Social Imagination Essay Examples,Choose Your Test
Social imagination defines the interaction of an individual or group of individuals with social forces. At the same time, the individual is a character located at a certain place in the society. In American society, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, male, heterosexual, upper middle-class, educated, older defines social location of a person (Social location) WebThe definition of Sociological Imagination is the ability to see the impact of social forces in our individual life. Politics in our country effects every citizen and the race for the most WebAug 10, · Sociological Imagination is a concept that talks about the connection between larger social groups and an individual's own personal life. There are two WebDec 27, · Sociological imagination is a term coined by C. Wright Mills in , to help us understand the role that society plays in an individual’s life. Mills links the individual WebSociological Imagination, a concept developed by sociologist C. Wright Mills, outlines an alternate perspective on today’s society. Mills defines the term as; “the vivid awareness ... read more
The individuals who support customary family values contend that there should be new family values adopted a specific arrangement of qualities. Their adversaries focus on the formation of new economy. At initially, Coontz appears to have a place in this last class. Her contention, in any case, is more refined than both of the groups. She attests that while we have to rebuild our economy, we likewise, must rebuild our qualities and values. In this regard, she prescribes that we modify our qualities in ways that expand obligation regarding dealing with one another and particularly dealing with kids. The new value-based values will also bring positive changes to our economy in a natural way of society. The new economic growth and development will help us implement and practice new values in a more conducive manner.
Therefore, to Coontz, family structure is not central to family values, but belief in supporting each other can improve the shape of family values in the modern times. Coontz criticizes the role that the economy of twentieth-century post war played in shaping the family structure and values. She considers the economy has failed many individuals not just in economic terms, but also in emotional and psychological ways as lack of financial resources or lack of time for family increase the stress, while negatively impacting the family values. She blames the economic growth for this as people tend to be superficial and selfish in order to reap the benefit of the economy, even on the cost of their family and friends.
Coontz, just as Marx, considers economy, government, and labor division as the basis of family values in new societies. Sociological imagination, in this manner, is under the influence of economic framework and context in modern societies. This gives rise to a variety of conflicting beliefs, ideas, norms, and values. Children and teenagers who do not get to grow in conventional families may be as much well-behaved and well-mannered as the children who grow up in chauvinist families. The focus that Coontz put in defining the sociological perspective in shaping family values relies upon the economic context. In Hernando Washington, McIntyre discusses the role that sociological imagination, social circumstances, and social facts play in forming the basis of relationships between individuals.
The importance of sociological imagination cannot be undermined as Hernando murdered Sarah due to his inability to connect individuals and society through sociological imagination McIntyre, He lacked the sense of differentiating between the social circumstances of Sarah and his own, in which they grew up to be different individuals. The social facts of both the individuals were different. Just as the social facts impact the way we think and believe, the differences between two individuals were of striking nature. Hernando grew up in a criminal and abusive social setting where criminals could get away with their crimes, he thought he could get away from his crime as well.
The case of Hernando presents the elements of psychological issues with the protagonist, but the sociological analysis of Hernando reveals that there was the sociological perspective behind his actions. In this manner, McIntyre helps us in understanding the role of sociological perspective and imagination in shaping the actions of individuals, just as defined by Mills. The understanding of sociological imagination has helped in understanding the importance of social facts that are not in my control and hence, helping me in managing my relationships with family members and friends in a better manner.
For instance, I cannot control the attitude and behavior of people towards me or even others. I can choose to stay quiet and save my energy as my sociological perspective does not find it sensible to react back to the individual. Similarly, I have understood the importance of family values as emphasized by Coontz and I tend to value and cherish my family values more than ever. The change in my sociological imagination and perspective can be revolutionary and even shocking to my family and friends as I am known to be a short-tempered person who can easily react to offensive attitudes and behaviors. My family will receive the change in my sociological perspective with great pleasure and my friends will support my new and improvised stance on sociological perspective.
