Theories Of Sociological Imagination

Sociology is the study of the society and human behavior whereas, the word perspective can be defines as a view of things in their true connection or importance. Hence, the social perspectives provide standpoints used to look at human behavior and interaction as they relate to individuals and groups within society. The social perspective emphasizes that to understand humans for not what is inside of them, but what’s influencing them that should be observed. There are four theoretical perspectives used to understand society and human behavior. The four discussed here are structure functional, consensus and conflict, the gender problem and symbolic interaction.

They are all comparable as they all involve groups, individuals, and expectations of society 9Schmalleger, 2012). The theories are all as to the way the groups or individuals relate to what is acceptable to society. Social disorganization theory views criminal behavior because of changes in society on differing levels and because of an environment that is conducive to criminal behavior (Schmalleger, 2012). Strain theory is similar because the environment plays a role however, it is the measure of success by society and lack of individuals that promote criminal behavior. Social disorganization and strain theory are comparable because of the environment factor, the culture conflict theory is different because it does not look at an environmental factor but rather the idea of mainstream society.

C.Wright Mills (1916-1962) used the theory of social imagination to describe how people decide what affects them in their daily lives and to link the individual with society. The social imagination links the two poles of personal troubles and social issues together (ed. Stewart & Zaaiman 2014:xvi). Social Factors refers to elements within society which we experience collectively. Such as corruption, fraud, human trafficking, xenophobia, gender inequality, poverty and many more (ed.

INTRODUCTION Society is a collection of people that influences individual’s life and behavior. It is generally the groups of people that are complying with the same rules and laws that allows them to live altogether. All over the world, talks about society and its issues that are prominent and inevitable. This paper intends to presents different points about social issues. Through sociological perspective, we can view the society by the way it was set up and how it affects us.

Society is a very intricate system that is governed by many factors that shape and develop the individuals within it. C.W theory the sociological imagination is carefully looked at and what it consists of is in this essay. The issues individual’s deal with such as personal problems and how they affect the wider society are discussed. The sociological imagination will be discussed its usefulness in concluding this essay. 2.

Looking at society as a whole with individual units that work together to make society function efficiently is the structural functionalism concept. Each unit has a part and is describe as institutions such as family, religion, education, politics, economy and inequality. Because structural functionalism looks at social structure and patterns of behavior it is able to create values for society. As well as, distinguish between visible and suppressed problems within the social structures that may need to be addressed. For instance, homelessness is indication of dysfunction in structural functionalism system.

The Sociological Imagination thrives from the ability of an individual to be able to see the relationship one has between their own personal experience and troubles and how these experiences and situations interconnect with society. In other words, “the Sociological Imagination is simply a "quality of mind" that allows one to grasp "history and biography and the relations between the two within society” (Elwell, 1). Another way of thinking about ones history and biography being connected is by thinking of history as “public issues” and thinking of biography as “private troubles” that a person may have. This connection between individuals to society can either be visible or invisible. Meaning, one person may be going through one thing and find

Sociological imagination gives you the ability to understand the different factors that go into a situation. It helps us identify if the problem can be solved by a change in the person or if there needs to be a change in society. Sociological imagination gives us the understanding of why some things happen and that we do not always have all sides of the story. Without sociological imagination, the world would be a harsher

Theoretically, functional analysis and the conflict theory share similarities because they both comprehend society's at a larger viewpoint and both group individuals together by class or either symbols. Rather than this functionalist approach beginning with the individual, the functionalist analysis of deviance begins with society as a whole. The functionalist perspective believes deviance serves two primary roles in creating social stability for a society. The first primary goal is systems of recognizing and punishing deviance create norms and tell members of a given society how to properly behave by laying out the guidelines of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Mainly, everyone must be aware of what behaviors are considered deviant in order to avoid an unsettling society.

There are three main sociological theories these are functualist theory, conflict theory and symbolic interactionalist theory, Sociological theories help by explaining and predicting the social world that we live in. (laulima.hawaii.) There are also two main perspectives in sociology these are micro-sociological perspectives and macro-sociological perspectives. Each perspective offers a variety of explanations about the social world and human behaviour. Functionalism is when society works together to help promote stability and solidarity, society is like a human body that must work together to function smoothly.