This highly successful reader presents the interactionist approach to the study of deviance, examining deviance as a phenomenon that is constituted through social interpretations and the reactions of persons caught up in this social process. This book focuses on issues such as how individuals interpret and label people, how people relate to one another based on these interpretations, and the consequences of these social processes. This perspective helps students understand both social process in general and the sociology of deviance in particular.

Now in its seventh edition, The Study of Social Problems uses seven sociological perspectives--social pathology, social disorganization, value conflict, deviant behavior, labeling, the critical perspective, and social constructionism--to examine social problems. Focusing on theory, this critically acclaimed anthology distinguishes itself from other texts, which are organized topically. Each section opens with an overview of the perspective's major contributors, its history, and its main characteristics and closes with a critique of the perspective and questions for discussion....