Sociology 101 Reflection

Henslin, J. (2011). Essentials of Sociology: A Down To Earth Approach. Boston, MA: Allyn &

Sociological imagination is the way in which individuals realize the connection between their own experience of reality and the experiences of society as a whole. This realization allows people to make sense of the world around them. When one applies sociological imagination, they are stripping their own personal experiences from their thoughts to analyze the social world around them. It allows one to understand different perspectives of the world without the narrow lens of personal experience and bias. This is extremely important in modern society. For instance, in politics, it is very important to hold back personal beliefs when it comes to law-making. A politician who refrains from applying her own moral beliefs to her political agenda in attempt to create a better society is practicing the use of sociological imagination. She removes her own personal views of the world in order to see society’s views as a whole, and acts accordingly. In other words, sociological imagination is “taking the role of the other” to gain a wider understanding of a perspective other than one’s own.

Chapter six brings a different approach at introducing the importance of sociology. This chapter, focuses upon the historical significance of American sociology as society knows of it today. It discusses many different aspects of sociology, but it intentionally focuses on these important aspects that include: “The Chicago school”, sociologists whom attributed to American sociology, and the rise of female sociologists. These three fundamentals establish the overall history of American sociology.

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.

After a careful study and a deeper research on an introduction to sociology, I have come to understand that no problem can be solved well enough if one does not have the sociological perspective which is defined as a way of looking at the world through a sociological lens. In fact, there is the need of the lens that will help one to view situations and have the eye to emerge through different views to solve that problem. This mirror has become a doorway that will help one to have a beginner’s mind to approach problems.

Throughout this essay, I will explain the distinction between sociological and common sense understanding, highlight the differences between sociology and other social sciences, and evaluate two sociological perspectives – Marxism and feminism.

M2 - Use different sociological perspectives to discuss patterns and trends of health and illness in two different social groups

If Sociology is the systematic study of human society, then sociological imagination is what we perceive or think about how people work and or think in a more personal and bias matter. C.W. Mills believes that merging two different theories of social reality of the “individual” and “society”. Mills challenges readers and learners by arguing many basic terms and definitions from what “we” believe are right. Chapters one and two talks about how society portrays what we know rather then the facts. Our bias opinions and beliefs often go against what science has proven.

Henslin, J.M. (2010). Sociology: A down-to-earth approach (4th ed.). . Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

Over the last semester. I 've learned a lot about sociology and how it affects me. Here are 10 concept that have impacted in my life.

Within the following essay I will illustrate how my sociological imagination has developed over the course of the academic year, drawing upon a number of pieces of work to demonstrate this. I will use these pieces of work to demonstrate how the sociological imagination has played a role in understanding the pieces of work themselves and finally, I will bring each piece of work together in order to substantiate the development of my sociological imagination.

After taking a Sociology class this semester, I learned a lot of about the different topics and concepts in this course and how they are related to our society, which has changed my perspective as well as how I view and see the meaning of my surroundings. I would also think about what would be going on inside a specific person's mind and how he or she was feeling. After learning about different concepts in Sociology and watching the videos presented in class, it became easier to just stop and think about a person, wonder who that person was, and be curious about that person's life story. We pass by people all the time every day, but we never really know what is going on with them and don't really think about it or care since it is so

* Refer to at least six sociological concepts covered in the lectures or textbook reading. Highlight these concepts in boldface.

The sociological imagination, as coined by C. Wright Mills, is defined by the Introduction to Sociology as “the application of imaginative thought to the asking and answering of sociological questions.” In simple terms, it can be described as the ability to grasp the relationship between our lives as individuals and larger social forces that help to shape us. An example of this is the difference between personal troubles and public issues. Imagine the issue of unemployment in a small town; personal troubles means that five out of the population of 10,000 people of this town are unemployed. This is a personal trouble because in this situation, only 0.05% of the population are unemployed. Unemployment in this town would be a public issue if ten

Throughout the course, I have acquired a number of different ideas that will contribute to my knowledge and understanding of sociology. First, I was able to learn about what a social problem was in general. What defines a social problem, how they are constructed, and the four stages of a social problem. It may be obvious to many, but an important note about social problems is that they are socially constructed. This means that people decide if societal condition is a social problem. Natural things like earthquakes and hurricanes are not social problems. I was also able to learn about the three sociological perspectives theories: Functionalism, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionism. These three theories make up a large part of how these social problems are viewed and why they occur. Functionalist compare society to a self-adjusting machine and each part of the machine has a function. When parts of the machine are working accordingly, it contributes to the well-being of the society. The conflict theory states that everyone is competing with one another for a limited amount of resources. There are only so many resources to go around, and the competition for them is so severe that conflict is barley kept in check. Symbolic interactionism is the theory that focuses on how we make sense out of life. It states that we see the world through symbols that we attach meaning to and that we use to communicate with one another. With this better understanding of what a social