Coontz, S. The way we really are. New York: BasicBooks. McIntyre, L. The practical skeptic. Boston: McGraw HIll. Mills, C. The sociological imagination. New York: Oxford University Press. Note: this sample is kindly provided by a student like you, use it only as a guidance. ID Password recovery email has been sent to email email. Don't waste time. I agree. HIRE A WRITER Sign in. World of Writing Hub Blog Free Essay Writing Tools Quizzes and Tests Essay Topics Types of Essays Free Essay Examples. Who We Are Contact Us Our Writers Our Guarantees FAQ Honor Code WowEssays Reviews Our Services. ORDER PAPER LIKE THIS. Cite this page Choose cite format: APA MLA Harvard Vancouver Chicago ASA IEEE AMA.
Accessed 07 February Good Example Of Sociological Imagination Essay. December Accessed February 07, Retrieved February 07, com, Dec Free Essay Examples - WowEssays. Published Dec 27, Share with friends using:. Removal Request. REQUEST THE REMOVAL. Finished papers: Caring for the life of another individual is a dramatic shift for anyone of any age. In other words, a young mother not only has to deal with the transition from being an individual to being a mother, but must also do this in the face of keeping up with the demands of youthfulness. Most often, this means that she will be less likely to achieve academic success and follow her selected career path.
Her relationships with her peers will change dramatically and her ability to continue to develop psychologically and form lasting relationships will also be hindered Julie, Additionally, there are concerns regarding the health of the teenage mother as the physiological changes can cause long term health issues that the young body may not be adapted to endure Julie, However, the teenage female is able to make the decision as to whether or not to have intercourse and if they become pregnant to carry the child to term. Looking at this scenario through the larger society, Rolfe explains that the financial burden of such decisions are far greater on the society than on the individual who makes the decision.
Clearly, if the teenage mother is unable to achieve academic success, there is a much greater chance of her becoming dependent on social welfare institutions. The financial burden of feeding, clothing, housing, and providing medical care for the teenage mother and her child will fall to the larger society without the citizens having had any voice in the decision making process. With the expectation that the child will then be raised in a lower socioeconomic status, Julie claims that the generational burden will continue well into the future and that the society will be responsible for years to come. Even though the society allows the teenager to make their decisions regarding their own bodies and the outcomes of their pregnancies, the fact remains that it is society who will feel the greatest amount of the burden that results from teenage pregnancies.
In closing, it is important to note that there are many teenage mothers who have overcome the statistics but that the majority of these cases tend to follow the same pattern of dependency Julie, It is difficult to determine where the line should be drawn between personal decisions and social responsibility. However, continuing to study cases through the concept of social imagination should create a sense of personal responsibility to the larger society. Why not get a unique paper done for you? Use code: CUSTOM
General Education. Have you ever wondered why your family cooks turkey on Thanksgiving? All of those factors—taste, personal history, and world history—lead to one small action of you eating turkey on a holiday. Like imagination in the more typical sense, the sociological imagination asks us to use our brains to think differently about things and consider why we do the things we do. The sociological imagination is a method of thinking about the world. The societal imagination encourages people to think about their lives not just on an individual level, but also considering societal, biological, and historical context. Societal context tells us about our culture—when we consider it, we think about how our desires, actions, and thoughts are shaped by our community and how that community is changing.
And lastly, historical context considers our place in time; how have events of the past led up to where we are currently? Basically, the concept of sociological imagination suggests that who you are as an individual is also the you shaped by your immediate surroundings, your family, your friends, your country, and the world as a whole. To use the sociological imagination is to shift your perspective away from yourself and look at things more broadly, bringing in context to individual actions. If we zoom out a little further, we might realize that people in landlocked states might be unlikely to choose a seafood-based lunch at all because fresh fish is more expensive than it is on the coast. And those are just spatial boundaries. All of this lets you see yourself and your culture in a new light, as a product of society and history.
In this sense, using a sociological imagination lets you look at yourself and your culture as a third-party observer. Part of the appeal of using a sociological imagination is that it helps people avoid apathy. In this context, apathy refers to a sense of indifference or disinterest in examining the morality of their leaders. According to C. Wright Mills , creator of the idea of sociological imagination, if we accept that our beliefs, traditions, and actions are all normal and natural, we are less likely to interrogate when our leaders and community members do things that are immoral. Considering sociological context allows individuals to question and change society rather than just live in it. In more technical terms, Mills was challenging the dominant structural functionalist approach to sociology.
