An Introduction to the Sociology of Health and Illness Book

The main purpose of this book is to demonstrate that disease is socially produced and distributed. Becoming sick and unhealthy is not the result of individual misfortune or an accident of nature. It is a consequence of the social, political and economic organization of society. In developing this thesis, the book systematically introduces students to the major sociological explanations of the role and functions of medical explanations of disease. For example, Marxists focus on the way the organization of production produces sickness and disease. Parsonian sociology demonstrates how medicine acts to control deviance. Foucauldian sociology indicates how medicine constructs categories of `normal' behaviour and acts to enforce them. While, for feminists, medical knowledge is permeated with thinly disguised patriarchal assumptions about the nature and appropriate social roles for women.The book situates the student securely in the literature and provides a guide to the strengths and weaknesses of the major sociological approaches. It draws out the essential features of the major sociological contributions and elucidates how an appreciation of the dynamics of class, gender, ethnicity and the sociology of knowledge challenges medical power.Comprehensive, reliable and written with the needs of undergraduates firmly in mind, the book will be of interest to students of Medical Sociology and Medicine. Read More