Question

Address the following questions: What does C. Wright Mills mean by the "sociological imagination" and why is it important? In addition, select any topic (such as but not limited to clothes or car shopping and do notuse beverage drinking), to illustrate how you have used, based on your experience, your "sociological imagination" any where in the world. For this assignment you must do the following: 1) Read the Additional Reading for chapter one, 2) Read the section in chapter one on "sociological imagination," and, 3) Listen to the audio that pertains to "sociological imagination." 4) You are required to correctly cite the materials that you use for this assignment.

Answer 1

The sociological imagination is a practice that can be defined as the ability to think outside of our own personal perspective. This allows us to be aware of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society. It also allows us to look at our familiar practices in a way that is critical.

I have often used my sociological imagination to think about our means of transportation. We often take for granted how incredible cars or airplanes are. Even after the Industrial Revolution, it could take a person several months to travel across the world. Nowadays, we can do that in about a day. Moreover, developments such as the bullet train have made long journeys extremely quick and easy. I have used my sociological imagination to think of our love of travel, and how easy it is for everyone nowadays to travel abroad or across the country. This is a recent practice that appears wasteful, unnecessary, or simply incredible when I look at it from the perspective of sociological imagination.