy. We explore as well the impact of new technologies on our definitions of social relations, social actors, and the public and private spheres. Learning More About It Exercises SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: EDUCATION Essay 23 Education Is the Great Equalizer Conventional wisdom tells us that educating the masses will bring equal opportunities to people of all races, ethnicities, and genders. In this essay, we explore the truth of this claim and review the progress we have made in bringing a quality education to all. Learning More About It Exercises SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS: RELIGION Essay 24: We Are One Nation Under God God bless America ... it?s an invocation frequently heard across the U.S. Yet, in light of our country?s long standing commitment to the separation of church and state, God bless America is also a prayer that can make some uncomfortable. Are we united or divided with regard to the place of God in our nation? This essay explores the issue. Learning More About It Exercises Conclusion: Why Do Conventional Wisdoms Persist? The Positive Functions of Conventional Wisdom Conventional Wisdom as Knowledge In Closing Learning More About It References Glossary / Index.

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Page Count

441

Publisher

Pine Forge Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1412956536

ISBN 13

9781412956536

Never Saw It Coming

Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst

By: Karen A. Cerulo

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Never Saw It Coming

Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst

By: Karen A. Cerulo

People—especially Americans—are by and large optimists. They're much better at imagining best-case scenarios (I could win the lottery!) than worst-case scenarios (A hurricane could destroy my neighborhood!). This is true not just of their approach to imagining the future, but of their memories as well: people are better able to describe the best moments of their lives than they are the worst. Though there are psychological reasons for this phenomenon, Karen A.Cerulo, in Never Saw It Coming, considers instead the role of society in fostering this attitude. What kinds of communities develop this pattern of thought, which do not, and what does that say about human ability to evaluate possible outcomes of decisions and events? Cerulo takes readers to diverse realms of experience, including intimate family relationships, key transitions in our lives, the places we work and play, and the boardrooms of organizations and bureaucracies. Using interviews, surveys, artistic and fictional accounts, media reports, historical data, and official records, she illuminates one of the most common, yet least studied, of human traits—a blatant disregard for worst-case scenarios. Never Saw It Coming, therefore, will be crucial to anyone who wants to understand human attempts to picture or plan the future. “In Never Saw It Coming, Karen Cerulo argues that in American society there is a ‘positive symmetry,’ a tendency to focus on and exaggerate the best, the winner, the most optimistic outcome and outlook. Thus, the conceptions of the worst are underdeveloped and elided. Naturally, as she masterfully outlines, there are dramatic consequences to this characterological inability to imagine and prepare for the worst, as the failure to heed memos leading up to both the 9/11 and NASA Challenger disasters, for instance, so painfully reminded us.”--Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Swarthmore College “Katrina, 9/11, and the War in Iraq—all demonstrate the costliness of failing to anticipate worst-case scenarios. Never Saw It Coming explains why it is so hard to do so: adaptive behavior hard-wired into human cognition is complemented and reinforced by cultural practices, which are in turn institutionalized in the rules and structures of formal organizations. But Karen Cerulo doesn’t just diagnose the problem; she uses case studies of settings in which people effectively anticipate and deal with potential disaster to describe structural solutions to the chronic dilemmas she describes so well. Never Saw It Coming is a powerful contribution to the emerging fields of cognitive and moral sociology.”--Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University

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Page Count

345

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226100294

ISBN 13

9780226100296

Identity Designs

The Sights and Sounds of a Nation

By: Karen A. Cerulo

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Identity Designs

The Sights and Sounds of a Nation

By: Karen A. Cerulo

National symbols, modern totems with ancient roots, remain entities for which men and women continue to march, debate, fight, and die. Modern political leaders still drape their campaigns in such symbols; modern revolutionaries still defile them. Identity Designs explores the source of this long-standing power--the way national symbols are selected, the manner in which their meaning is conveyed, their potential effects, and the sustenance of their power. In particular, the book charts the role of design in the selection of symbolic images, thus demonstrating that symbols are chosen not just for what they convey, but how they convey their message. Karen Cerulo shows that the symbolic designs of a nation's identity are not simply the products of indigenous characteristics, as conventional wisdom might suggest. Rather, the banners and songs by which nations represent themselves are generated by broad social forces that transcend the peculiarities of any one nation. Cerulo's analysis acquaints readers with a set of social structural factors that delimit rules of symbolic expression. Further, the book suggests the benefits of adhering to these rules and explores the costs of violating them.

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280

Publisher

Rutgers University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0813522110

ISBN 13

9780813522111

Deciphering Violence

The Cognitive Structure of Right and Wrong

By: Karen A. Cerulo

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Deciphering Violence

The Cognitive Structure of Right and Wrong

By: Karen A. Cerulo

In the current information age, Americans are bombarded daily with stories and images portraying a rising tide of violence. Drawing on media that includes television, newspaper, fiction, film, painting and photography, as well as interviews and focus groups, Karen Cerulo explores the ways in which individuals think about, depict and evaluate violence. Moving beyond typical studies that focus on violent story content, Deciphering Violence decodes the role of story structure itself and how the sequencing of facts can systematically influence our moral judgements of violent acts. The book identifies institutionalized forms of violent storytelling and raises new possibilities both for decreasing public tolerance of violence and increasing social control of the phenomenon.

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Page Count

206

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Published Date

ISBN 10

1000947408

ISBN 13

9781000947403

Second Thoughts

Sociology Challenges Conventional Wisdom

By: Janet M. Ruane,Karen A. Cerulo

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Second Thoughts

Sociology Challenges Conventional Wisdom

By: Janet M. Ruane,Karen A. Cerulo

Is it true that "numbers don′t lie?" Is America "the land of equal opportunity?" Is marriage a "dying institution?" Each of the 23 essays in Second Thoughts reviews a familiar conventional wisdom, and introduces relevant sociological concepts and theories in order to explain, qualify, and sometimes debunk that conventional wisdom.

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Page Count

401

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Published Date

ISBN 10

1506345786

ISBN 13

9781506345789

Never Saw It Coming

Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst

By: Karen A. Cerulo

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Never Saw It Coming

Cultural Challenges to Envisioning the Worst

By: Karen A. Cerulo

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Page Count

336

Publisher

University of Chicago Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0226100324

ISBN 13

9780226100326

Book's by Karen A. Cerulo

Dreams of a Lifetime

Dreams of a Lifetime

Second Thoughts: Sociology Challenges Conventional Wisdom

Second Thoughts: Sociology Challenges Conventional Wisdom

Second Thoughts

Second Thoughts

Never Saw It Coming

Never Saw It Coming

Identity Designs

Identity Designs

Deciphering Violence

Deciphering Violence

Second Thoughts

Second Thoughts

Never Saw It Coming

Never Saw It Coming

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