The Sociological Imagination

Chapter One: The Promise

C. Wright Mills (1959)
Nowadays people often feel that their private lives are a series of traps. They sense that within
their everyday worlds, they cannot overcome their troubles, and in this feeling, they are often
quite correct. What ordinary people are directly aware of and what they try to do are bounded by
the private orbits in which they live; their visions and their powers are limited to the close-up
scenes of job, family, neighborhood; in other milieux, they move vicariously and remain
spectators. And the more aware they become, however vaguely, of ambitions and of threats
which transcend their immediate locales, the more trapped they seem to feel.

Underlying this sense of being trapped are seemingly impersonal changes in the very structure of
continent-wide societies. The facts of contemporary history are also facts about the success and
the failure of individual men and women. When a society is industrialized, a peasant becomes a
worker; a feudal lord is liquidated or becomes a businessman. When classes rise or fall, a person
is employed or unemployed; when the rate of investment goes up or down, a person takes new
heart or goes broke. When wars happen, an insurance salesperson becomes a rocket launcher; a
store clerk, a radar operator; a wife or husband lives alone; a child grows up without a parent.
Neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without
understanding both.

Yet people do not usually define the troubles they endure in terms of historical change and
institutional contradiction. The well-being they enjoy, they do not usually impute to the big ups
and downs of the societies in which they live. Seldom aware of the intricate connection between
the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary people do not usually
know what this connection means for the kinds of people they are becoming and for the kinds of
history-making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind essential
to grasp the interplay of individuals and society, of biography and history, of self and world.
They cannot cope with their personal troubles in such ways as to control the structural
transformations that usually lie behind them.

Surely it is no wonder. In what period have so many people been so totally exposed at so fast a
pace to such earthquakes of change? That Americans have not known such catastrophic changes
as have the men and women of other societies is due to historical facts that are now quickly
becoming 'merely history.' The history that now affects every individual is world history. Within
this scene and this period, in the course of a single generation, one sixth of humankind is
transformed from all that is feudal and backward into all that is modern, advanced, and fearful.
Political colonies are freed; new and less visible forms of imperialism installed. Revolutions
occur; people feel the intimate grip of new kinds of authority. Totalitarian societies rise, and are
smashed to bits - or succeed fabulously. After two centuries of ascendancy, capitalism is shown
up as only one way to make society into an industrial apparatus. After two centuries of hope,
even formal democracy is restricted to a quite small portion of mankind. Everywhere in the
underdeveloped world, ancient ways of life are broken up and vague expectations become urgent
demands. Everywhere in the overdeveloped world, the means of authority and of violence
become total in scope and bureaucratic in form. Humanity itself now lies before us, the super-
nation at either pole concentrating its most coordinated and massive efforts upon the preparation
of World War Three.

The very shaping of history now outpaces the ability of people to orient themselves in
accordance with cherished values. And which values? Even when they do not panic, people often
sense that older ways of feeling and thinking have collapsed and that newer beginnings are
ambiguous to the point of moral stasis. Is it any wonder that ordinary people feel they cannot
cope with the larger worlds with which they are so suddenly confronted? That they cannot
understand the meaning of their epoch for their own lives? That - in defense of selfhood - they
become morally insensible, trying to remain altogether private individuals? Is it any wonder that
they come to be possessed by a sense of the trap?

It is not only information that they need - in this Age of Fact, information often dominates their
attention and overwhelms their capacities to assimilate it. It is not only the skills of reason that
they need - although their struggles to acquire these often exhaust their limited moral energy.

What they need, and what they feel they need, is a quality of mind that will help them to use
information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in
the world and of what may be happening within themselves. It is this quality, I am going to
contend, that journalists and scholars, artists and publics, scientists and editors are coming to
expect of what may be called the sociological imagination.

The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in
terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It
enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often
become falsely conscious of their social positions. Within that welter, the framework of modern
society is sought, and within that framework the psychologies of a variety of men and women are
formulated. By such means the personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit
troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues.

