Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Sociological Imagination

Another important concept of today's lecture is the concept of the Sociological Imagination. This refers to the capacity to discover how social outcomes emerge from:

-social contexts

-the people involved

-what those people do

-how they do it

The sociological imagination allows people to begin to understand the relationships between macro-level forces and the actions of groups or individuals.


An example might be looking at the issue of poverty in a city like Athens. Using the sociological imagination, we can step back from the problem and analyze it.

Are city policies causing a lack of jobs? What about federal government policies? How might other institutions such as family and education affect the situation?

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