The process of sociological imagination seems like one is zooming in on something and then zooming out; much like a camera. Take another example into consideration: going to the movies. Firstly, going to the movies is a social activity.
Movies are a form of entertainment that we consume frequently. Secondly, films are a medium to disseminate ideas, thoughts and, culture; American movies like The Perks of being a Wallflower , Mean Girls or Love, Simon — to name a few- illustrate the lives of American high school students.
Films also communicate the norms and values of a society or a group. To put it simply, films are a reflection of society. In this case, one is seeing films as a form of entertainment or just likes to watch movies and then further, as a reflection of society.
One may also take another step further and wonder why certain films are more popular than others. Other examples are that of divorce and unemployment. It is kind of like understanding how one jigsaw puzzle piece relates to other pieces; there is more to it than that one puzzle piece.
There are other concepts to keep in mind when it comes to sociological imagination. The second institution is the set of rules that enable and constrain human activity Wiley, Understanding these concepts can aid one in using sociological imagination in an effective and critical manner; these concepts are often ignored Wiley, One is better able to look at the bigger picture.
One can now understand why sociological imagination is probably the first concept that is introduced; examining and understanding the society is what sociology is all about. Sociological imagination is a tool that allows one to do just that. It involves separating from the personal and looking at the bigger picture, to understand why a certain social phenomenon is occurring.
With this one can examine an instance as simple as the act of drinking coffee to an instance like unemployment. Giddens, A. What is Sociology? Sociology 6 th ed. Polity Press. Buy from Amazon. Hironimus-Wendt, R. The Sociological Imagination and Social Responsibility. For example, many people are poor and unemployed, many are in poor health, and many have family problems, drink too much alcohol, or commit crime.
When we hear about these individuals, it is easy to think that their problems are theirs alone, and that they and other individuals with the same problems are entirely to blame for their difficulties.
Sociology takes a different approach, as it stresses that individual problems are often rooted in problems stemming from aspects of society itself. This key insight informed C. The sociological imagination. Examples include such different problems as eating disorders, divorce, and unemployment. Public issues , whose source lies in the social structure and culture of a society, refer to social problems affecting many individuals. Problems in society thus help account for problems that individuals experience.
Mills felt that many problems ordinarily considered private troubles are best understood as public issues, and he coined the term sociological imagination From C. Wright Mills, the realization that personal troubles are rooted in public issues. We will start with unemployment, which Mills himself discussed. If only a few people were unemployed, Mills wrote, we could reasonably explain their unemployment by saying they were lazy, lacked good work habits, and so forth.
If so, their unemployment would be their own personal trouble. But when millions of people are out of work, unemployment is best understood as a public issue because, as Mills , p.
Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal situation and character of a scatter of individuals. When only a few people are out of work, it is fair to say that their unemployment is their personal trouble. However, when millions of people are out of work, as has been true since the economic downturn began in , this massive unemployment is more accurately viewed as a public issue.
The high US unemployment rate stemming from the severe economic downturn that began in provides a telling example of the point Mills was making. Millions of people lost their jobs through no fault of their own.
While some individuals are undoubtedly unemployed because they are lazy or lack good work habits, a more structural explanation focusing on lack of opportunity is needed to explain why so many people were out of work. If so, unemployment is best understood as a public issue rather than a personal trouble.
Another social problem is eating disorders. This explanation may be OK as far as it goes, but it does not help us understand why so many people have the personal problems that lead to eating disorders. Perhaps more important, this belief also neglects the larger social and cultural forces that help explain such disorders. For example, most Americans with eating disorders are women, not men.
This gender difference forces us to ask what it is about being a woman in American society that makes eating disorders so much more common. Boyd, E. Social Science Research, 40 2 , — If this cultural standard did not exist, far fewer American women would suffer from eating disorders than do now. Because it does exist, even if every girl and woman with an eating disorder were cured, others would take their places unless we could somehow change this standard. Viewed in this way, eating disorders are best understood as a public issue, not just as a personal trouble.
Blaming the victim Rev. As Ryan put it, they tend to believe in blaming the victim The belief that people experiencing difficulties are to blame for these problems. As this example suggests, a blaming-the-victim approach points to solutions to social problems such as poverty and illiteracy that are very different from those suggested by a more structural approach that blames the system. If we blame the victim, we would spend our limited dollars to address the personal failings of individuals who suffer from poverty, illiteracy, poor health, eating disorders, and other difficulties.
If instead we blame the system, we would focus our attention on the various social conditions decrepit schools, cultural standards of female beauty, and the like that account for these difficulties. A sociological understanding suggests that the latter approach is ultimately needed to help us deal successfully with the social problems facing us today. Three theoretical perspectives guide sociological thinking on social problems: functionalist theory, conflict theory, and symbolic interactionist theory.