The first fruit of this imagination - and the first lesson of the social science that embodies it - is
the idea that the individual can understand her own experience and gauge her own fate only by
locating herself within her period, that she can know her own chances in life only by becoming
aware of those of all individuals in her circumstances. In many ways it is a terrible lesson; in
many ways a magnificent one. We do not know the limits of humans capacities for supreme
effort or willing degradation, for agony or glee, for pleasurable brutality or the sweetness of
reason. But in our time we have come to know that the limits of 'human nature' are frighteningly
broad. We have come to know that every individual lives, from one generation to the next, in
some society; that he lives out a biography, and lives it out within some historical sequence. By
the fact of this living, he contributes, however minutely, to the shaping of this society and to the
course of its history, even as he is made by society and by its historical push and shove.

The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between
the two within society. That is its task and its promise. To recognize this task and this promise is
the mark of the classic social analyst. It is characteristic of Herbert Spencer - turgid, polysyllabic,
comprehensive; of E. A. Ross - graceful, muckraking, upright; of Auguste Comte and Emile
Durkheim; of the intricate and subtle Karl Mannheim. It is the quality of all that is intellectually
excellent in Karl Marx; it is the clue to Thorstein Veblen's brilliant and ironic insight, to Joseph
Schumpeter's many-sided constructions of reality; it is the basis of the psychological sweep of
W. E. H. Lecky no less than of the profundity and clarity of Max Weber. And it is the signal of
what is best in contemporary studies of people and society.

No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of their
intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey. Whatever the specific
problems of the classic social analysts, however limited or however broad the features of social
reality they have examined, those who have been imaginatively aware of the promise of their
work have consistently asked three sorts of questions:

(1) What is the structure of this particular society as a whole? What are its essential components,
and how are they related to one another? How does it differ from other varieties of social order?
Within it, what is the meaning of any particular feature for its continuance and for its change?

(2) Where does this society stand in human history? What are the mechanics by which it is
changing? What is its place within and its meaning for the development of humanity as a whole?
How does any particular feature we are examining affect, and how is it affected by, the historical
period in which it moves? And this period - what are its essential features? How does it differ
from other periods? What are its characteristic ways of history-making?

(3) What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And what
varieties are coming to prevail? In what ways are they selected and formed, liberated and
repressed, made sensitive and blunted? What kinds of `human nature' are revealed in the conduct
and character we observe in this society in this period? And what is the meaning for 'human
nature' of each and every feature of the society we are examining?

Whether the point of interest is a great power state or a minor literary mood, a family, a prison, a
creed - these are the kinds of questions the best social analysts have asked. They are the
intellectual pivots of classic studies of individuals in society - and they are the questions
inevitably raised by any mind possessing the sociological imagination. For that imagination is
the capacity to shift from one perspective to another - from the political to the psychological;
from examination of a single family to comparative assessment of the national budgets of the
world; from the theological school to the military establishment; from considerations of an oil
industry to studies of contemporary poetry. It is the capacity to range from the most impersonal
and remote transformations to the most intimate features of the human self - and to see the
relations between the two. Back of its use there is always the urge to know the social and
historical meaning of the individual in the society and in the period in which she has her quality
and her being.

That, in brief, is why it is by means of the sociological imagination that men and women now
hope to grasp what is going on in the world, and to understand what is happening in themselves
as minute points of the intersections of biography and history within society. In large part,
contemporary humanity's self-conscious view of itself as at least an outsider, if not a permanent
stranger, rests upon an absorbed realization of social relativity and of the transformative power
of history. The sociological imagination is the most fruitful form of this self-consciousness. By
its use people whose mentalities have swept only a series of limited orbits often come to feel as if
suddenly awakened in a house with which they had only supposed themselves to be familiar.
Correctly or incorrectly, they often come to feel that they can now provide themselves with
adequate summations, cohesive assessments, comprehensive orientations. Older decisions that
once appeared sound now seem to them products of a mind unaccountably dense. Their capacity
for astonishment is made lively again. They acquire a new way of thinking, they experience a
transvaluation of values: in a word, by their reflection and by their sensibility, they realize the
cultural meaning of the social sciences.

Perhaps the most fruitful distinction with which the sociological imagination works is between
'the personal troubles of milieu' and 'the public issues of social structure.' This distinction is an
essential tool of the sociological imagination and a feature of all classic work in social science.

Troubles occur within the character of the individual and within the range of his or her
immediate relations with others; they have to do with one's self and with those limited areas of
social life of which one is directly and personally aware. Accordingly, the statement and the
resolution of troubles properly lie within the individual as a biographical entity and within the
scope of one's immediate milieu - the social setting that is directly open to her personal
experience and to some extent her willful activity. A trouble is a private matter: values cherished
by an individual are felt by her to be threatened.

