sociological imagination essays

sociological imagination essays The "Sociological Imagination" was introduced by C. Wright Mills in 1959. Sociological imagination refers to the relationship between individual troubles and the large social forces that are the driving forces behind them. The intent of the sociological imagination is to see the bigger picture within which individuals live their lives; to recognize personal troubles and public issues as two aspects of a single process. Sociological imagination helps the individual to understand the society in which they live in by moving the individual away from reality and looking beyond the picture it self. By doing so it helps to show the strong link between an individual's personal life and the society in which they live. The sociological imagination requires us to engage in the study of an individuals biography; but to place that biography in the larger context of the history and tradition of the society in which that individual lives. By acknowledging the relation between history and biography we can see how personal troubles and social problems are connected. Many times people fail to see their own biographies as being correlated to the larger public of society. Mills wrote that we find troubles within the character of the individual and within the range of his immediate relations with others. The intermediate is the individuals social environment. Public issues, or social problems, exist in the impersonal structures, institutions, and processes of society. Mills suggests that with the sociological imagination we can see how troubles and issues are related, how troubles experienced privately can be connected to public issues located in the structure of society. Mills argued that in order to avoid becoming victims of a large, seemingly distant event; we must learn to understand the relationship between private troubles and social issues. For example if a small group of people in a society were unemployed, then o...