Free Essay

Sociological Essay

In:

Submitted By strugglestudent
Words 495
Pages 2
This sociological essay is a summary and analysis of ‘The Sociological Imagination’ written by C. Wright Mills. The Sociological Imagination is recognised as the concept of allowing individuals to understand their relationship with oneself and the larger processes in their lives such as economic, political and social changes. C. Wright Mills wrote, “The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals.” (Mills 1959: 3). The author puts forward his argument of the sociological imagination as looking outwardly rather than inside as individuals have both personal troubles and public issues. We often only take focus of the inner factors (personal troubles) and forget to take a sociological outlook on other factors, as to why it may occur (public issues).

Fundamental to the concept of sociological imagination is the idea of ‘the personal trouble of milieu’ and ‘the public issues of social structure’. Personal troubles are the troubles and complications faced by an individual. It is the theory of social imagination that allows the individual to recongise that these troubles are caused by the structure and/or failure of society. Without this, an individual is unable to overcome their troubles. In accordance, Yaniv Belhassen states; “…understanding that personal troubles cannot be resolved simply on the individual level; they must also be connected with public issues and vice versa.” (Belhassen 2007: 1081)

Public issues are problems within society that affect individual people. Moreover, the recognition of public issues is viewed as a method of resolving the personal troubles of an individual. This alludes to the fact that sociological imagination allows the individual to recongise that the cause of their troubles is the result of a broken society and there are other individuals within society that share the same problems. In addition, the individual is able to eliminate and structure their problems by reshaping the issues of society. An individual’s involvement in the resolution of the public issues of their society develops their knowledge of society, whilst increasing their involvement in it.

J.D. Brewer wrote; “...to make public issues out of them determining the sociological agenda so that these issues can be better understood, if not solved.” (Brewer 2004: 324). Through Brewer’s statement, it is easily recognisable that the theory of sociological imagination strengthens an individual’s relationship with society as the public issues of social structure allows individuals to understand and/or resolve their private troubles. Therefore Social Imagination can increase the individual’s understanding on modern society.

In conclusion, the concept of the sociological imagination is therefore the ability of an individual creating a connection between personal troubles and public issues. In other words, linking individual problems and the public face of the issue that troubles many individuals in society. The theory of sociological imagination argues for more involvement in society by individuals, whereby problems can be overcome and individuals can enter a much larger world.

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Sociological Response Essay

...Social interactions bring a sense of belonging and meaning to the lives of newly-arrived migrants and refugees and increases the social capital and richness to regional communities. Research into the regional settlement of humanitarian entrants indicates that social ties, such as involvement with family and friends, along with a welcoming and accepting community, are key factors for migrants remaining in a regional location. As evidenced in the Limestone Coast study, the lack of these social factors can also contribute to the outmigration of a regional area. It is therefore essential that the social dimension is factored into the settlement process, particularly in regional areas as the effects are felt more acutely in smaller communities. Research has found that community attitudes in regional areas towards migrants and refugees are often less favourable than in metropolitan areas. An important foundation of the settlement process is for the host community to be respectful of diversity and open to cross-cultural engagement. Preparing communities for the arrival of new migrants and refugee communities increases the willingness of the community to be welcoming. This can be done by holding information sessions, consultations and awareness-raising events. Cultural activity celebrations, such as Harmony Day and other multicultural events as well as community activities including religious, cultural and sporting groups, can help to foster greater understanding and help dispel ignorance...

Words: 467 - Pages: 2

Free Essay

Soc 100 Assignment 3 Obesity in America

...social, or economic factors. Review the information on obesity on pages 383 to 385 in the textbook. You may also use the Internet or Strayer Library to research obesity and its causes. Suggested Reading: • “What Are the Health Risks of Overweight and Obesity?” located at http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/health-topics/topics/obe/risks.html Write a one to two page (1-2) page essay in which you: 1. Describe the effect that obesity (childhood and / or adult) has had on you personally or your community. 2. Select one (1) contributing factor to childhood or adult obesity. Recommend two (2) preventative measures related to the selected factor that people can take in order to reduce their chance of becoming obese. 3. Discuss one (1) sociological theory that relates to the selected contributing factor to obesity. Your assignment must follow these formatting requirements: • Be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides. Check with your professor for any additional instructions. • To keep this essay short and manageable, your only sources for the essay should be the article from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the sections noted in your text. For this reason, APA citations or references are not required for this assignment. • Include a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required assignment...

