分析中國綠色消費的障礙因素及對策
Weekly Common Questions : Week 1
1. What is sociological imagination?
This concept was developed by C. Wright Mills in 1959. By introducing this concept, Mills suggests what sociology as a discipline is doing. The task of sociology is to link up society and individual. An individual’s life experience is affected by social and historical circumstances. If we use sociological imagination to study personal troubles such as unemployment, we will not simply look at one’s personality. Instead, we will try to find out what has been happening around these unemployed people. Why are many of them low-educated? We may find that most of them are brought up in the low-income families. So, our next question is: why do we have many low-income families in our society? If we keep on analyzing, the unemployment becomes a public issue which shows something wrong in our social institution.
Mills uses different examples such as unemployment, war, marriage to illustrate sociological imagination. You may find them from one of the articles listed on the Course Outline:
Mills, C. W. (2012). The sociological imagination. In M. L. Andersen, K. A. Logio, and H. F. Taylor (Eds.), Understanding Society: An introductory reader (pp. 2-6). Belmont: Wadsworth.
2. What is debunking?
By Peter Berger (1963), debunking is a process to rethink our commonsensical explanation of society. People tend to use our common belief to understand society. Let’s look at the example of people in low-paid jobs. In our society, we commonly believe that these people have less ability and also they are not working hard enough. However, is this common belief sufficiently to reflect the reality? Why do people in our society have such perception towards people in low-paid jobs? Berger argues that doing sociological analysis is to think about why we have such common belief and whether this commonly accepted belief is true. This is what he means by debunking.
1. What is sociological imagination?
This concept was developed by C. Wright Mills in 1959. By introducing this concept, Mills suggests what sociology as a discipline is doing. The task of sociology is to link up society and individual. An individual’s life experience is affected by social and historical circumstances. If we use sociological imagination to study personal troubles such as unemployment, we will not simply look at one’s personality. Instead, we will try to find out what has been happening around these unemployed people. Why are many of them low-educated? We may find that most of them are brought up in the low-income families. So, our next question is: why do we have many low-income families in our society? If we keep on analyzing, the unemployment becomes a public issue which shows something wrong in our social institution.
Mills uses different examples such as unemployment, war, marriage to illustrate sociological imagination. You may find them from one of the articles listed on the Course Outline:
Mills, C. W. (2012). The sociological imagination. In M. L. Andersen, K. A. Logio, and H. F. Taylor (Eds.), Understanding Society: An introductory reader (pp. 2-6). Belmont: Wadsworth.
2. What is debunking?
By Peter Berger (1963), debunking is a process to rethink our commonsensical explanation of society. People tend to use our common belief to understand society. Let’s look at the example of people in low-paid jobs. In our society, we commonly believe that these people have less ability and also they are not working hard enough. However, is this common belief sufficiently to reflect the reality? Why do people in our society have such perception towards people in low-paid jobs? Berger argues that doing sociological analysis is to think about why we have such common belief and whether this commonly accepted belief is true. This is what he means by debunking.