Social Imagination And Sociological Imagination

The foundational concepts of sociological imagination, social construction of reality and socialization help us learn more about ourselves and the world.

According to Ballentine in “Our Social World” the sociological imagination can be best understood as “[understanding] our personal experiences and problems by examining their broader social context – by looking at the big picture” (Ballentine, pg. 8). This term was coined by sociologist C. Wright Mills in his book published in 1959. Mills believed that problems in our personal lives were usually caused by discrepancies or issues with our society or world as a whole. One example of this type of problem deals with the wage gap between males and females in the United States.

Think about a problem or challenge you are facing or have faced. Using the sociological imagination, describe that problem or challenge: (1) as if it were a trouble and (2) as if it were an issue. How might globalization impact this issue?

This week as class begun I wasn’t quite sure what sociology entailed. I learned today that sociology is the study of social factor that shape our lived and our future. For example is C Wright Mills essay he states that certain social consequences for example unemployment could lead to various results such as an increase in crime rate and increase in domestic violence. Sociology expands on the ways that social class, ethnicity, gender rules, and historical/biological forces create various societal norms. Biological and historical forces also tend to create societal arrangement which tend to constraint mankind’s idea of how they use their freedom of choice. In our first reading and lecture I learned a lot, for example how sociological imagination

In using the concept, The Sociological Imagination, by C. Wright Mills, we should think about issues from a completely new perspective. With all of the recent terror attacks, cops killing civilians, civilians killing cops, perhaps we should examine our world and the effects of global warming. A comprehensive new study warned that acts of violence, including war will become more common in future as the effects of global warming cause tempers to blow up. The studies data covered all major regions of the world as well as different time spans. The data, found similar patterns of human aggression was fueled by climate factors. (Than) Therefore, when it comes to gun violence and stricter gun control it may be realistic to think that things will

Sociological imagination is all about putting ourselves in an outside world that we live in, and put ourselves in someone else's shoes while trying to understand why some people do what they do. This includes that we step out of our comfort zone and try the things that goes around around the world and experience new things as we see some people struggle with, this way we may be able to understand the reasoning behind why people do what they do. This also includes the bad habits that some of us may have that we struggle with or trying to change ourselves but it is not easy to do but just only because we do not really feel what some individuals are going through it is easy for us to judge them before knowing the real reason behind anything. As

We can apply sociologoical imagination to a person living in poverty by linking their personal lives to the world around them. The person who is living in poverty is probably not educated enough to go out and get a decent job or doesn't have the right attire to even attend an interview. We need to have sociologoical imagaination to think outside of the box and to look at issues with a different perspective. We can easily say, that a person who is living in poverty can go to a shelter home instead of sleeping on the streets but we need to ask questions that make us think why that person is not in a shelter home. We need to think of the root promblem in the society and how soical infulence can affect a person.

The concept of the sociological imagination means that there are bigger factors that go into things that happen to you. Those factors can include be just one large event that has happened in society, or many events having an effect together. The events may not even be happening in the same time in history; they may be a month or multiple months apart, but can still influence you. The sociological imagination is very different from how people usually think about things because it is easier to just think that they personally did something to allow for something to happen to them, whether it be for good or for bad.

The field of sociology is an old but ever changing study that originated around the time of the Industrial Revolution (Furze et al. 2015, p. 2); this revolution created a mass of new and serious social problems that attracted the attention of social thinkers. Such social thinkers included the American sociologist C. Wright Mills. In his famous work, The Sociological Imagination, Mills (1978) discusses the relationship between ‘private troubles’ and ‘public issues’ by highlighting the connection between the two aspects of private troubles and social structures. From the works of sociologists such as Mills; sociology was shaped into the diverse field as we presently identify it. Essentially in descriptive terms, sociology is the “systematic study of human behaviour in social context where sociological research is motivated by the aspiration to improve the social world we live in” (Furze et al. 2015, p. 3). Therefore, it can be stated that sociology is not purely academic but instead a process of creating an enhanced life path for the whole of society (Furze et al. 2015, p. 3). This of which is highlighted through Mills text, The Sociological Imagination.

The notion of Sociological Imagination was created by C. Wright Mills and he wrote that the task of sociology was to recognize the relationship between individuals and the society in which they live in. Sociological Imagination can explain why a lifetime is lived through your own decisions, accomplishments and failures. It is a way for a person to look at their life as an outcome with their contact with the world. The textbook clarifies that,” The Sociological Imagination is defined as the ability to see the societal patterns that influence the individual as well as groups of individuals. (Andersen, Howard, & Logio, 2015)Society has two major problems. The first are personal problems which is experienced by a huge population of people in

Sociological imagination basically opens your eyes to see the bigger picture towards different issues in our society. Rather than make accusation or “excuses” for why someone has lost their job you realize that it was not something personal. We allow ourselves to see how everyone in our community is affected with the same issue and not just single out someone. Allowing yourself to take a step back and really looks at the situation as a whole, gives you a chance to see all of the different issues and how to better solve them.

looking deeper, it is the study of humans in groups and how they interact with

When a person annoys us, saddens us, or makes us happy we usually directly think about that person and their actions. We, as humans, do not think about where the person is coming from, the historical situation the person is a part of, how the person was raised, etc when they cause us to feel a certain way. There are some people who think this way--sociologists. A sociologist by the name C. Wright Mills came up with a term for this way of evaluating situations and thinking about social groups in the world and why they act the way they do. It’s called sociological imagination. Mills defines sociological imagination as “...a quality of mind that will help them [sociologists/people] to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves” (Mills, 3). Using a sociological imagination “enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals” (Mills, 3). Basically what Mills is trying to say is that the sociological imagination allows for us to understand the relationship between history, biography, and how they interact within society. Grace Palladino wrote a historical analysis of the social group we now know as teenagers. In her analysis, Teenagers: An American History, Palladino discusses the formation of teenagers as a social group in modern society and what implications that

As humans, we are curious to know everything that happens around us, why it happens, the factors that contribute to a major event, why society structured like this, etc. So asking these type of questions already puts on our thinking caps of a sociologist. A sociologist mainly studies how a society works or functions. These include institution, culture, and interaction. Institutions are found all over the world, that is the establishment of an order comprising rule-bound and standards that a large group is guided by rules and norms. Inside institution, cultures come into play, is the human creation and use of symbols and artifacts. Basically, the way people talk, act, express themselves. Deep inside a culture, interactions come about, of how people relate to each other. All three of these affect how a society is built and founded upon. Yet, as humans, we question each other why we do the things we do in life. We can give answers to all these questions, but it might become opinion based. However, looking it from a Perspective of a sociologist, the approach of answering these questions will be using a technique called, “Sociological imaginations,” which then the evidence gathered becomes known as sociological analysis and trying not to mix the meaning of sociological imagination with common sense.

The Sociological Imagination by C. Wright Mills taught me that the society in which we live is constructed by many categories and sub categories such as gender, education, social class, race and ethnicity all that when combined determine an individual’s rank in a societies hierarchy. This essay will hopefully show how first off to live in a country such as Canada is a major accomplishment and something to be grateful for. I will also discuss a combination of categories such as race, family, gender and families social class and how they have allowed for me to live a life of great privilege. For this essay, my thesis is that “In society our lives are pre-destined based on an individual’s gender, race, social class and education”.