Soumya Patel

Mrs. Delap

Sociology AB

18 August 2020

Sociological Writing Assignment: The Sociological Imagination

The concept of "sociological imagination", as introduced and defined by sociologist C.

Wright Mills in his book The Sociological Imagination (1959), refers to the ability to break away

from the daily habits of our lives and analyze them from an alternate perspective that focuses on

how they relate to the wider society. Mills himself regarded it has having a "vivid awareness" of

how our experiences as an individual are connected to the workings of society. 

By introducing the concept of a sociological imagination, Mills attempted to bring

together and emphasizing the connection between an individual's own experiences, or

subjectivism, and the environment around them. He believed that analyzing the relationship

between the thoughts and actions of an individual as well as those of a society of individuals

would produce the most accurate, unbiased method of sociological study. (Crossman 2019:1). 

Applying the concept of the sociological imagination to everyday occurrences reveals the

complexity of the connection between the individual and their environment. For example, some

people have a ritual of drinking a cup of coffee first thing in the morning. Using the sociological

imagination, this can be attributed to the individual experience of needing to coffee to wake up,

or to the collective experience of the ritual of drinking coffee first thing in the morning in
society. (Crossman 2019:1). Crossman also delivers another highly relevant example by stating

that according to Mills' philosophy,  an individual hardship, like not being able to pay one's bills,

can also be connected to problems that affect society as a whole like systemic economic

inequality(Crossman 2019:1).

Mills’ theory of the interconnectedness between the individual experience and the

workings of society effectively proposes an ideal version of sociological practice that gives equal

weight to all aspects of our experiences, not just the ones that affect us directly. His idea of the

sociological imagination, while rejected in his time, has now become the baseline for all modern

sociological study and a paramount foundation to succeed in this field.

Reference List:

Crossman, A., 2020. How To Use The Sociological Imagination. [online] ThoughtCo. Available

at: <https://www.thoughtco.com/sociological-imagination-3026756> [Accessed 17 August

2020].