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The Sociological Reflection

Decent Essays

Growing up in Vancouver, to a middle-class Caucasian family there are many factors that caused me to be the way that I am, and to have lived the life that I have. Externally, society has influenced the directions that my life could follow. Internally, I chose to cross whichever path society threw at me. The only way to see how I made the choices I made, and crossed the paths I crossed is by looking through the lens of the sociological imagination. The concept of the sociological imagination was introduced by C. Wright Mills [1916-1962] in 1959 in his paper titled: The Sociological Imagination. Mills defined it as “the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society” (1959). The sociological imagination is the ability to construct one’s personal experiences with society at a large scale. It is the capacity to see how these interactions and situations affect and influence different individuals from an alternate angle. The sociological imagination is of the essence of sociology. One pathological dynamic that I believe has greatly impacted my life is ADHD. It’s hard to explain the full, true-effect that ADHD has had on my life experiences, but I think by looking through the sociological imagination, I will be able to explain growing up with ADHD, and compare it with the many other social factors that affect me. Being from the middle-class meant that I had to work my ass off to get to where I am today, playing varsity baseball for the University of

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