Exploring Social Issues: Using SPSS for Windows

Click on the Supplements tab above for further details on the different versions of SPSS programs.

A hands-on introduction to the craft of social research for Introductory Sociology courses, Exploring Social Issues: Using SPSS for Windows, Third Edition puts students in the role of active researchers as they test their own ideas about topics such as divorce, abortion, crime, inequality, prejudice, and television violence using SPSS, the pre-eminent software program in the social sciences.

This Third Edition uses updated General Social Survey (GSS) data sets and offers a robust SPSS primer in an appendix. The book is available in two formats: as a stand-alone text, or bundled with SPSS (Student Version).

Key Features

• Stresses active and collaborative learning as students engage in a series of investigative explorations of social issues
• Shows students how analyzing data from the General Social Survey, a major national research program, can help them better understand compelling social issues
• Teaches students how to use SPSS as they analyze GSS data on a random sample of the population
• Guides students step-by-step through exercises that have been designed for those with no background in SPSS
• Includes research reports that follow a standardized fill-in-the-blank format for analyzing and presenting results, but with space left for students to summarize their results in their own words

Exploring Social Issues: Using SPSS for Windows, Third Edition can be effectively used in Introductory Sociology or other undergraduate sociology courses and may be used in conjunction with most of the standard textbooks in the field. The text is ideal for courses where the professor also wants to introduce students to doing social research and using SPSS.

Order the SPSS Student Version of this book so your students can practice SPSS from the convenience of their laptops rather than in a computer lab.

Data sets available online! Click on 'Sample Materials and Chapters' on the left hand menu bar. These data sets provide historical depth, and allow students to analyze trends over time by comparing 2006 results and patterns with data from the 1972 General Social Survey.

Earl R. Babbie was born in Detroit, Michigan, in 1938, although he chose to return to Vermont 3 months later, growing up there and in New Hampshire. In 1956, he set off for Harvard Yard, where he spent the next 4 years learning more than he initially planned. After three years with the U.S. Marine Corps, mostly in Asia, he began graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He received his Ph.D. from Berkeley in 1969. He taught sociology at the University of Hawaii from 1968 through 1979, took time off from teaching and research to write full time for 8 years, and then joined the faculty at Chapman University in Southern California in 1987. He retired from teaching in 2006 and moved to Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, the next year. Although an author of research articles and monographs, he is best known for the many textbooks he has written, which have been widely adopted in colleges throughout the United States and the world. He also has been active in the American Sociological Association throughout his career for 25 years and served on the ASA’s executive committee. He is also past president of the Pacific Sociological Association and California Sociological Association. He is married to Suzanne Babbie, a joyful partner in all aspects of his life, and he has a son, Aaron, who would make any parent proud. As partial proof, Aaron and his wife, Ara, produced the world's two greatest grandchildren: Evelyn and Henry.

Fred Halley, State University of New York College at Brockport, has been developing computer-based tools for teaching social science since 1970. He has served as a collegewide social science computer consultant, directed Brockport's Institute for Social Research, and now directs the college's Data Analysis Laboratory.

State University of New York College at Brockport, has been developing computer-based tools for teaching social science since 1970. He has served as a collegewide social science computer consultant, directed Brockport's Institute for Social Research, and now directs the college's Data Analysis Laboratory.

Joseph F. Healey, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair of Sociology and Social Work at Christopher Newport University. He is author of Statistics: A Tool for Social Research 6th edition (Wadsworth, 2001), Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Class, 3/e (Pine Forge Press, 2002) and Race, Ethnicity and Gender in the United States (Pine Forge, 1996). He is the author of the forthcoming Race, Ethnicity and Gender (Pine Forge, 2004) and is also the co-editor with York Bradshaw of Sociology for a New Century (Pine Forge, 2001) and co-author with Earl Babbie and Fred Halley of Exploring Social Issues: Using SPSS for Windows (Pine Forge, 1997). A.B., M.A., The College of William and Mary (Sociology and Anthropology) and Ph.D., University of Virginia (Sociology and Anthropology). In his spare time, he plays and records music for hammer dulcimer, banjo, and concertina.

John Boli, Emory University, is the author or co-author of six books and many articles and chapters on education, globalization, and political sociology, including The Globalization Reader (Blackwell,1999), Constructing World Culture (Stanford University Press,1999), Cream of the Crop (Basic Books, 1994) and Institutional Structure: Constituting State, Society, and the Individual (Sage, 1987).