The Sociological Imagination

The sociological imagination has revealed to me an understanding of the wider world. Growing up, I experienced the world through the lens of the people around me and understood the world in the terms of their understanding of how the world works. I learned right from wrong and developed my opinions based on the input of the people in my little world. With the sociological imagination, I am able to take a step back from my little world and look at the world through someone else’s eyes. I have learned how to take into consideration all aspects of another person’s life in order to understand why that person may act a certain way or believe a certain thing. The sociological imagination also allows me do differentiate between personal troubles and
public issues. “We normally think of our own problems as being a private matter of character, chance, or circumstance, and we overlook the fact that these may be caused in part by, or at least occur within, a specific cultural and historical context” (Ferris and Stein 13).
When a single person has troubles, it is viewed as an independent event, but when many people share in the same trouble it becomes a public issue. The sociological imagination allows you to think about the connection between personal troubles and public issues, and how one influences the other. Once you understand the connection between personal troubles and public issues, you can better understand how the circumstances in someone’s life are connected to the wider world. You could look African-American boy living in a low-income neighborhood, with a single mother barely able provide, and point to specific circumstances that have led to this situation. For instance, his father may be in prison and his mother may not have a good education, therefore she is not able to get a good job. However, you could also use the sociological imagination to consider how public issues might play a role in this boy’s
situation. You could consider how history has had negative effects on the African-American community as a whole, and that boy’s parents may be in their current situations as a result of growing up in a racist America that limited their life chances.
In this way, the sociological imagination allow you to look at all the possible factors in a person’s life and relate them to their current circumstances. Once you have developed your sociological imagination, you can take it apply it to your everyday life. You can begin to take time and view the world with a “sociological perspective, which is also referred to as taking a sociological approach or thinking sociologically. In any case, it means looking g at the world in a unique way and seeing it in a whole new light” (Ferris and Stein
10). When you do this, you stop and observe elements of everyday life in broader way and how those everyday things relate to the wider world.