Optional Assignment 1

Gary Marx stated “identifying, monitoring and considering the implications of trends is one of the most basic processes for creating the future” (Stevenson, 2010 p. 1). The world of education is forever changing at a pace that gets more rapid as the years go on. The decisions made in the past have laid the foundation of education today, as will recent changes affect the future. Programs such as choice schooling and No Child Left Behind will impact school funding. Rulings such as the Lemon Test and separation of church and state will impact decisions that can potentially result in litigation and court rulings dictating educational decisions. In his work

Many education writers have much to say about the education-taking place in our public schools, as well as Kozol. For Instance Diane Ravitch a research professor of education at New York University spoke about an interesting truth, saying, “The achievement gaps are rooted in social, political, and economic structures. If we are unwilling to change the root cause, we are unlikely ever to close the gaps.” The success of our children’s education is mainly caused by economic, social and political statue. If one does not end the cycle the gap will most likely never close. This may tie in with when Kozol cites Marina Warner, an essayist and novelist, saying, “There are expensive children and there

The term sociological imagination was developed by American sociologist C. Wright Mills to explain the relevance of everyday issues on a social level. He examines “personal troubles and how they can be understood in terms of large-scale patterns that extend beyond individual experience that are part of society and history” (The Promise of Sociology, 5). In the reading, Mills went on to express how personal trouble is a public issue and that one must understand his or her own history before they can go on and understand how they themselves fit into society. A social issue, also known as a social problem, is an undesirable condition that influences many people in society to think it can be fixed. An issue evident in society that many people

In the mid 1800s, the question of whether slavery was ethical or not was a particularly contentious matter. Slaves struggled to withstand the harsh treatments from their master’s, along with getting an education, until 1865 when the Thirteenth Amendment formally abolished slavery. Although slavery was no longer tolerated, the racial bigotry did not end. Fast forward to the 1950s, and racial inequality is still prevalent in society. Segregation existed in almost every aspect of life ranging from miniscule topics such as where one can sit on the bus, to more serious topics such as quality of education one child receives. This discrimination was fought through protests in the civil rights movement throughout the 1950s and 1960s. As an American high school student in a country still plagued with racial discrimination today, it is imperative to remember the true value of a quality education. While James Baldwin’s “A Talk to Teachers” and Frederick Douglass’s “Learning to Read and Write” both emphasize the need for racial equality in education, Baldwin’s forceful and angry tone ultimately make his speech the more rhetorically effective of the two.

According to C. Wright Mills (1959), sociological imagination is the ability to appreciate a different (wider) perspective of the self in relation to others and to society than the narrow perspective of the self that comes most naturally to the individual. Today, sociological imagination is a concept that is considered central to the study of sociology and other disciplines such as social psychology because the ability to shift from a personal perspective to a more objective perspective is crucial to understanding other people and to understanding the norms, values, and expectations of other societies that may differ substantially from the society of the researcher or student.

Firstly, C. Wright Mills’ concept of sociological imagination is “stimulated by a willingness to view the social worlds from the perspective of others”

For generations African Americans have been disadvantaged in America and effects of these injustices have made a lasting impression. Education is one of the leading problems in the black community. Though there have many reforms in education over the years, racial injustices still exist because no attention in placed on how legislature affects people of color. I was raised in a middle-class family of educators. My entire life I’ve been told to “stay in school, get an education, and work hard so that you can beat the system.” Recognizing the structural forces in my life has helped me understand my place in society. Being able to “understand everyday life, not through personal circumstances but through the broader historical forces that

Foremost, it is important to understand the term ‘sociological imagination’. The sociological imagination was a term first introduced by sociologist C.Wright Mills in his 1959 book; “The sociological imagination”. Mills introduces the sociological imagination by initially drawing a distinction between ‘Milieu’ and structure. Mills illustrates milieu as the visible, accessible and ‘emotionally coloured’ world an individual resides within, they are habitants of this ‘world’ only as their vision of the world is limited via the personal immediacy of the community they participate in. He defined this imagination as “…the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society” (Mills, 1959).

