My Sociological Imagination Essay

The sociological Imagination is defined as the ability to understand the sensations own issues are not caused simply by iodines own beliefs or thoughts only by society and how it is structured. (mill, The Sociological Imagination, 1959). T presentfore, iodine can never solve their problems until they understand that they cannot be solved simply on an individual level merely essential be addressed on the companionable level. It is the ability to see how society is structured and how things such as societal norms influence people into performing certain actions. It involves observing outcomes from a varied perspective in ordinate to understand what influenced those outcomes.Growing up in ones environment is likely to play as a federal agent in the way they go about things in the life. People cannot change their environment so they sometimes demand to change themselves in order to begin to fit in with their societies or to become successful person. The sociological perspecti ve better have it awayn as the sociological imagination helps individuals see through a broader scope of the society. Being a part of a general category like a working frame youth or a student, you must(prenominal) learn how to office the world through by society. My agent of socialization belongs to my university and conversancys or peer who surrounded me recently because I believe the service-learning that we will be taking part in will help to expand our sociological imaginations.For myself, my parents are born into a certain environment and depending on how the utilized their sociological imagination, play a part in the environment we become a part of. As Im coming from the working class family, in that fix is an assumption that you pee to go to the school or university for your social status or prestige of your life in my society. My parents always sine qua noned much for me so they enlisted me in a catholic elementary and private high school in my county. So I saw how different I was compared to my other friends not in intelligence but in wisdoms. I knew that I was capable of doing more and becoming more becausenot only I did I believe in myself, my parents did too. Its correct because when you are in private high school or catholic school, you have to pay tuition fee fees and a lot of people do not have money to spare with it. Instead of having the latest pairs of sneakers or shoes and throwing vainglorious parties for every pass and your birthday, we can save some money for the future and my education.From being in my current university students life, my entire life that I learn so much not only academically, but that I do not have to settle for what our social class or social location places us. later my private high school in my country, I went to my fist college in the United States. I encountered the language barriers and a lot of cultural differences in my initial six months of college life here. I also acquire that no matter how good you do academically, you will always be stereotyped and looks at differently because youre a minority who comes from different cultures in the society.The sociological imagination is a capacity, ability, and a quality of mind that allows an individual to understand and connect her or his life with the forces and dynamics that impact it. It is about not blaming others for what they do, it is about judging ourselves before we judge others and understand people as if we understand ourselves for representative if a student comes late to class there could be m all reasons behind this student being late there could have been traffic or an chance on the way that made him or her come late to class, so we should not judge but understand.Although we should separate between personal bring out and mankind issue, for example a student could be coming to class late all the time because of his or her laziness this would be called a personal trouble but if all students are coming late to class than this is called a public issue, meaning there is something wrong with the class. Sociological imagination engages in, the minority status, gender, socioeconomic status and the family structure.Sociological imagination is a social fact and empathy social fact is the idea, feeling, behavior of individuals. An example of social fact is whenthe sun is rising, this is a social fact that we cannot change whether we like it or not it will gloss over rise. There are many sociological issues in society one of the issues learned in this course is the race and racism issue.Race and racism are two different issues race is a social constructed aspect of identity in all cultures, race is not biological it is powerful it is what makes us who we are for example what we are born with like hair texture and skin color. racialism is an interlocking system of advantage based on race existing at individual and cultural symbolic. Racism comes from power, and culture. Racism happens when some so cial groups have more power over another social groups, but racism have changed even if it still exist it is not visible in which it is been set forth as dangerous or a hidden fact. Racism is racism that it cant be better or worse in any country. Even though being born with a specific skin color is a cause of geographic conditions, in which where the person is born for example being born in a sunny place is different than being born in a place in which doesnt have sun, so all humans are the same if we put skin color a side, also black people are born with more melanin in their skin and that protects them from getting crabby person thats why white skin colored people are more likely to get cancer than people with dark skin. So there are always advantages and disadvantages about what we have and what we dont have.Society will always look at you twice before becoming a consideration for different things in an adult life. It takes a great deal of my social imagination to attend colleg e. not many people in my