Understanding Singapore Society

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. Understanding Singapore Society is geared to a wide audience. For the general readers, 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.