Sociological imagination

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Sociological Imagination
Sociological imagination refers to the act of “thinking ourselves outside” the usual routines so that one can have a distance, new and critical analysis of the events in their life. According to Mills (5), sociological imaginations is the practice of identifying the relationship that exists between the society and individual’s life experience. In this case, sociological imagination is observing events from a social perspective and understanding the interdependence and level of influence they have on each other. Kaufman (309) explains that to have a sociological imagination, an individual must withdraw oneself from the situation they are in and try to come up with an alternative point of view.
Sociological imagination is based on the relation between an individual and the external forces caused by the society they live in. When comparing to the social context theory, sociological imagination ideology explains the relationship and the changes that occur between an individual and the community within a given timespan, the reason behind the changes and how the future will turn out to be about the current changes. The context analysis is done based on the time and social environment dimension. For the case of the environmental aspect, it involves social factors that influence the behavior of one or a group of people, social process that define how people perceives and interact with their social environment and the social behavior that explain the realities observed from what people do when in a social setting.

Therefore, context can describe the reasons behind and emerging social relationship or actions and the changes that have occurred or are yet to take place in the society.
Mills (9) states that sociological imagination can be productive and successful when one has a more in-depth understanding of how personal troubles and the public issues relate. Sociology can show one that the society is the reason behind most of the problems we experience and can transform our issues to public and political issues. Therefore, sociological imagination helps one have an objective view of their troubles, public affairs and the events in the society at large. An example is a personal issue such as divorce which tends to stress an individual in addition to making them grief. An increase in the divorce rates leads to a negative impact on the political and economic sectors of the society. Acting reflexively, as stated by Mills (20), enables one to find the broader effect of the personal problems about how it will affect the rest of the society. In this case, sociological imagination results in the more in-depth analysis of the reflective connection between the nation and the individual problems and their history and biography.

Works Cited
Kaufman, Peter. “Michael Jordan meets C. Wright Mills: Illustrating the sociological imagination with objects from everyday life.” Teaching Sociology 25.4 (1997): 309-314.
Mills, C. Wright. The sociological imagination. Oxford University Press, (2000): 1-50.