Words: 348 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Essay

...to write A Level Sociology Essay Assessment With reference to the present AEB syllabus, there are three main skills being assessed in your essays. 1. Knowledge and Understanding (9 marks) 2. Interpretation and Application (9 marks) 3. Evaluation (9 marks) What Does This Mean? What this means is that for writing an essay is that the content (studies, names of researcher, dates, figures, concepts, although important need to be organised coherently, applied to a variety of social situations and interpreted, and expressed in a critical fashion. You must be aware of the skills being highlighted in the question in order to use the appropriate skills in your essays. You should also practice writing essays regularly and develop a technique which addresses the skills required so that you can actually answer the question set. I hope that this handout should allow you to achieve this. Stage One Many students are too quick into diving into an answer. They have focused on certain key terms and ‘assumed’ what the essay requires from a quick look at the question. Instead, the question should be read a number of times. Task One With the title provided. Analyze the question by underlining the key features in the essay title Double underline the skills being assessed, e.g., describe and explain Identify any terms or concepts contained in the question. These terms will need to be defined, i.e. concepts such as interactionists. Essay questions will also include...

Words: 1452 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

Essay On My Sociological Worldview

...To try a have a deeper understanding sociology and how it looks at culture and society I have to start thinking sociologically. How I see my sociological place in life is influenced by how I view the world around me this is also called my worldview. A more detailed way of describing this is it how I evaluate everything around me in relation to my personal experiences during my life. And for me as a mature student my life experiences are different to those of the average student studying in third level education considering the majority of students are coming from a younger age group, normally it’s in around the 17 to 25 year old age group. I am not in that age group and because of that I have different values and experiences to younger student....

Words: 450 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Sociological Approach To Crime Essay

...Some of the causes for psychological crimes are also that of sociological crimes, so here are some causes that are mainly to sociological approaches: trying to connect issues that the criminal has with the society, family, or peers, interactions with these different groups can add to why the crimes are committed, the historical development of structured cultures and contradictions, the change that these groups are currently going through, and how crimes are viewed by the social construction of criminality, along with it’s social causes. It is thought that sociological crimes arise from an individual feeling like they have a lack of social norms, and aren’t that connected to society. Another theory is that how one is involved in the society creates criminality. This is why some sorts of human behavior are considered harmful, and the society judges them as such altogether. A way to control sociological crimes would be to advance goods and wealth in places that do not receive much, and to have more social programs that are aimed at young children, in order to teach them in an earlier stage of...

Words: 988 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Thinking and Reflecting

...Thinking and Reflecting This essays purpose is to present the concept keys that define sociological imagination, in Mills’ vision. I will also bring to discussion personal examples that are relevant to the topic of the essay. Their role will be to explain the way in which Mills thinking is reflected in everyday life. From the beginning he portrays the way people see themselves “Nowadays men and women often feel that their private lives are a series of traps.”(Mills, 1959:1). This traps represent an obstacle that cannot be overcome, mainly because their sources are the same decisions taken to improve the lifestyle. As they become more conscious of their surroundings , the more trapped they feel. The only solution is to find different ways to see the world, to understand how the changes that are happening in history and society, are affecting them. Only when people will be capable to make these connections, they will be able to free themselves. In Mills vision this is called sociological imagination and it “enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society.” (Mills, 1959:3). Sociological imagination is what “enables its possessor to understand the large historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals” (Mills, 1959:2) To be able reach it, people should find not only their place in history but also of those that have been in the same situation as them. They have to be able...

Words: 627 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Visual Guide to Essay Writing

...A VISUAL GUIDE TO ESSAY WRITING Dr Valli Rao, Associate Professor Kate Chanock, and Dr Lakshmi Krishnan use a visual approach to walk students through the most important processes in essay writing for university: formulating, refining, and expressing academic argument. ‘MetamorTHESIS‘ Your main argument or thesis is your position in answer to the essay question. It changes and develops as you undertake your reading and research towards the essay. how to develop & communicate academic argument “I love the way the authors explain what an argument is. I also love the way they justify holding opinions in an academic context … A Visual Guide to Essay Writing shows you excellently how to communicate with your marker by employing your ‘authorial voice’.” - Dr Alastair Greig Head, School of Social Sciences The Australian National University Valli Rao Kate Chanock Lakshmi Krishnan “This is a great book ... clear, useful, beautifully conceived and produced ... an intriguing approach, one that will make sense to students and really assist their essay writing skills.” - Brigid Ballard & John Clanchy authors of the international best-seller Essay writing for students: a practical guide How effective structure supports reasoned argument in essays1 Discipline/field Topic Underlying question Introduce discipline/field/context and topic Roughly, 10–15% of essay length Why is this topic interesting from the perspective of the discipline/field...

