In his new textbook, Joel Best gives readers a complete set of tools for analyzing any social problem. Best
helps readers think carefully about how activists, experts, and their opponents frame social problems through the
logic that they use, the rhetoric of claims-making, and the ways that access to resources determines who gets their
claims heard. In order to help students connect theory to everyday life, the text includes colorful examples and
case studies from the real world.
Table of Contents
1. What Do We Mean by Social Problems?
2. Claims
3. Activists as Claimsmakers
4. Experts as Claimsmakers
5. Media and Claims
6. Public Reactions
7. Policymaking
8. Social Problems Work
9. Policy Outcomes
10. Claims Across Space and Time
11. The Uses of the Constructionist Stance
Glossary