These perspectives look at the same social problems, but they do so in different ways. Their views taken together offer a fuller understanding of social problems than any of the views can offer alone.
Table 1. Functionalism The view that social institutions are important for their contributions to social stability. The first was the French Revolution of , whose intense violence and bloody terror shook Europe to its core.
The aristocracy throughout Europe feared that revolution would spread to their own lands, and intellectuals feared that social order was crumbling. The Industrial Revolution of the nineteenth century reinforced these concerns.
Starting first in Europe and then in the United States, the Industrial Revolution led to many changes, including the rise and growth of cities as people left their farms to live near factories. As the cities grew, people lived in increasingly poor, crowded, and decrepit conditions, and crime was rampant. Here was additional evidence, if European intellectuals needed it, of the breakdown of social order.
In response, the intellectuals began to write that a strong society, as exemplified by strong social bonds and rules and effective socialization, was needed to prevent social order from disintegrating. Without a strong society and effective socialization, they warned, social order breaks down, and violence and other signs of social disorder result.
Suicide J. Simpson, Trans. Original work published It does so, he wrote, through two related social mechanisms: socialization and social integration. It uses the human body as a model for understanding society. In the human body, our various organs and other body parts serve important functions for the ongoing health and stability of our body.
Our eyes help us see, our ears help us hear, our heart circulates our blood, and so forth. Just as we can understand the body by describing and understanding the functions that its parts serve for its health and stability, so can we understand society by describing and understanding the functions that its parts—or, more accurately, its social institutions—serve for the ongoing health and stability of society.
Thus functionalism emphasizes the importance of social institutions such as the family, religion, and education for producing a stable society. Similar to the view of the conservative intellectuals from which it grew, functionalism is skeptical of rapid social change and other major social upheaval. The analogy to the human body helps us understand this skepticism.
In our bodies, any sudden, rapid change is a sign of danger to our health. If we break a bone in one of our legs, we have trouble walking; if we lose sight in both our eyes, we can no longer see. Slow changes, such as the growth of our hair and our nails, are fine and even normal, but sudden changes like those just described are obviously troublesome.
By analogy, sudden and rapid changes in society and its social institutions are troublesome according to the functionalist perspective. If the human body evolved to its present form and functions because these made sense from an evolutionary perspective, so did society evolve to its present form and functions because these made sense. Any sudden change in society thus threatens its stability and future. Accordingly, gradual social reform should be all that is needed to address the social problem.
Functionalism even suggests that social problems must be functional in some ways for society, because otherwise these problems would not continue. This is certainly a controversial suggestion, but it is true that many social problems do serve important functions for our society. For example, crime is a major social problem, but it is also good for the economy because it creates hundreds of thousands of jobs in law enforcement, courts and corrections, home security, and other sectors of the economy whose major role is to deal with crime.
If crime disappeared, many people would be out of work! Similarly, poverty is also a major social problem, but one function that poverty serves is that poor people do jobs that otherwise might not get done because other people would not want to do them Gans, Gans, H. The positive functions of poverty. American Journal of Sociology, 78 , — Like crime, poverty also provides employment for people across the nation, such as those who work in social service agencies that help poor people.
In many ways, conflict theory The view that society is composed of groups with different interests arising from their placement in the social structure. Whereas conservative intellectuals feared the mass violence resulting from industrialization, Marx and Engels deplored the conditions they felt were responsible for the mass violence and the capitalist society they felt was responsible for these conditions.
Marx, K. Original work published ; Marx, K. The communist manifesto. In Marx and Engels: Selected works Vol. Original work published According to Marx and Engels, every society is divided into two classes based on the ownership of the means of production tools, factories, and the like.
In a capitalist society, the bourgeoisie , or ruling class, owns the means of production, while the proletariat , or working class, does not own the means of production and instead is oppressed and exploited by the bourgeoisie.
This difference creates an automatic conflict of interests between the two groups. In a capitalist society, Marx and Engels wrote, revolution is inevitable because of structural contradictions arising from the very nature of capitalism. To do so, capitalists try to keep wages as low as possible and to spend as little money as possible on working conditions.
Their class consciousness in turn leads them to revolt against the bourgeoisie to eliminate the oppression and exploitation they suffer. This theory emphasizes that different groups in society have different interests stemming from their different social positions. These different interests in turn lead to different views on important social issues. Some versions of the theory root conflict in divisions based on race and ethnicity, gender, and other such differences, while other versions follow Marx and Engels in seeing conflict arising out of different positions in the economic structure.
In general, however, conflict theory emphasizes that the various parts of society contribute to ongoing inequality, whereas functionalist theory, as we have seen, stresses that they contribute to the ongoing stability of society. Thus while functionalist theory emphasizes the benefits of the various parts of society for ongoing social stability, conflict theory favors social change to reduce inequality.
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