Words: 20948 - Pages: 84

Premium Essay

Plagiarism

...enrolled in an Introduction to Sociology class were used whom all were taught by the same instructor. The students were provided university handbook which describes the student’s honor pledge for the university and the honor pledge was also highlighted in the course syllabus. The researches obtained permission to use three semesters of archived data to examine the student’s papers to identify and analyze potential plagiarism. Three weekly assignments from the same week were randomly chosen from each semester in this study. The students were instructed to submit three weekly assignments to fulfill requirements for a hybrid Sociology class which consisted of the students writing a one page essay. The first essay assigned was the students were to write in their opinion in relation to the sociological concepts presented in their textbooks, the second assignment was randomized questions within the assignment that were randomly assigned by the computer to prevent the students from receiving the same questions, and the third assignment consisted of assignments requiring application of concepts and personal involvement with the material. The Turnitin plagiarism detection...

Words: 692 - Pages: 3

Free Essay

Management Behavior on Interclean-Envirotech Merger

...Management Behavior on InterClean-EnviroTech Merger The current essay has the intention to briefly analyze the merger situation between the two companies InterClean and EnviroTech, after the acquisition of the latter from the former organization. As a part of InterClean’s new strategy newly proposed solutions/service model, sales reps from both companies will be set into multi-functional teams taking advantage of all the expertise gathered mutually from these organizations in the Cleaning and Sanitation Industry. A merger or fusion between organizations is always a sensitive subject to deal with, since the human capital from the companies involved will experience a cultural, structural and managerial change that needs to be handled delicately during the transition, in order to impact the least on areas like employees social identity, behavior and attitudes toward organizational commitments, turnover intention of key players among the company, to name a few. Lipponen, J., Olkkonen, M., & Moilanen, M. (2004) explain the approach of social identity theories, by stating that they “share the same fundamental assumption that individuals define themselves in terms of their social group memberships and that group-defined self-perception produces distinctive effects on social behaviour and intergroup relations. This means that the more an individual conceives of him- or herself in terms of membership in a group or, in other words, identifies with the group, the more his or her attitudes...

Words: 791 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Overweight

...Photo Essay: Worth 70 points (Photo Essay 60/Presentation 10) Due April 10, 15, and 17, 2013 Students will be randomly assigned. Getting Started: The majority of your assignments have focused on your writing ability and expressing ideas linguistically. Visual imagery is also a powerful technique for thinking about and reflecting upon the social world. The purpose of this assignment is to encourage you to think about the social world in a different way, more visually than linguistically. For this project, you will select a series of photos that can be meaningfully organized around the central theme of inequality. You are to draw ideas about inequality from the chapters on social class, race/ethnicity, and gender in your text, Our Social World Condensed 2nd (Ballantine and Roberts 2012). Be creative and experimental. The only restriction is that the images must not be illegal and if you are taking the photos in private settings, you must obtain written permission from your subject(s). I have posted a Permission Form in Course Content/Photo Essay on Angel for you to use if you are using personal pictures. The photos may be obtained in various ways. You may shoot photographs specifically for this project or have a friend do so. You may obtain photos through published sources (e.g., books, magazines). You can also search websites for photos. Photos may also be obtained from a stock art archive on the internet. If you choose the latter, one of the best places to start...

Words: 1356 - Pages: 6

Premium Essay

The Dark Night Sociological Theory Essay

...Sociological theories can be applied to almost any media source. The media source that will be highlighted is The Dark Night. This movie was released in 2008 and was based off DC comic’s super hero Batman. The Dark Night puts the social framework of a fictional city to the test. The criminal in the movie named The Joker who dresses like a clown battles Batman physically and by testing the social duty of the City of Gotham. Throughout the film Joker makes pawns of mobsters, civilians, police officers and city officials and uses them to prove his ideological thinking that all people will do terrible things when they are in fear. The Joker’s motive for all he does is to show the world that everyone, in the end, is just like him. This paper...