Issues have to do with matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the
range of her inner life. They have to do with the organization of many such milieu into the
institutions of an historical society as a whole, with the ways in which various milieux overlap
and interpenetrate to form the larger structure of social and historical life. An issue is a public
matter: some value cherished by publics is felt to be threatened. Often there is a debate about
what that value really is and about what it is that really threatens it. This debate is often without
focus if only because it is the very nature of an issue, unlike even widespread trouble, that it
cannot very well be defined in terms of the immediate and everyday environments of ordinary
people. An issue, in fact, often involves a crisis in institutional arrangements, and often too it
involves what Marxists call 'contradictions' or 'antagonisms.'
In these terms, consider unemployment. When, in a city of 100,000, only one is unemployed,
that is his personal trouble, and for its relief we properly look to the character of the individual,
his skills and his immediate opportunities. But when in a nation of 50 million employees, 15
million people are unemployed, that is an issue, and we may not hope to find its solution within
the range of opportunities open to any one individual. The very structure of opportunities has
collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem and the range of possible solutions require
us to consider the economic and political institutions of the society, and not merely the personal
situation and character of a scatter of individuals.

Consider war. The personal problem of war, when it occurs, may be how to survive it or how to
die in it with honor; how to make money out of it; how to climb into the higher safety of the
military apparatus; or how to contribute to the war's termination. In short, according to one's
values, to find a set of milieux and within it to survive the war or make one's death in it
meaningful. But the structural issues of war have to do with its causes; with what types of people
it throws up into command; with its effects upon economic and political, family and religious
institutions, with the unorganized irresponsibility of a world of nation-states.

Consider marriage. Inside a marriage a man and a woman may experience personal troubles, but
when the divorce rate during the first four years of marriage is 250 out of every 1,000 attempts,
this is an indication of a structural issue having to do with the institutions of marriage and the
family and other institutions that bear upon them.

Or consider the metropolis - the horrible, beautiful, ugly, magnificent sprawl of the great city.
For many members of the upperclass the personal solution to 'the problem of the city' is to have
an apartment with private garage under it in the heart of the city and forty miles out, a house by
Henry Hill, garden by Garrett Eckbo, on a hundred acres of private land. In these two controlled
environments - with a small staff at each end and a private helicopter connection - most people
could solve many of the problems of personal milieux caused by the facts of the city. But all this,
however splendid, does not solve the public issues that the structural fact of the city poses. What
should be done with this wonderful monstrosity? Break it all up into scattered units, combining
residence and work? Refurbish it as it stands? Or, after evacuation, dynamite it and build new
cities according to new plans in new places? What should those plans be? And who is to decide
and to accomplish whatever choice is made? These are structural issues; to confront them and to
solve them requires us to consider political and economic issues that affect innumerable milieux.

In so far as an economy is so arranged that slumps occur, the problem of unemployment

becomes incapable of personal solution. In so far as war is inherent in the nation-state system
and in the uneven industrialization of the world, the ordinary individual in her restricted milieu
will be powerless - with or without psychiatric aid - to solve the troubles this system or lack of
system imposes upon him. In so far as the family as an institution turns women into darling little
slaves and men into their chief providers and unweaned dependents, the problem of a satisfactory
marriage remains incapable of purely private solution. In so far as the overdeveloped
megalopolis and the overdeveloped automobile are built-in features of the overdeveloped
society, the issues of urban living will not be solved by personal ingenuity and private wealth.
What we experience in various and specific milieux, I have noted, is often caused by structural
changes. Accordingly, to understand the changes of many personal milieux we are required to
look beyond them. And the number and variety of such structural changes increase as the
institutions within which we live become more embracing and more intricately connected with
one another. To be aware of the idea of social structure and to use it with sensibility is to be
capable of tracing such linkages among a great variety of milieux. To be able to do that is to
possess the sociological imagination.

What are the major issues for publics and the key troubles of private individuals in our time? To
formulate issues and troubles, we must ask what values are cherished yet threatened, and what
values are cherished and supported, by the characterizing trends of our period. In the case both of
threat and of support we must ask what salient contradictions of structure may be involved.

