The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology

I am a college senior and am really glad I purchased this item. It has really come in handy for all those sociological terms in my sociology text books. It was a good price and received it in great condition.

During my first undergraduate sociology topic, I became confused by all the unfamiliar terms I was encountering in the readings. This dictionary saved me from a web of confusion by clearly defining each term. The terms are explicitly explained and differentiated from each other. This sort of description is hard to come by in sociological literature. It also acknowledges the relationship between terms by recommending other terms to refer to. Below many definitions, there are even references to readings if you want more information on the topic. While the definitions are restricted to explain only the given term, they are also detailed enough to give a good understanding of the meaning and context of the term. Most terms are explained in a paragraph or two, while more important and complex terms or phrases are explained with more information, often in one or two pages. If you want explicit descriptions of terms that we don't often encounter outside of sociology, or of terms that have a different meaning within sociology, this book will definitely help you. You will be able to write your papers more confidently knowing that you fully understand the sociological concepts. Even though I no longer study sociology, I am happy to see this dictionary still resting on my bookshelf because I remember what a great help it was.

This is a great dictionary, but how much information do you really think fits into such a small book? I found it useful for my purposes as an undergraduate student, but I'd personally like to own one of those big fancy sociological dictionaries.

For any student of sociology, this is a welcomed addition to textbooks. The dictionary is also a good addition to the library of someone who just enjoys reading sociology books. It has a bit of a British flair because of its authors, but is really a well-rounded and insightful reference book.

While there are other dictionaries out there that do a better job, for the price of this dictionary it is a great reference for Introduction to Sociology students. Definitions range from a few words to a couple of pages. Usually gives a reference to an author connected to the term and other concepts that might be important to the term. Still there are key concepts missing (for instance a definition of methodology) that make this book problematic. This book is not written from a particular standpoint, but at times the definitions are classical.