Human Behavior and the Social Environment: Shifting Paradigms in Essential Knowledge for Social Work Practice (5th Edition) 5th Edition

The course was hard. Many times I hated not just this book, but life itself. Ripping the hair off my arm seemed more merciful. Frankly this course should be used as a CIA torture device. Or a way to drive people insane. It really is that awful. Unless you are deviant who enjoys intricate things with no right answers just for the sake of fun debate. Blah ha ha. 🤓😜Either way, don't expect any book on this topic to be a dummy's guide. Stay at a Holiday Inn express. Maybe you'll understand it. This book is likely as good as it's gonna get to simplify this course. My book had about a thousand post its with notes. Why? Well you know the image of a dead horse? Yeah they beat it INTO the ground making explanations. And when you're doing, you're wondering where the day went. I can almost speed read and twenty pages took me two days. That's about a chapter. Why? Well I'd read an except, eat massive chocolates, roam the house like a prison, banged my head, dreamed with my eyes open....Still, the authors tried. One book. One course... You haven't learned a thing. But you can sit and listen to professors have a discussion and understand 10%. You can read a scholarly article and say, hey, I recall that word. I don't know how the heck they did the math, but I know they have nifty computers to do that quantitative research. Hahahahahaha.Read it anyway. If you decide you want a DSW, you'll do research til you croak. Or if you desperately want an answer to some complex puzzle, you'll have to align with a senior social worker and do this. You'll only learn this by doing. And even then, a lifetime of doing and you won't perfect it. But you gotta start somewhere.So yes, I hated this book, mainly because the work was just impossibly hard. But that wasn't the books fault. That was the fault of my hard head, exhaustion and difficult concepts. Now that I'm on the other side, I'll hide the book awhile, forget the agony of it, and enjoy reading scholarly articles with more insight and a frame of reference. I can't judge the authors on the material, only their take on it, and it wasn't bad. I don't know anything about anything still, but I can pretend as if I had stayed at the holiday inn express.

In reading the reviews of this book prior to purchase I saw some comments to the effect that this was going to be a difficult read. I think perhaps that it may be a little detailed for those who's profession and education focus are not Social Work. The text is full of interesting and useful information that a student of Social Work would find compelling. Because the field is so dynamic, I would hope that this particular text would update it's editions regularly. Since this is the 5th, I'm guessing the authors know something of this already.

I am taking a class taught by the author and was initially hesitant about him promoting his own book. However, after beginning to go through it I can see why. It is well organized and well written. I usually read textbooks as required for classes but so far I'm actually enjoying reading this one and feel like I'm getting good information from it.

I ordered this as a rental with some trepidation because I have never rented textbooks before. I was leery of getting a book that had a lot of highlighting already in it or was visibly worn but in this case, neither is the case. I see no highlighting or other markings at all in this book, which really makes me happy. The cover does show some signs of use but considering it's a paperback, that's to be expected.I like that I have the option of buying the book later if I decide I want to keep it but I especially like that when I'm finished with the course, I'll be able to send this book back and not let it sit on my bookshelf collecting dust. Overall I'm pleased with my textbook renting experience.

I love it!I definitely recommend it!!

Perfect for my social work class. It is the old edition, but it didn't even matter. I still got an A!

Great sell experience!

The book was practically brand new and this purchased save me a about $130.