When people cherish some set of values and do not feel any threat to them, they experience well-
being. When they cherish values but do feel them to be threatened, they experience a crisis -
either as a personal trouble or as a public issue. And if all their values seem involved, they feel
the total threat of panic.

But suppose people are neither aware of any cherished values nor experience any threat? That is
the experience of indifference, which, if it seems to involve all their values, becomes apathy.
Suppose, finally, they are unaware of any cherished values, but still are very much aware of a
threat? That is the experience of uneasiness, of anxiety, which, if it is total enough, becomes a
deadly unspecified malaise.

Ours is a time of uneasiness and indifference - not yet formulated in such ways as to permit the
work of reason and the play of sensibility. Instead of troubles - defined in terms of values and
threats - there is often the misery of vague uneasiness; instead of explicit issues there is often
merely the beat feeling that all is somehow not right. Neither the values threatened nor whatever
threatens them has been stated; in short, they have not been carried to the point of decision.
Much less have they been formulated as problems of social science.

In the thirties there was little doubt - except among certain deluded business circles that there
was an economic issue which was also a pack of personal troubles. In these arguments about 'the
crisis of capitalism,' the formulations of Marx and the many unacknowledged reformulations of
his work probably set the leading terms of the issue, and some people came to understand their
personal troubles in these terms. The values threatened were plain to see and cherished by all, the
structural contradictions that threatened them also seemed plain. Both were widely and deeply
experienced. It was a political age.

But the values threatened in the era after World War Two are often neither widely acknowledged
as values nor widely felt to be threatened. Much private uneasiness goes unformulated; much
public malaise and many decisions of enormous structural relevance never become public issues.
For those who accept such inherited values as reason and freedom, it is the uneasiness itself that
is the trouble; it is the indifference itself that is the issue. And it is this condition, of uneasiness
and indifference, that is the signal feature of our period.

All this is so striking that it is often interpreted by observers as a shift in the very kinds of
problems that need now to be formulated. We are frequently told that the problems of our
decade, or even the crises of our period, have shifted from the external realm of economics and
now have to do with the quality of individual life - in fact with the question of whether there is
soon going to be anything that can properly be called individual life. Not child labor but comic
books, not poverty but mass leisure, are at the center of concern. Many great public issues as
well as many private troubles are described in terms of 'the psychiatric' - often, it seems, in a
pathetic attempt to avoid the large issues and problems of modern society. Often this statement
seems to rest upon a provincial narrowing of interest to the Western societies, or even to the
United States - thus ignoring two-thirds of mankind; often, too, it arbitrarily divorces the
individual life from the larger institutions within which that life is enacted, and which on
occasion bear upon it more grievously than do the intimate environments of childhood.

Problems of leisure, for example, cannot even be stated without considering problems of work.
Family troubles over comic books cannot be formulated as problems without considering the
plight of the contemporary family in its new relations with the newer institutions of the social
structure. Neither leisure nor its debilitating uses can be understood as problems without
recognition of the extent to which malaise and indifference now form the social and personal
climate of contemporary American society. In this climate, no problems of 'the private life' can
be stated and solved without recognition of the crisis of ambition that is part of the very career of
people at work in the incorporated economy.

It is true, as psychoanalysts continually point out, that people do often have 'the increasing sense
of being moved by obscure forces within themselves which they are unable to define.' But it is
not true, as Ernest Jones asserted, that 'man's [SIC] chief enemy and danger is his [SIC] own
unruly nature and the dark forces pent up within him [SIC].' On the contrary: 'man's chief danger'
today lies in the unruly forces of contemporary society itself, with its alienating methods of
production, its enveloping techniques of political domination, its international anarchy - in a
word, its pervasive transformations of the very 'nature' of human beings and the conditions and
aims of their life.

It is now the social scientist's foremost political and intellectual task - for here the two coincide -
to make clear the elements of contemporary uneasiness and indifference. It is the central demand
made upon her by other cultural workers - by physical scientists and artists, by the intellectual
community in general. It is because of this task and these demands, I believe, that the social
sciences are becoming the common denominator of our cultural period, and the sociological
imagination our most needed quality of mind.
The Sociological Imagination
An Overview of the Book by C. Wright Mills
From Ashley Crossman, former About.com Guide

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The Sociological Imagination is a book written by sociologist C. Wright Mills in 1959. His goal in writing
this book was to try to reconcile two different and abstract concepts of social reality – the "individual"
and "society." In doing so, Mills challenged the dominant sociological discourse and critiqued some of
the most basic terms and definitions.
While Mills’ work was not well received at the time as a result of his professional and personal
reputation, The Sociological Imagination is still one of the most widely read sociology books
today and is a staple of undergraduate sociology courses.

