The Sociological Imagination

"Consider marriage. Inside marriage, a man and woman may experience personal troubles.. ..but when the divorce rate during the first four years of marriage is 250 out of every 1000 attempts, this is an indication of a structural issue having to do with the institutions of marriage and the family and the other institutions that bear on them." C. Wright Mills, The Sociological Imagination published 1959, page 9.

From this Mills wanted people to understand that if you want to be an effective sociologist then you must imagine the world the way others do and see from a sociological perspective what is going on in the world. Mills understood that an individual's problems are often due to public issues that haven't been addressed by society

Where as, Action theories believe that life can be measured through observation and sociology should be used to create a change in society with no judgment or values. Action theories look at how people interact with each other rather than how people react with society, they believe that in order to understand something you have to understand the objective meaning that an individual has put on things and that it's not what we say or do that is important but rather what we mean and what people's interpretations of it are, this is also known as symbolic interactionism. According to action theories there are two of every individual, the way the individual views themselves and the way society views them meaning that everything someone says or does helps change society and that society has no objective meaning out with experience of

The main agents of socialisation are education, peer groups, mass media, work and religion. Education involves teachers having a positive influence on an individuals life by teaching both informal and formal rules, knowledge of subjects and rules and standards of wider society. Peer groups consist of friendship, work and individuals who are the same class and age. Peer groups as a child and an adult have a massive influence on the way individuals can behave, for example, the way the individual dresses or the informal codes used in order to be accepted. Mass media, which involves internet, television, books, films etc, has been seen as a way to communicate ideas and cause change by introducing new or different ideas and for this it has been criticized for being the cause of violence and creating issues of stigma. Work is where individuals learn more rules and social norms which teaches them the proper way to act within the workplace which can change our behavior. Religion teaches the individual the proper way to act within society according to the churches values and if followed individuals may be taught about rewards. However, if an individual acts out with these values they are bombarded with thoughts or damnation. Social order which is, in other words, conforming to the norm in order to