Books by Joel Best

Constructionist theory describes and analyzes social problems as emerging through the efforts of claimsmakers who bring issues to public attention

Constructionist theory describes and analyzes social problems as emerging through the efforts of claimsmakers who bring issues to public attention

To hear mainstream media sources tell it, the sex lives of modern teenagers outpace even the smuttiest of cable television shows. This book looks at the truth behind the sensationalism in our culture.

This illuminating investigation uncovers the full dimensions of the student loan disaster. A father and son team-one a best-selling sociologist, the other a former banker and current quantitative researcher-probes how we've reached the point at which student loan debt-now exceeding $1 trillion and predicted to reach $2 trillion by 2020-threatens to become the sequel to the mortgage meltdown. In spite of their good intentions, Americans have allowed concerns about deadbeat students, crushing debt, exploitative for-profit colleges, and changing attitudes about the purpose of college education to blind them to a growing crisis. With college costs climbing faster than the cost of living, how can access to higher education remain a central part of the American dream? With more than half of college students carrying an average debt of $27,000 at graduation, what are the prospects for young adults in the current economy? Examining how we've arrived at and how we might extricate ourselves from this grave social problem, The Student Loan Mess is a must-read for everyone concerned about the future of American education. Hard facts about the student loan crisis: * Student loan debt is rising by more than $100 billion every year. * Among recent college students who are supposed to be repaying their loans, more than a third are delinquent. * Because student loans cannot be discharged through bankruptcy, the federal government misleadingly treats student loan debt as a government asset. * Higher default rates, spiraling college costs, and proposals for more generous terms for student borrowers make it increasingly likely that student loan policies will eventually cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.

An exploration of the ways we talk about - and why we worry about - new crimes and new forms of victimization. Focusing on so-called random crimes such as freeway shootings, gang violence, and wilding, it shows how new crime problems emerge and how some quickly fade from public attention while others spread and become enduring subjects of concern.

Every kindergarten soccer player gets a trophy. Many high schools name dozens of seniors as valedictorians-of the same class. Cars sport bumper stickers that read "e;USA-Number 1."e; Prizes proliferate in every corner of American society, and excellence is trumpeted with ratings that range from "e;Academy Award winner!"e; to "e;Best Neighborhood Pizza!"e; In Everyone's a Winner, Joel Best- acclaimed author of Damned Lies and Statistics and many other books-shines a bright light on the increasing abundance of status in our society and considers what it all means. With humor and insight, Best argues that status affluence fosters social worlds and, in the process, helps give meaning to life in a large society.

While fads such as hula hoops or streaking are usually dismissed as silly enthusiasms, trends in institutions such as education, business, medicine, science, and criminal justice are often taken seriously, even though their popularity and usefulness is sometimes short-lived. Institutional fads such as open classrooms, quality circles, and multiple personality disorder are constantly making the rounds, promising astonishing new developments-novel ways of teaching reading or arithmetic, better methods of managing businesses, or improved treatments for disease. Some of these trends prove to be lasting innovations, but others-after absorbing extraordinary amounts of time and money-are abandoned and forgotten, soon to be replaced by other new schemes. In this pithy, intriguing, and often humorous book, Joel Best-author of the acclaimed Damned Lies and Statistics-explores the range of institutional fads, analyzes the features of our culture that foster them, and identifies the major stages of the fad cycle-emerging, surging, and purging. Deconstructing the ways that this system plays into our notions of reinvention, progress, and perfectibility, Flavors of the Month examines the causes and consequences of fads and suggests ways of fad-proofing our institutions.