Mills spends the beginning of the book aggressively attacking current (at the time) trends in
sociology and then goes on to explain sociology as he sees it: a necessary political and historical
profession. He lays the groundwork for an ideal social science in his mind. Without reproducing
the entirety of his book, it would be impossible to adequately relate his framework. The most
basic and important points here are keeping an eye to history and to agency, and avoiding strict
adherence to any one methodology or any one theory. He also urges social scientists to work
within the field as a whole rather than specializing heavily in sociology, political science,
economics, psychology, etc. Mills imagines the human being as both a creature and an agent of
the individual's milieu as well as of history. This is a key concept, which is often overlooked in
social science.

The Sociological Imagination As A Concept

In The Sociological Imagination, Mills coined the same famous phrase, which is used throughout
sociology today. The sociological imagination is the concept of being able to “think ourselves
away” from the familiar routines of our daily lives in order to look at them anew. Mills defined
sociological imagination as “the vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the
wider society.” It is the ability to see things socially and how they interact and influence each
other. To have a sociological imagination, a person must be able to pull away from the situation
and think from an alternative point of view.

Example Of Applying The Sociological Imagination

We can apply the concept of the sociological imagination to any behavior. Take the simple act of
drinking a cup of coffee for example. We could argue that coffee is not just a drink, but rather it
has symbolic value as part of day-to-day social rituals. Often the ritual of drinking coffee is
much more important than the act of consuming the coffee itself. For example, two people who
meet “to have coffee” together are probably more interested in meeting and chatting than in what
they drink. In all societies, eating and drinking are occasions for social interaction and the
performance of rituals, which offer a great deal of subject matter for sociological study.

A second dimension to a cup of coffee has to do with its use as a drug. Coffee contains caffeine,
which is a drug that has stimulating effects on the brain. For many, this is the reason why they
drink coffee. It is interesting sociologically to question why coffee addicts are not considered
drug users in Western cultures while they might be in other cultures. Like alcohol, coffee is a
socially acceptable drug whereas marijuana is not. In other cultures, however, marijuana use is
tolerated, but both coffee and alcohol use are frowned upon.

Still a third dimension to a cup of coffee is tied to social and economic relationships. The
growing, packaging, distributing, and marketing of coffee are global enterprises that affect many
cultures, social groups, and organizations within those cultures. These things often take place
thousands of miles away from the coffee drinker. Many aspects of our lives are now affected by
worldwide trading exchanges and communications and studying these global transactions is
important to sociologists.

A fourth dimension to a cup of coffee relates to past social and economic development. The
coffee relationships currently set in motion were not always there. Like tea, bananas, potatoes,
and sugar, coffee only became widely consumed after the nineteenth century. These relationships
developed gradually, and might well break down in the future due to change.

Possibilities For The Future

There is another aspect to the sociological imagination which Mills discussed in his book and
which he laid the most emphasis, which is our possibilities for the future. Sociology not only
helps us analyze current and existing patterns of social life, but it also helps us to see some of the
possible futures open to us. Through the sociological imagination, we can see not only what is
the case, but also what could become the case should we desire to make it that way.

References

Giddens, A. (1991). Introduction to Sociology. New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company.
Chapter 02 - Sociological Imagination
Seeing the Social World in A New Light: Personal & Larger Social

The average person lives too narrow a life to get a clear and concise understanding of today’s
complex social world. Our daily lives are spent among friends and family; at work and at play.
We spend many hours watching TV and surfing the Internet. No way can one person grasp the
big picture from their relatively isolated lives. There are thousands of communities, millions of
interpersonal interactions, billions of Internet information sources, and countless trends that
transpire without many of us even knowing they exist. What can we do to make sense of it all?

When I learned of the sociological imagination by Mills, I realized that it gives us a framework
for understanding our social world that far surpasses any common sense notion we might derive
from our limited social experiences. C. Wright Mills (1916-1962) was a contemporary
sociologist who brought tremendous insight into the daily lives of society’s members. Mills
stated that “neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without
understanding both" (Mills, C. W. 1959. The Sociological Imagination page ii; Oxford U.
Press). Mills identified “Troubles” (personal challenges) and "Issues" (Larger social challenges)
that are key principles for providing us with a framework for really wrapping our minds around
many of the hidden social processes that transpire in an almost invisible manner in today’s
societies. Before we discuss personal troubles and larger social issues let’s define a social fact.