Structural functionalism suggests that society is composed of different structures that shape the interactions and relationships between people, and those relationships can be understood and analyzed to help us learn more about a society. What differed for Mills and his concept of the sociological imagination was that he believed that society was not only a series of systems, but that the role of the individual should also be considered. In fact, Mills believed that social structures arise because of conflict between groups , typically the elite and the others, such as the government and the citizens or the rich and the poor.
As previously mentioned, C. During his time, many sociologists engaged in a sort of top-down view of the world, focusing on systems rather than on individuals. Mills believed both were important, and that society should be understood as a relationship between different systems that originated in conflict. Though his book has since been named one of the most important sociological texts of the 20th century, Mills was not popular among his contemporaries. Mills was particularly concerned with class in social spheres, particularly the elite and the military, and how conflict between the elite and the non-elite impacted the actions of individuals and vice-versa. Mills was also opposed to the tendency of sociologists to observe rather than act.
He believed that sociology was a great tool for changing the world, and believed that using the sociological imagination encouraged people of all kinds, including sociologists, to expose and respond to social injustice. Mills' book was all about how the sociological imagination could help society, but it wasn't only a theoretical approach. The Sociological Imagination contained tips for sociologists as well as the general public to help them better contextualize the world! So much of sociology was based on existing systems that Mills felt the field focused on method over humanity. To combat this, he suggested that sociologists should function as individuals and propose new theories and methodologies that could challenge and enhance established norms.
Mills believed that some of the academic language used in the field of sociology encouraged the sense of distance that so troubled him. Instead, he advocated that sociologists be clear and concise when possible, and that they do not couch their theories in language intended to distance themselves from society and from criticism. Mills disagreed with the top-down approach to sociology, and encouraged sociologists to engage with the macro, as they had been doing, in addition to the micro. He believed that history is comprised of both the big and small, and that study of each is required for a robust field.
He explained that individual moments, as well as long spans of time, were equally necessary to understanding society. Mills advocated for a more interdisciplinary approach to sociology. Part of the sociological imagination is thinking outside of the boundaries of yourself; to do so, Mills suggested that sociologists look beyond their specialized fields toward a more comprehensive understanding. That meant looking at human experience on an individual and societal level, as well as within a specific and broad historical context.
Mills wanted sociologists to consider humans as products of society, but also society as products of humanity. According to Mills, people may act on an individual basis, but their individual desires and thoughts are shaped by the society in which they live. Therefore, sociologists should consider human action as a product of not just individual desires, but also historical and social actors. He suggested that sociologists should look beyond the common discourse and find alternate explanations and considerations. When you take this idea and apply it to a specific example, however, it becomes a lot easier to understand how and why it works to broaden your horizons.
As such, we've developed two in-depth sociological imagination examples to help you understand this concept. When you think about buying a new pair of shoes, your explanation may be fairly simple, such as that you need a new pair of shoes for a particular purpose, like running or a school dance, or that you simply like the way they look. Both of those things may be true, but using your sociological imagination takes you out of the immediacy of those to answers and encourages you to think deeper. But why do you want to go running, as opposed to any other form of exercise? Why get into exercise at all? Why new running shoes rather than used ones?
Maybe you want to go running because you want to get into shape, and your favorite Instagram profile is big into running. Maybe you recently watched a news report about heart health and realized that you need a new exercise regimen to get into shape. If you were a different person in a different context—say if you lived in a poorer area, or an area with more crime, or another country where other forms of exercise are more practical or popular—you might have made different choices. If you lived in a poorer area, designer shoes may not even be available to you. If there was a lot of crime in your area, running might be an unsafe method of exercise.
Marriage for love is the norm in American culture, so we assume that the same is true and always has been true. Why else would anybody marry? When we use our sociological imaginations, we can figure it out. You might get married to your partner because you love them, but why else might you get married? Well, it can make your taxes simpler, or make you more qualified to get a home loan. If your partner is from another country, it might help them stay within the US. So even in the United States, where marriage is typically thought of as a commitment of love, there are multiple other reasons you might get married.
Throughout history, marriage was a means to make alliances or acquire property, usually with a woman as a bargaining chip. That sounds strange to us, but only because in our culture the norm is marrying for love, with other reasons, such as financial or immigration concerns, being secondary. So even for an individual, there might be multiple factors at play in the decision to be made. In fact, Mills is sometimes heralded to be ahead of his time , as the values he espoused about human connection and societal issues were prominent thoughts in the s, just after his death. One of his former students wrote about how Mills stood in contrast to other sociologists of the era, saying:.
