Sociological Imagination Paper

Sociological Imagination is the use of imaginative thoughts to understand the connections between the forces of society and the personal lives of the individuals. Sociological Imagination is made up of 3 major theories which are the Functionalist Perspective, Conflict Perspective, and the Symbolic Interactionist Perspective. The Functionalist Perspective is a society or group that is relatively stable, which causes people to work together, and all parts of society contribute and has effects on the entire society. Another theory is the Conflict Perspective which is where Conflict theorists assume that the social structure affects human behavior. However, the Conflict Perspective focuses on the conflict, power differences and social change in society.

Sociological imagination determines how individuals in society differ from one another based on their historical or social circumstances. This essay will define sociological imagination, and how race, religion, and gender plays a significant role in my life to affect how I am as an individual today. Sociological imagination is an

The sociological imagination allows a person to tell apart their personal problems from problems that affect society as a whole, however they can see how the two are connected. In doing this a person can discover that the current social structure and culture that surrounds them can be the root cause of their personal problems. One example is that an individual can see their personal problem of being poor as also the outcome of lack of resources in their community for obtaining higher education. Rather than seeing their problem as only something that affects him, he can see that various elements of his culture and the social structure surrounding him play into his

To me, sociological imagination is being able to set aside your beliefs to evaluate social issues going on in the world with a clear mind. Willingness, detachment and shifting are three characteristics of a sociological imagination. Willingness is a big part of having a sociological imagination because someone who isn’t willing to do this, isn’t going to successfully achieve it. Detachment is being able to detach yourself from your values and look at issues in another light. Shifting is being able to easily see one perspective and then see another perspective that is a bigger picture.

The sociological imagination challenges some one to see how an individual 's biography is shaped by the larger social contexts of the moment in history. C. Wright Mills defined sociological imagination as "the vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society". (Sociological Imagination) This paper will discuss how my life experience has been shaped by the broader society that I lived in, and by my social position in society. An example of an analysis is represented in Honky, in which sociologist Dalton Conley contextualizes his own life experiences that focused on race and class as his powerful forces that shaped his childhood and educational attainment in comparison to his society.

C. Wright Mills wanted to understand how transformations in our society or around the world could affect our everyday lives. This curiosity led to Mills doing research, asking questions, and eventually coining the term “sociological imagination”, which he describes as a way to help emphasize the value of adopting a sociological perspective for understanding the world around us. He believed one of the key ways people could understand society and social change was to apply this social imagination. We as people normally think of our own problems as being a private matter of character, chance, or circumstance, and we overlook the fact that these may be caused in part by, or are at least occurring within, a specific cultural and historical context.

Introduction The Sociological Imagination Defined The sociological Imagination is a form of analytic thinking, a concept that enables one to take into context the set societal patterns that affect and impact both an individual and the wider society. These patterns are characterised as personal troubles and/or societal issues. Sociologist C. Wright Mills was one of the initial social scientists to have written on this concept, in one of his books titled The Sociological Imagination (1959). According to Mills (1959), the task of sociology was to understand the relationship between individuals and the society in which they lived.

In Mills’ publication, he describes the sociological imagination as “a quality of mind that will help them [humans] 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, 2000, p. 5). Giddens, in his publication ‘Sociology: A brief but critical introduction’, concurs with Mills’ definition of the sociological imagination, and further states that three particular views are essential to understanding the social world: “an historical, an anthropological, and a critical sensitivity.” (Giddens, 1986, p. 13). Mills believes that the sociological imagination deals largely with two main components: the individual, and society.

Sociology is considered to be ‘the systematic study of ways in which people are affected by, and affect, the social structures and social processes that are associated with the groups, organisations, cultures, societies, and world in which they exist’ (Ritzer, 2012, p. 6) Sociology is the science of society, it aims for one to look on society with a broader view in order to understand human reactions to life. The sociological approach to understanding media as a whole differs from any other method due to the fact that sociology refers to studying the development, structure and functioning aspect of the media. Sociology looks at the place of the individual and that individuals place within society. When studying the sociological approach to

2.3 Sociological perspective: Macionis (), analyzed that sociology is efficient study of human society. Society refers to public who live in a defined region and share a way of existence. Sociology’s analysis of society is a special point of view called a sociological perspective. To define the sociological perspective there is an additional way to define that is considering the general in the particular. It tells that that sociologist look for common pattern in particular human’s behavior.

Hodges, plays a role in producing social change, I would first recommend the sociologist to define social change. Defining social change can be hard, as the definition varies depending on the way an individual chooses to look at it. As mentioned in “Law as an Instrument of Social Change,” “ ...social change is simi-larly tricky to define… there is no consensus about what constitutes social change. Social change resulting from law can include redistributing resources among social groups, reconfiguring social practices and interaction, or reconstituting social meanings ” (Albiston, 143).

In our books, we see that sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within a society. In other words, sociological imagination is a technique to look at life in another perspective. Sociological imagination is also an awareness of the relationship between an individual and wider society; a key element in this is the ability to view one 's society as an outsider would. As humans, we can 't let our social location determine our abilities. We must explore beyond what we are given and what we are told is right.

1. Do children/juvenile have the capacity to understand the consequences of their crimes? Are the children/ juveniles able to be rehabilitated? Answer: Juveniles are between the ages of fifteen years and seventeen years of age. So, no they should not be tried as an adult because they are not eighteen years of age.

Throughout the field of Sociology, Sociological imagination is a very important tool, not only for the sociologists, but also for individuals. It provides a deep understanding of the relationship an individual has with the rest of the society. It links people in different social statuses to fully comprehend the circumstances surrounding their everyday conflicts, personal or otherwise. In the Martian, a novel written by Andrew Weir, it portrays an astronaut left behind by his teammates in Mars, another planet far from earth. Surprisingly, Mark, the protagonist, did not panic, wallow, or curse his teammates for leaving him behind.

Macrosociological theories are the study of an individual that provides an insight of their daily life. A sociologist can use this macro sociological to get a clear understanding people culture and societies in which their decision and lifestyle is affected. Emile Durkheim a French sociologist suggests that a person society is not the reflection of his characteristics. Durkheim stated that social law and institution will cause people to submit to the social fact because of the limit choose that is available them. However, an individual can find their direction of the social law, in which they can adapt to with less pain(Bohm & Vogel, 2011).