Social Facts are social processes rooted in society rather than in the individual. Émile Durkheim
(1858-1917, France) studied the “science of social facts” in an effort to identify social
correlations and ultimately social laws designed to make sense of how modern societies worked
given that they became increasingly diverse and complex(see Émile Durkheim, The Rules of the
Sociological Method, (Edited by Steven Lukes; translated by W.D. Halls). New York: Free
Press, 1982, pp. 50-59). See the Sociological Imagination diagram below.

The national cost of a gallon of gas, the War in the Middle East, the repressed economy, the
trend of having too few females in the 18-24 year old singles market, and the ever-increasing
demand for plastic surgery are just a few of the social facts at play today. Social facts are
typically outside of the control of average people. They occur in the complexities of modern
society and impact us, but we rarely find a way to significantly impact them back. This is
because, as Mills taught, we live much of our lives on the personal level and much of society
happens at the larger social level. Without knowledge of the larger social and personal levels of
social experiences, we live in what Mills called a False Social Conscious which is an ignorance
of social facts and the larger social picture.

Personal troubles are private problems experienced within the character of the individual and the
range of their immediate relation to others. Mills identified the fact that we function in our
personal lives as actors and actresses who make choices about our friends, family, groups, work,
school, and other issues within our control. A college student who parties 4 nights out of 7, who
rarely attends class, and who never does his homework has a personal trouble that interferes with
his odds of success in college. On the other hand, when 50 percent of all college students in the
country never graduate, we call that a larger social issue.
Larger Social Issues are those that lie beyond one's personal control and the range of one's inner
life. These pertain to society's organizations and processes. These are rooted in society rather
than in the individual. Nationwide, students come to college as freshmen ill-prepared to
understand the rigors of college life. They haven’t often been challenged enough in high school
to make the necessary adjustments required to succeed as college students. Nationwide, the
average teenager text messages, surfs the net, plays video or online games, hangs out at the mall,
watches tv and movies, spends hours each day with friends, and works at least part-time. Where
and when would he or she get experience focusing attention on college studies and the rigors of
self-discipline required to transition into college credits, a quarter or a semester, studying,
papers, projects, field trips, group work, or test taking.

Figure 1. Diagram of the Seven Social Institutions and the Sociological Imagination

© 2005 Ron J. Hammond, Ph.D.

In a survey conducted each year by the US Census Bureau, findings suggest that, in 2006, the US
had about 84 percent of the population who graduated high school. They also found that only 27
percent had a bachelors degree. Given the numbers of Freshmen students enrolling in college, the
percentage with a bachelors degree should be closer to 50 percent.

The majority of college first year students drop out, because nationwide we have a deficit in the
preparation and readiness of Freshmen attending college and a real disconnect in their ability to
connect to college in such a way that they feel they belong to it. In fact, college dropouts are an
example of both a larger social issue and personal trouble. Thousands of studies and millions of
dollars have been spent on how to increase a Freshman student’s odds of success in college
(graduating with a 4-year degree). There are millions of dollars worth of grant money awarded
each year to help retain college students. Interestingly, almost all of the grants are targeted in
such a way that a specific college can create a specific program to help each individual student
stay in college and graduate.

The real power of the sociological imagination is found in how you and I learn to distinguish
between the personal and social levels in our own lives. Once we do, we can make personal
choices that serve us best, given the larger social forces that we face. In 1991, I graduated with
my Ph.D. and found myself in a very competitive job market for University professor/researcher.
positions. With hundreds of my own job applications out there, I kept finishing second or third
and was losing out to 10 year veteran professors who applied for entry level jobs. I looked
carefully at the job market, keeping in mind my deep interest in teaching, the struggling
economy, and my sense of urgency in obtaining a salary and benefits. I came to the decision to
switch my job search focus from university research to college teaching positions. Again, the
competition was intense. On my 301st job application (that’s not an exaggeration),I interviewed
and beat out 47 other candidates for my current position. In this case, knowing and seeing the
larger social troubles that impacted my success or failure helped in finding a position. Because
of the Sociological Imagination, I was empowered because I understood the larger social job
market ,and was able to best situate myself within it.

