Joel Best

Joel Gordon Best is an American sociologist and criminologist. He is Professor Emeritus and a Francis Alison award winner in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at the University of Delaware. He specialized in topics such as social problems and deviance. His most recent research focused on awards, prizes, and honors in American culture.

Best earned a Bachelor of Arts in sociology and psychology in 1967, before studying sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, from which he earned a Master of Arts (MA) in 1968 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1971. In 1979, he earned an MA in United States history from the University of Minnesota.^[1]

He taught at Concordia College (1969-70), California State University, Fresno (1970–91), Southern Illinois University at Carbondale (1991–99), and University of Delaware (1999–2006).^[1]

He served as a President of the Midwest Sociological Society (1999–2000) and the Society for the Study of Social Problems (2001–02),^[1] and was an editor of the journal Social Problems. When asked about his prolific output, Best responded, “If you write a page per day, or every few days, you will have a book by the end of the year.”^[2]

He was a source cast member on the critically acclaimed show Adam Ruins Everything. Best provided evidence supporting the fact that strangers, contrary to popular belief, do not (with a single rare exception of an estranged father-son situation) and have never tampered with or poisoned the candy given to a trick-or-treater as far as records can provide.

• Best, Joel; Luckenbill, David F. (1982). Organizing Deviance. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 978-0-13-641605-0.^[3]
• Joel, Best; Best, Eric (2014). The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created a Trillion-Dollar Problem. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. ISBN 9780520287525.^[4]
• Best, Joel; Bogle, Kathleen A. (2014). Kids Gone Wild From Rainbow Parties to Sexting, Understanding the Hype Over Teen Sex. New York: New York University Press. ISBN 978-0-8147-6073-4.^[5]
  • Winner Brian McConnell Book Award, International Society for Contemporary Legend Research
• Best, Joel (1998). Controlling Vice: Regulating Brothel Prostitution in St. Paul, 1865-1883. Columbus: Ohio State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8142-5007-5.^[6]
• Best, Joel (2012). Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-27470-9.^[7]
• Best, Joel (2004). More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-93002-5.^[8]
• Best, Joel (2004). Deviance: Career of a Concept. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth. ISBN 978-0-534-57001-9.
• Best, Joel (2011). Everyone's a Winner: Life in Our Congratulatory Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-26716-9.^[9]
• Best, Joel (2006). Flavor of the Month: Why Smart People Fall for Fads. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-24626-3.^[10]
• Best, Joel (2021). Is that True? Critical Thinking for Sociologists. Oakland, California: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-38141-4.^[11]
• Joel Best, Just the Facts: Why We Don’t Always Agree, Oakland: University of California Press, forthcoming in 2015
• Best, Joel (1999). Random Violence: How We Talk about New Crimes and New Victims. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-21571-9.^[12]
• Best, Joel (2008). Social problems. New York London: W. W. Norton & Company.
  • Best, Joel (2013). Social problems (2nd ed.). New York London: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-91863-2.
  • Best, Joel (2017). Social Problems (3rd ed.). New York London: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-39328341-9.
  • Best, Joel (2020). Social Problems (4th ed.). New York London: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-39353304-0.
  • Best, Joel; Monahan, Brian (2024). Social Problems (5th ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. ISBN 978-1-324-08587-4.
• Best, Joel (2013). Stat-Spotting: A Field Guide to Identifying Dubious Data. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-27998-8.^[13]
• Best, Joel (2011). The Stupidity Epidemic: Worrying about Students, Schools, and America's Future. Framing 21st century social issues. New York London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-89209-4.^[14]
• Best, Joel (1990). Threatened Children: Rhetoric and Concern about Child-Victims. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-04425-5.^[15]
  • Winner, Charles Horton Cooley Award, Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, 1991

• Best, Joel; Richardson, James T.; Bromley, David G., eds. (1991). The Satanism Scare. Somerset: Taylor and Francis. ISBN 978-0-202-30378-9.^[16]
• Best, Joel, ed. (1994). Troubling Children: Studies of Children and Social Problems. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. ISBN 978-0-202-30491-5.^[17]
• Best, Joel, ed. (2001). How Claims Spread: Cross-National Diffusion of Social Problems. Social problems and social issues. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. ISBN 978-0-202-30653-7.^[18]
• Images of Issues
  • Best, Joel, ed. (1995). Images of Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social Problems. Social problems and social issues (2nd ed.). New York: A. De Gruyter. ISBN 978-0-202-30538-7.^[19]

• Best, Joel; Harris, Scott R., eds. (2013). Making Sense of Social Problems: New Images, New Issues. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. ISBN 978-1-58826-855-6.^[20]

• Personal homepage