Social Sciences Textbooks

Together: The Science of Social Psychology

Contributors: Biswas-Diener and Diener

Publisher: Noba

License: CC BY-NC-SA

This textbook presents core concepts common to introductory social psychology courses. The 8 units include 27 modules covering key social psych topics such as research methods, group processes, social influence, and relationships. This book can be modified: feel free to add or remove modules to better suit your specific needs. Each module in this book is accompanied by instructor's manual, PowerPoint presentation, test items, adaptive student quiz, and reading anticipation guide.Please note that the publisher requires you to login to access and download the textbooks.

(10 reviews)

World Regional Geography

Contributor: Finlayson

Publisher: Caitlin Finlayson

License: CC BY-NC-SA

Rather than present students with a broad, novice-level introduction to geography, emphasizing places and vocabulary terms, this text approaches geography as experts understand the discipline, focusing on connections and an in-depth understanding of core themes. This thematic approach, informed by pedagogical research, provides students with an introduction to thinking geographically. Instead of repeating the same several themes each chapter, this text emphasizes depth over breadth by arranging each chapter around a central theme and then exploring that theme in detail as it applies to the particular region. In addition, while chapters are designed to stand alone and be rearranged or eliminated at the instructor's discretion, the theme of globalization and inequality unites all of the regions discussed. This core focus enables students to draw connections between regions and to better understand the interconnectedness of our world. Furthermore, the focus on both globalization and inequality helps demonstrate the real-world application of the concepts discussed. Colonialism, for instance, rather than a historical relict, becomes a force that has shaped geography and informs social justice. This thematic approach is also intended to facilitate active learning and would be suitable for a flipped or team-based learning-style course since it more easily integrates case studies and higher-order thinking than the traditional model.

(12 reviews)

First Amendment: Cases, Controversies, and Contexts - Second Edition

Contributor: Robson

Publisher: CALI's eLangdell® Press

License: CC BY-NC-SA

This Casebook (Second Edition, December 2019) is intended to be used in an upper-division course covering the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. Its 14 chapters are substantially the same length, with the exception of Chapter One, the introduction, and Chapters Eleven and Twelve which in combination are the usual length. It is intended for 13 or 14 week semester that meets once or twice per week. Each Chapter contains a “Chapter Outline” at the beginning for ease of reference.

(3 reviews)

American Government - 3e

Contributors: Krutz and Waskiewicz

Publisher: OpenStax CNX

License: CC BY

American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens.

(42 reviews)

Sustaining the Commons

Contributors: Anderies and Janssen

Publisher: Arizona State University

License: CC BY-NC-ND

This textbook discusses the main framework, concepts and applications of the work of Elinor Ostrom and her colleagues for an undergraduate audience. We began teaching a course on collective and the commons in 2007 at Arizona State University. Initially we made use of Ostrom's classic book “Governing the Commons”, but this book was not written for an undergraduate audience. Moreover, many new insights have been developed since the 1990 publication of “Governing the Commons”. Therefore we decided to write our own textbook, which we have been using since the Spring of 2012.

(3 reviews)

International Economics: Theory and Policy

Contributor: Suranovic

Publisher: Saylor Foundation

License: CC BY-NC-SA

This text strives to reach a median between these two approaches. First, I believe that students need to learn the theory and models to understand how economists understand the world. I also think these ideas are accessible to most students if they are explained thoroughly. This text presents numerous models in some detail, not by employing advanced mathematics, but rather by walking students through a detailed description of how a model's assumptions influence its conclusions. Second, and perhaps more important, students must learn how the models connect with the real world. I believe that theory is done primarily to guide policy. We do positive economics to help answer the normative questions; for example, what should a country do about its trade policy or its exchange rate policy? The results from models give us insights that help us answer these questions. Thus this text strives to explain why each model is interesting by connecting its results to some aspect of a current policy issue. A prime example is found in Chapter 11 "Evaluating the Controversy between Free Trade and Protectionism" of this book, which addresses the age-old question of whether countries should choose free trade or some type of selected protection. The chapter demonstrates how the results of the various models presented throughout the text contribute to our understanding of this long-standing debate.

(1 review)

Good Corporation, Bad Corporation: Corporate Social Responsibility in the Global Economy

Contributors: Jimenez and Pulos

Publisher: Open SUNY

License: CC BY-NC-SA

This textbook provides an innovative, internationally oriented approach to the teaching of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and business ethics. Drawing on case studies involving companies and countries around the world, the textbook explores the social, ethical, and business dynamics underlying CSR in such areas as global warming, genetically modified organisms (GMO) in food production, free trade and fair trade, anti-sweatshop and living-wage movements, organic foods and textiles, ethical marketing practices and codes, corporate speech and lobbying, and social enterprise. The book is designed to encourage students and instructors to challenge their own assumptions and prejudices by stimulating a class debate based on each case study.

(6 reviews)

Psychology as a Biological Science

Contributors: Biswas-Diener and Diener

Publisher: Noba

License: CC BY-NC-SA

This textbook provides standard introduction to psychology course content with a specific emphasis on biological aspects of psychology. This includes more content related to neuroscience methods, the brain and the nervous system. This book can be modified: feel free to add or remove modules to better suit your specific needs. Please note that the publisher requires you to login to access and download the PDF.

(11 reviews)

Introduction to Human Osteology

Contributors: Hall, Beals, Neumann, Neumann, and Madden

Publisher: Grand Valley State University

License: CC BY-NC

This text was designed for use in the human osteology laboratory classroom. Bones are described to aid in identification of skeletonized remains in either an archaeological or forensic anthropology setting. Basic techniques for siding, aging, sexing, and stature estimation are described. Both images of bone and drawings are included which may be used for study purposes outside of the classroom. The text represents work that has been developed over more than 30 years by its various authors and is meant to present students with the basic analytical tools for the study of human osteology.

(8 reviews)

Discover Psychology 2.0: A Brief Introductory Text

Contributors: Biswas-Diener and Diener

Publisher: Noba

License: CC BY-NC-SA

This textbook presents core concepts common to introductory courses. The 15 units cover the traditional areas of intro-to-psychology; ranging from biological aspects of psychology to psychological disorders to social psychology. This book can be modified: feel free to add or remove modules to better suit your specific needs. Each module in this book is accompanied by instructor's manual, PowerPoint presentation, test items, adaptive student quiz, and reading anticipation guide.

(20 reviews)