In that era of cautious professors in gray flannel suits he came roaring into Morningside Heights on his BMW motorcycle, wearing plaid shirts, old jeans and work boots, carrying his books in a duffel bag strapped across his broad back. His lectures matched the flamboyance of his personal image, as he managed to make entertaining the heavyweight social theories of Mannheim, Ortega and Weber. He shocked us out of our Silent Generation torpor by pounding his desk and proclaiming that every man should build his own house as he himself did a few years later and that, by God, with the proper study, we should each be able to build our own car! However, as time has gone on, the field has come to regard him differently. His challenge to the field helped reshape it into something that is concerned with the macro as well as the micro.
This helps you escape your own perspective and think about the world differently. Where did you learn it? Are there places it may not be seen as normal? Consider a relatively common tradition like Christmas, for example. Why is that? But where did that tradition come from? Probably from your ancestors, who may have been more devout than your current family. You can trace this kind of thinking backward and consider your personal history, your family history, and the surrounding cultural context not all cultures celebrate Christmas, of course! When you come upon something that seems like a personal issue, think about it in a societal context. Why might that person behave the way that they do? Are there societal causes that might contribute to their situation? A common example of this is the idea of unemployment.
If you are unemployed, you may feel simultaneous feelings of frustration, unease, and even self-loathing. Many people blame themselves for their lack of a job, but there are societal factors at play, too. So while unemployment may seem like a personal issue, there are actually lots of societal issues that can contribute to it. Psychology, like sociology, can give us insight into human behavior. If you're thinking of studying psychology in the future, this list of psychology master's programs can give you a great look at which colleges have the best programs! Sociology can even help you understand works of literature, like The Great Gatsby!
Learn more about F. Scott Fitzgerald's take on the American Dream from our guide. A good understanding of history is one of the core pieces to a good sociological imagination. To improve your historical knowledge, consider these high school history classes you should take! Our vetted tutor database includes a range of experienced educators who can help you polish an essay for English or explain how derivatives work for Calculus. You can use dozens of filters and search criteria to find the perfect person for your needs.
Sociological Imagination Essay,Similar Topics
WebNov 19, · The sociological imagination is defined as being a way of thinking that helps us use information or data to form theories about the social patterns around us. We WebDec 27, · Sociological imagination is a term coined by C. Wright Mills in , to help us understand the role that society plays in an individual’s life. Mills links the individual WebSociological Imagination, a concept developed by sociologist C. Wright Mills, outlines an alternate perspective on today’s society. Mills defines the term as; “the vivid awareness WebSociological imagination determines how individuals in society differ from one another based on their historical or social circumstances. This essay will define sociological WebSocial Imagination. words 3 page (s) Very often, the separation between personal lives and governmental control can create a scenario whereas the individual citizen cannot Social imagination defines the interaction of an individual or group of individuals with social forces. At the same time, the individual is a character located at a certain place in the society. In American society, white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant, male, heterosexual, upper middle-class, educated, older defines social location of a person (Social location) ... read more
Wright Mills was an astounding sociologist, social critic, and idealist. What allows modern sociologists to gather, analyze, and correct the pillars of civilization? As such, we've developed two in-depth sociological imagination examples to help you understand this concept. New York: Oxford University Press. That meant looking at human experience on an individual and societal level, as well as within a specific and broad historical context. The change in my sociological imagination and perspective can be revolutionary and even shocking to my family and friends as I am known to be a short-tempered person who can easily react to offensive attitudes and behaviors. One reason is because you can apply what you learn from a society as a whole to your own life in a way that will benefit you.
Sociological imagination, in this manner, is under the influence of economic framework and context in modern societies, social imagination essay. Forget the all-nighters and find some writing inspiration with our free essay samples on any topic. When I went to visit my great grandfather village. The case of Hernando presents the elements of psychological issues with the protagonist, but the sociological analysis of Hernando reveals that there was the sociological perspective behind his actions. He advocated that one key purpose of a sociologist was to create social change against the oppression of government. Why might that person behave the way that they do? The ability social imagination essay see things socially and how things interact and influence each other.
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