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This article is a review of the academic works of American sociologist James Bossard. During his life he wrote a vast number of articles and books on family, marriage, childhood and parenting, using a variety of methods for collecting and analyzing information. Despite his active academic and social life, James Bossard is very little known in the Russian-speaking environment. James Bossard creates his own set of approaches towards studying family, which should cover all significant aspects of the latter. Said set is based on approaches that can be divided into three main categories, which will be discussed in the review: family rituals, family heterogeneity and family as a field for change. Meanwhile he also described other issues: happiness and unhappiness in the family, the differences between large and small families, the role of children in the family, rites of passage, the impact of war on families. James Bossard is also worthy of interest as a productive researcher with unconventional approaches to working with material, as well as a peculiar sign of the time. The main goal of the author of this review is to draw attention to this sociologist's legacy, since many of his works are also relevant in modern Russia.

Sociology can help students understand why and how so many of the problems their service users face occur in the first place, helping them choose effective ways to communicate and make informed decisions on how their needs can be fully met. This book offers students a framework to explore how their professional responsibility to understanding sociology can be realised in every aspect of their work with a diverse range of service user groups including children and families, adults, older people, people with learning disabilities and people suffering from mental distress. The book takes students step-by-step through the theoretical grounding, what sociology is, how it is relevant to everyday social work practice, and what are the key aspects of sociological theory that need to be understood.

Part I. Historical context and social divisions -- Part II. The experience of work -- Part III. Work and organization -- Part IV. Non-standard forms of work and employment -- Part V. Work and life beyond employment -- Part VI. Globalization and the future of work

This article sets out to rethink the relationship between the work of art and the work of sociology, drawing on Jacques Ranciere's writing on the work of art to provide the basis for recognizing affinities and differences between these two processes. In juxtaposing the sociology of globalization with the art of globalization, beginning with their common desire to understand globalization through rendering invisible forces visible, the article suggests ways in which artistic practice might be said to be 'proto-sociological', while also considering the role that aesthetic categories play in producing sociological knowledge. These questions are approached through a detailed case study that focuses on the cultural response to the oil industry offered by Ursula Biemann in her film essay, Black Sea Files (2005). The article argues that to grasp a phenomenon as complex as globalization, collaborative work between different forms of knowledge construction plays a crucial role.