country feel like they are capable of going to college because of their general categories or social locations. College has always been a big thing in my family. My parents did not fatality me to settle for just any job that they wanted me to have a career and one that I enjoy. They want me to do well in the life so no only I can get out of the middle social class but I can also take them with me in my success. There is a restrain amount of people in my immediate family who actually went to the college in here so going for me is a really big deal. I did not do really well in my past high school so that lead me to a selected few number of colleges to attend when I applied to school inhere. I ended up choosing some universities close to my groundwork town for my first students life. I decided to go to Webster Thailand campus because I did not want to branch to far away from my family. I know that if I continue to do good academically I can transfer to a col lege in the big city like Singapore and still be close to my family.The sociological imagination distinguishes between two very distinct ends of reality, the private troubles and the public issues. To understand social reality, private troubles must be examined in the context of the larger issue. For example, a child who doing poor school work may be suffering from a private trouble but that issue is part of a larger picture. Is his trouble coming from a larger social problem that is also affecting his community? Is his trouble something which is universal among his peer group? All feelings and emotions are inter-related in order to understand one end of society you must understand the others.The sociological imagination, written by C. Wright Mills, is an insightful critique of the research taking place in sociology. Mills states that the sociological imagination is the quality of mind that allows one to understand history and biography and the relations between the two within soc iety (p.6). It allows one to switch from one perspective to another allowing for a comprehensive view of the socio-cultural system. Mills stated some very valid points in this analysis. By defining troubles and issues, he points to each of the connections they have to each other. A good example is on Page 9, when Mills mentions marriage. He states that inside a marriage a man and a woman may experience personal troubles, but when the carve up rate during the first four years of marriage is 250 out of 1000 attempt, this is an indication of a structural issue.Education is a key into overcoming one social location or the class. Doing good academically we can branch into different fields in which we can utilize and expand our experiences. Our social class will no longer be a fallback because we can get different types of scholarships. Social perspective plays a major part in ones decision to go to the college because people want more in life not just what they were given. They wantto l earn more and they want to be more so getting a college education will get them there. Peoples lives are shaped by society. They become change to different things and try to stay in the trends in the society. Ones society plays a huge role in ones disposition and the way that they might live their lives.Social Stratification is regarded quite differently by the principle perspectives of sociology. Proponents of structural-functional analysis suggest that since social stratification exists in close state of the societies, a hierarchy must therefore be beneficial in helping to stabilize their existence. Talcott Parsons, an American sociologist, asserted that stability and social order are achieved by means of a universal value consensus. Functionalists assert that stratification exists solely to satisfy the functional per requisites necessary for a functional proficiency in any society.Conflict theorists consider the inaccessibility of resources and lack of social mobility n many stratified societies. They conclude, often working from the theories of Karl Marx, that stratification means that working class people are not likely to advance socioeconomically, while the wealthy may continue to exploit the proletariat generation after generation. Marx place social classes by their connection to the means of production. Therefore the ruling class (the bourgeoisie) and the working class (the proletariat), identify their social positions by their relationship to the means of production. The upkeep of status quo is achieved by various methods of social control employed by the bourgeoisie in the course of many aspects of social life, such as through ideologies of submission promoted through the institution of religion.In the conclusion, my sociological imagination leads me to where I am today. I did not let other stereotypes about my social location and my social class play a part in my decision making process. I took a stand and decided to go to college to better n ot only for myself but for my family. The sociological imagination is an awareness of the relationship between an individual and wider society a key element in this is the ability to viewones society as an outsiders would. As being humans, we cant let our social location determine our abilities. We must explore beyond what we are given and what we are told is right. Humans must defeat their ordinary life by not setting themselves up for limited expectations in the society and we should also try to exceed our or everyone elses expectations in our life.REFERENCESMills, C. Wright. 1959. The Sociological Imagination. New York Oxford University Press. Web. Engels, Friedrich and Marx, Karl. 1998. Manifesto of the Communist Party. New York. Web 10 Sep, 2013. Web 10 Sep, 2013. C Wright Mills, (1959), The Sociological Imagination, reprinted (2000), Oxford University, chapters 1-3 and 7, pages 375 and 132-143. Schwalbe, Michael. 1956. The Sociologically examined life pieces of the conversatio n. Collins, Patricia Hill. December 1986. Social Problems 33. Web.