This second edition of a major textbook uses lively prose and a series of carefully-crafted pedagogical features to both introduce Sociology as a discipline and to help students realize how deeply sociological issues impact on their own lives. Over the book’s twelve chapters, students discover what Sociology is, alongside its historical development and emergent new concerns. They will be led through the theories that underpin the discipline and familiarized with what it takes to undertake good sociological research. Ultimately students will be led and inspired to develop their own sociological imagination – learning to question their own assumptions about the society, the culture and the world around them today.

Historically, the majority of introductory Sociology textbooks have run to many hundreds of pages, discouraging students from further reading. By contrast, Discovering Sociology has been carefully designed and developed as a true introduction, covering the key ideas and topics that first year undergraduate students need to engage with without sacrificing intellectual rigour.