In 1960 Ella Baker delivered a speech entitled “Bigger than a Hamburger” to what would come to be the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In this speech she argued to students who had been involved in the sit-ins that what they were fighting for was bigger than a hamburger and desegregating a lunch counter, but struggling for equality in all its forms. In a similar way, so too has the fight for quality education been bigger than a classroom. Ella Baker also argued that, “through the process of education, black people would be accepted in the American culture and they would be accorded their rights in proportion to the degree to which they qualified as being persons of learning and culture.” This is a testament to the over 200 year tradition within the black community of viewing education as inseparable with the concepts of freedom and citizenship. During slavery anyone found to be assembling in an effort to teach slaves to read and write received corporal punishment. Consequently, throughout Reconstruction education was pursued with a vengeance. Freedmen’s Bureau agents reported, “Colored men have paid their own money to prepare and furnish a room for a school.” The Rosenwald Fund, a charity organization headed by the president of the Sears Roebuck Company, donated funds to build black schools, but the funds had to be matched by those from the local school system. So black residents’ double taxed themselves in order to pay for these schools. Nearly every

According to C. Wright Mills, the sociological imagination is when an individual views his society as the potential cause for his daily successes and failures. Individuals often tend to view their personal issues as social problems and try to connect their individual experiences with the workings of society. Mills believes that this is the way for individuals to gain an understanding of their personal dilemmas. The sociological imagination helps people connect their own problems with public problems and their history. In order for an individual to figure out the causes of their problems, they first have to be able to understand the causes of the problems in the society in which they are living in. The sociological imagination tries to

As Horace Mann worked in Massachusetts State Board Education, he thought if poor people receive the education as same as rich people, the society will be “balance”, which is the “revenge of poverty against the rich.”(110) His idea was just a hypothesis at that time because he actually didn’t know how the society would change in next 200 years. For example, nowadays, top 1% of US population control 35% of US wealth, and the 10% controls 73.2%, which means another 90% of US citizens only make 26.8%. Even though in America, all children are able to go to school because of program “No child left behind” in 2001, the wealth of the top 1% hasn’t dropped down for 13 years. Education gives people knowledge, but it doesn’t help them get richer, so education can’t “balance the society”. Students from different classes will go to different schools and receive different education, so how the society can be equalized if the education is not “balance”. According to the book Public School Administration by Ellwood Cubberley, dean of Stanford University, “Our schools are… factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped and fashioned… And it is the business of the school to build its pupils according to the specification laid down,” (148) which mean education is turning children into the “pupils,” so the society is able to

The sociological imagination is an idea or a way of thinking that interlocks an individual in a society with the society as a whole. Most people refer to sociology as the study of how people or individuals interact with each other. In order to fully understand sociology and the concept of the sociological imagination as proposed by C. Wright Mills, one has to be able to envision the individual and the society working together to better understand the role each plays in the social order. C. Wright Mills states that "Sociology must make a connection between the individual and the social. It must allow the individual to see the larger context in which his or her life is lived, and in

In the article, The Promise, written by C.Wright Mills, he explains the concept of sociological imagination and the ways we use it in our lives. Sociological imagination is a way of focused thinking, by being able to analyze social contexts and social locators. Social locators are categories that we belong to that we cannot control. Such as our socioeconomic class, gender and race. C. Wright Mills continues to explain how we should evaluate the role of these social forces and understand that we should determine our fate through these social locators. But at the same time that hard work and motivation can also control a mans fate as well. That even though society shapes a man, a man can always shape society. Social locators can determine a lot

Charles Wright Mills was a writer, a researcher, a teacher, a scholar and a well known sociologist. He was the author of the 1959 book, The Sociological Imagination. This book was poorly received by the sociological community at first, but it is one of the most widely read sociological texts today. The Sociological Imagination and Mills’ other works have had an immense impact on sociology, as he influenced many other scholars and the “New Left” movement of the 1960s. Overall, it is clear that The Sociological Imagination has great academic significance.

From The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills addresses a distinction between personal troubles and public issues. Mills uses specific examples like unemployment and societal development. Mills explains the ability to connect the individual problems with societal problems. Throughout the text, we can see how Mills uses the perspective of an individual to explain the perspective of society and vice versa. Using sociological imagination, I will explain how education is influenced by society and history, and how there is positive and negative lessons to be taken out of The Sociological Imagination.