Words: 1544 - Pages: 7

Premium Essay

Annie Proulx Essay

...Academic essay on Annie Proulx's "Job Story" Choices are something we all make. Not necessarily important choices, but there will always be a time to make them. It's not always good choices, but they have to be made. There will always be consequences, whether it's bad or good. Throughout the story, Leeland Lee has to make a lot of choices. Where to live, where to work and when to work. All the different choices he made, put him in the position he is now. Leeland Lee is an awkward-looking young boy. His face is heavily boned, which he has gotten from his mom, his neck is quite thick and he has red-gold hair. His eyes are as pouchy as a middle-aged alcoholic. His nose is broad and lays close to his face. Lori Bovee is Leeland Lee's wife. She has an undistinguished oval face, and hair of medium length. Leeland Lee is the protagonist of the story, because he is the main character. I would say Leeland is a flat and static character as he is an endless optimist. He doesn't give up when it comes to finding a new job, and despite his wife dying he still gets a job at Unique Eats. The reason he is a static character is because he doesn't change at all. After getting several different jobs he doesn't change anything, after his mom and wife dies he doesn't change one single thing except the fact he isn't listening to the radio anymore, but since that have been an important factor of the story all along, it can also show a lot about how he has changed. The story starts November...

Words: 733 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Job History

...Essay on “Job History” written by Annie Proulx In the short story “Job History” written by Annie Proulx, we follow Leeland Lee from the time of his birth, until he is about fifty years old. In the short story we follow Leeland through his harsh life, with ups and downs, in the form of thoughts, feelings, incidents, etc. Leeland is born in a ranch in Wyoming, and lives there with his wife Lori. Leeland does not look particularly good, in fact he is a very unattractive man; (page 91, line 12)“Leeland’s face shows heavy bones from his mother’s side. His neck is thick and his red-gold hair plastered down in bangs. Even as a child his eyes are as pouchy as those of a middle-age alcoholic, the brows rod-straight above wandering out-of-line eyes. His nose lies broad and close to his face, his mouth seems to have been cut with a single chisel blow into easy flesh” And in the top of that, we see how Leeland through his life, tries to find a successful career, but fails consistently. He moves various times from place to place, too seek occupation and good business. But it is hard when you’re a high school dropout, without a career. Leeland have to changes his job constantly, because of his lack of luck, and since he can’t get along white his bosses. He is never able to stay at one job or place for long, which lead to problems in the family. He has a hard time supporting his wife, and their children financially. Throughout the story the author, Annie Proulx manages...

Words: 357 - Pages: 2

Premium Essay

Essay 1

...An essay is a piece of writing which is often written from an author's personal[->0] point of view[->1]. Essays can consist of a number of elements, including: literary criticism[->2], political manifestos[->3], learned arguments[->4], observations of daily life, recollections, and reflections of the author. The definition of an essay is vague, overlapping with those of an article[->5] and a short story[->6]. Almost all modern essays are written in prose[->7], but works in verse[->8] have been dubbed essays (e.g. Alexander Pope[->9]'s An Essay on Criticism[->10] and An Essay on Man[->11]). While brevity usually defines an essay, voluminous works like John Locke[->12]'s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding[->13] and Thomas Malthus[->14]'s An Essay on the Principle of Population[->15] are counterexamples. In some countries (e.g., the United States and Canada), essays have become a major part of formal education[->16]. Secondary students are taught structured essay formats to improve their writing skills, and admission essays[->17] are often used by universities[->18] in selecting applicants and, in the humanities and social sciences, as a way of assessing the performance of students during final exams. The concept of an "essay" has been extended to other mediums beyond writing. A film essay is a movie that often incorporates documentary film making styles and which focuses more on the evolution of a theme or an idea. A photographic essay[->19] is an attempt to cover a topic...

Words: 521 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Liking Is for Cowards, Go for What Hurts

...We all know love. We have all loved in some kind of way. We love our parents, significant others and even our friends. But we can also love other things like animals or material things. But what is the difference between loving and liking? And is it better not to love and feel pain or to love and be hurt in the progress? Jonathan Franzen seeks to answer these questions in his essay “Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts”. The essay “Liking Is for Cowards. Go for What Hurts” is, as mentioned, written by Jonathan Franzen and published in The New York Times, May 28, 2011. Jonathan Franzen is born in 1959, and he is an acclaimed American novelist and essayist. The essay is based on the commencement speech he delivered at Kenyon College in Ohio, USA. “Our technology has become extremely adept in creating products that correspond to our fantasy ideal of an erotic relationship, in which the beloved object asks for nothing and gives everything, instantly. (…)” As Franzen claims in his essay, many people can feel like they love their technological object. It gives them a satisfaction, which human interaction maybe wouldn’t. Franzen however thinks, that people in general don’t love material things: they like them. There is a major difference between loving and liking – even though it might appear small. “Liking, in general, is commercial culture’s substitute for loving.” Products are made to be likeable, but if that concept in transferred to a person, you would instantly see...

Words: 1039 - Pages: 5