Contemporary Social Theory helps students explore, describe, and discuss how social theory relates to their own experiences, popular culture, and the world in which they live. It advances the view that new theory can be effectively used to assess social and cultural phenomena.

The text identifies the important intellectual movements, categories, and paradigms that have occurred in the study of social theory. It also looks at issues closely related to contemporary social theory, such as: the postmodern condition, globalization, postcolonialism, inequality, gender, race, and human sexuality.