Effective discussion is encouraged through the use of boxed features, learning checks integrated into chapter presentations, discussion questions, and podcasts recorded by the author for each chapter.

The hallmarks of the book will be its integrated theme of race, class, and gender; an emphasis on "service learning" (student awareness of effective community responses); critical thinking and active learning; and the use of the internet and unique print supplements to expand on what is intended to be a briefer book than most.

Features and benefits:

-Voices in the Community - a section in each chapter offering testimony from those experiencing or doing something about social problems

-Visual Essays in each section to highlight a particular social problem or solution in the context of actual experiences.

-Internet and community exercises at the end of each chapter

-What Does it Mean to Me? Brings the analysis of the problem being studied down to the level of the individual

-Four theoretical perspectives for each problem studied: conflict, social interactionist, functionalist and feminist

-Community, Policy and Social Action sections focus on social policy, advocacy, and community innovation

-All new podcasts recorded by the author for each chapter which focuses on a specific case study and revisits key concepts