Making Sense of Divorce Using the Sociological Imagination

Let’s apply the sociological imagination to something most students are deeply concerned
about—divorce. Are there larger social and personal factors that will impact your own risk of
divorce? Yes. In spite of the fact that 223,000,000 people are married in the U.S., divorce
continues to be a very common occurrence (see http://www.Census.gov ). Divorce happens and
since millions of us (me included) had our parent’s divorce, we are especially concerned about
the success of our own marriage.

What’s in the larger social picture? Estimates for the U.S. suggest that 85 percent of us will
marry (Popenoe, D. 2007 in 5 June, 2008 from
http://marriage.rutgers.edu/Publications/SOOU/TEXTSOOU2007.htm ). Yet, so many of us feel
tremendous anxiety about marriage. Consider the marriage and divorce rates in Table 1
below. The first thing you notice is that both have been declining since 1990. The second thing
you notice is that the ratio of marriages to divorces is consistently 2 marriages to 1 divorce
(2:1). To point out, the divorce and marriage rates in Table 1 are called Crude Divorce and
Crude Marriage rates because they compare the divorces and marriages to everyone in the
population for a given year, even though children and others have virtually no risk of either
marrying or divorcing.

Table 1: Comparison of US Marriages/1,000 Persons to Divorces/1,000 Persons 1990, 2000, and

2005*

1990 Rates 2000 Rates 2005 Rates 3-year Average

US Marriages 9.8/1,000 8.3/1,000 7.5/1,000 8.5/1,000

US Divorces 4.7/1,000 4.1/1,000 3.6/1,000 4.1/1,000

US Ratio of Marriages to Divorces 2:1 2:1 2:1 2:1

*Statistical Abstracts online: Table 121. Marriages and Divorces—Number and Rate by State:
1990 to 2005 Taken from the Internet on 5 June, 2008 from
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/births_deaths_marriages_divorces.html

Does sociology provide personal and larger social insight into what we can do to have a good
marriage and avoid divorce? Absolutely! However; before we discuss these, lets set the record
straight. There never was a 1 in 2 chance of getting divorced in the U.S. ( see
http://www.Rutgers.edu the National Marriage Project, 2004 “The State of Our Unions” or
Kalman Heller “The Myth of the High Rate of Divorce taken from Internet 5 June, 2008 from
http://www.isnare.com/?aid=217950&ca=Marriage ). Divorce rates peaked in the 1980’s and
have steadily declined since then (See Figure 1 below). Even though all married people are at
risk of divorce, most of them will not face this reality. Many studies have consistently shown
exactly how our personal choices and behaviors can actually minimize our chances of
divorce. Here’s a brief summary:

-Wait to marry until you reach your mid-20’s. Teens who marry have the highest risk of divorce

(see Center for Disease Control “First Marriage

Dissolution, Divorce, and Remarriage: United States taken from Internet 5 July, 2008 from
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad323.pdf ).

-Avoid cohabitation if you plan to ever marry. While cohabitation is on the rise in the U.S., it is
still associated with higher risks of divorce once one is married. Numerous studies have
rigorously researched the impact of having cohabited on the odds of marital success. (see Lisa
Mincieli and Kristin Moore, "The Relationship Context of Births Outside of Marriage: The Rise
of Cohabitation," Child Trends Research Brief 2007-13 (May 2007); or Matthew D. Bramlett
and William D. Mosher, Cohabitation, Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage in the United States,
National Center for Health Statistics, Vital and Health Statistics, 23 (22), 2002; Or Larry
Bumpass and Hsien-Hen Lu, "Trends in Cohabitation and Implications for Children’s Family
Contexts in the U. S.," Population Studies 54 (2000): 29-41; or Jay Teachman, "Premarital Sex,
Premarital Cohabitation, and the Risk of Subsequent Marital Disruption among Women," Journal
of Marriage and the Family 65 (2003): 444-455.

-Finish college. College graduates divorce less then dropouts or high school graduates (see
http://mtsu32.mtsu.edu:11422/315/adultdiv/divfactos.html ).

-Be aware of the three-strike issue: Strike 1, you are poor; Strike 2, you are a teenager when you
marry; and Strike 3, you are pregnant when you marry. These issues could prove to be a
terminal combination of risk factors as far as staying married is concerned. These three in
combination with others listed below may increase your risk of divorce.

