Author Description

This book provides a compact collection of essays that convey a sense of what sociological studies of Singapore society are and have been about. There are a total of 28 articles, arranged into eight sections covering the main sub-fields in Sociology; an overview essay introducing the volume and discussing the foci and the raison d'tre for the selection of the essays; and a commentary for each section, highlighting the main themes and arguments in the component chapters. Collectively, the essays in the volume paint a comprehensive portrait of the evolving Singapore society through an examination of (1) its fundamental social structure and the sources of social division in terms of class, ethnicity, gender and culture; (2) its basic social institutions - religion, politics, marriage and the family - and their interconnections; and (3) the policies relating to and consequences of its key social, economic and developmental processes - industrialization, urbanization and community development, and demographic changes. This book is geared to a wide audience. For the general reader, it makes available a broad range of sociological writings which would contribute to public discourse on social and cultural issues in Singapore. For students or undergraduates, the collection offers local data and findings from which to understand Singapore society and learn Sociology through examples drawn from the Singapore context. Needless to say, the volume can also serve as a source-book to graduate students and researchers (especially those from other cultures) seeking to build up an understanding of the theoretical perspectives, hypotheses and new ideas generated in the Asian context in general, and Singapore in particular.