I was twelve years old when my parents’ divorce resulted in my moving from my all-white, all-Christian, working-class neighborhood in the suburbs of Kansas City to living below the poverty line in Farmington, New Mexico. Farmington borders Navajo Nation Reservation, which meant everything in my life did a 180.  Although adjusting to this new life was a challenge it would become the single most important event of my life.  My eyes were opened to new cultures, new ways of living, new languages, new foods, new school systems, an entirely new way of being. It forever changed me.  When I moved back to Missouri I was a different person.  My mind raced with observations and questions of the world around me.  The day I walked into my first sociology class I knew I had found my calling.

Sociology, like any social science, is the study of people, but our focus is on how people interact with one another and what results from that interaction. We seek to truly understand the world around us.  Sometimes the picture that the world shows us is not what is actually going on.  Hidden patterns and histories are driving these pictures.  Sociology allows us to look behind the curtain, to study the patterns of our social world, to tell the real story of our social world.

Just as my mind was open to new observations, questions, and thoughts I hope this book allows your mind to wonder.  Wondering is something we don’t do that much anymore.  We simple type what we want to know into Google.  The purpose of the book is not to be the end knowledge of all things Sociology.  The driving purpose of this book is to get students to wonder about their social world.  When you get done reading you should have even more questions than you started with.  That is what learning is all about.

~Cynthia Heddlesten