-Know which factors you can control that will likely impact your marital success odds. Other
scientifically identified divorce risk factors include: high personal debt; falling out of love; not
proactively maintaining your marital relationship; marrying someone who has little in common
with you; infidelity; remaining mentally “on the marriage market…waiting for someone better to
come along,” having parents who divorced; neither preparing for nor managing the stresses that
come with raising children, and divorcing because the marriage appears unhappy and hopeless in
terms of resolving negative issues ( see Glenn, N. 1991 “Recent trends in Marital Success in the
US” May, J. of Marriage and the Family, pages 261-270). Often couples on the fringe of divorce
later emerge from those states of unhappiness and hopelessness with renewed happiness and
hope, by simply enduring the difficult years together.

In all of these factors listed above you can decide how to best situate yourself to deal with the
certain issues before divorce becomes the ultimate outcome. But, as Mills taught, you must
consider both personal and larger social issues simultaneously to fully benefit from the
sociological imagination. It is true that divorce is still very common in the U.S. Notice the peak
on this figure found in the 1980s, and the trend (at least up to the most recent 2005 data) shows a
slightly decreased pattern since then.

Figure 2: United States Historical Data-Divorce Trends 1920-2005 *

*US. Bureau of the Census Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970,
Bicentennial Edition, Part 2; Washington, D.C., 1975Series B 216-220 “Divorce 1920-1970 and
Statistical Abstracts of the United States 2001 Page 87 Table 117 and 2002 Page 88 Table 111.

What are some of the larger social factors that have historically contributed to these patterns of
divorce? You’ll notice a brief spike in divorce after World War II. The post-war year, 1946,
was a true anomaly as far as rates measuring the family are concerned. It was the highest rate of
marriages, highest rate of births (The Baby Boom began in 1946), and the lowest median age at
marriage in U.S. history. Divorce rates surged in 1946 as all the soldiers returned home having
been changed by the trauma, isolation from their families, and challenges of the war. They were
probably less compatible with their wives once they came back. Divorces tended to follow wars
for marriages where one spouse is deployed into combat (WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Kuwait,
and Iraq).

Other factors influencing this divorce pattern have to do with the economy, marriage market, and
other factors. Divorces continue to be high during economic prosperity and often decline during
economic hardships. Divorces tend to be higher if there is an abundance of single women in the
society. And divorces tend to be more common in: urban rather than rural areas; the Western US
than in the Eastern; among the poor, less educated, remarried, less religiously devout, and
children of divorce. Please note that recession, war, secularism, and western US cultures don’t
cause divorce. Scientists have never identified a “cause” for divorce. But, they have clearly
identified risk factors.

Could there be larger social factors pressuring your marriage right now? Yes, but you are
probably not enslaved to those forces. They still impact you, and you can follow Mill’s ideas
and manage as best you can within your power concerning consequences of these forces. What
can you do about it? Well, if you are single, you’d best situate yourself in terms of marital
success by waiting to marry until you are in your 20’s, finishing and graduating from college,
paying careful attention to finding the right person (especially one with common values similar
to your own), and doing some sort of self-analysis to assess working proactively to nurture your
marriage relationship on an ongoing basis. Finding counseling to help mediate the influence of
your parents' divorce on your current marital relationship can also be helpful. If you are married
and things appear to hit a wall, consider counseling, consulting with other couples, and reading
self-help books. Often the insurmountable walls that couples face in marriage slowly collapse
with time and concerted effort.

Years ago, a colleague and I wrote a self-assessment to help students identify the personal
divorce risks so that they could strategize what to do when faced with those risks. Take 10
minutes and learn what you can about your own divorce risks. (also take the time to
watch another example of the Sociological Imagination in the case of W. E. B. Du Bois below).

Divorce Risks Assessment Questionaire PDF

One last note about the Sociological Imagination. One of my personal heroes is W.E.B. Du
Bois. He was the first black Harvard Graduate, the first to scientifically analyze U.S. blacks (See
The Philadelphia Negro), and one of the most prolific Sociological writers ever. Watch my short
lecture video on how the Sociological Imagination helps us to understand the personal lives of
this hero, and think about the tragedy that could have been had he grown up in the U.S. Southern
states instead of in Massachusetts.