Sociological Imagination by C.

Wright Mills

Milieux
Milieux: French; English: milieu; Surroundings esp. your social or cultural. The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography while trying to understand the relations between the two in society. An individuals biography in relationship to their social and economic history (culturally contingent context) must be deeply understood; this is using the sociological imagination. Socio-Economic Status (SES) An individuals place at birthparents status , i.e., class, caste, race/ethnicity, religion, sex, gender, etc. Understanding your personal biography (Narrative) in relationship to what is happening in the world around you; the way the two intersect must be understood in order for a person make wise choices about their future.

Personal Troubles v. Social Problems (Issues)

Personal troubles occur within the character of the individual and within the range of their immediate relations with others; they have to do with themselves and with those limited areas of the social life of which they are directly and personally aware. Accordingly, the statement and the resolution of the troubles properly lie within the individual as a biographic entity and within the scope of their immediate milieu. A trouble is a private matter: values cherished by an individual are felt by them to be threatened.

Social Problems (Issues)

Social Problems (Issues) have to do with matters that transcend those local environments of the individual and the range of the inner life. They have to do with the organization of many milieux 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. EX. A young couple gets married in a society where 1 in 2 marriages end in divorce if their marriage ends in divorce is that a personal trouble or a social issue? What about a society where the divorce rate is very low and the couple ends up getting a divorce is that a personal trouble or a social issue?

WHO IS WHO IN SOCIOLOGY?

Auguste Comte (1798-1857): Patriarch of sociology; wanted to study society empirically; and formulated the three phases of society hypothesis: Theological Stage: Authority and knowledge have a religious or supernatural origin. Metaphysical Stage: The stage where society is in between the Theological and Positivistic Stage Positivistic Stage: Authority and knowledge have an empirical or scientific originno supernatural explanation accepted as valid.

Origins of Structural-Functionalism
Emile Durkheim (1858-1917): Suicide Study which put sociology on the academic map. Herbert Spencer(1820-1903): Compared society to the human body; influenced by Darwins theory of evolution, coined the phrase, survival of the fittest, and wrote the first text book on sociology. Robert Merton (1910-2003) conceived that function of structures may be many and he created three basic categories to reflect that hypothesis: 1) Manifest functions: the recognized and intended consequences of any social pattern: 2) Latent Function: the unrecognized and unintended consequences of any social pattern; 3) Dysfunction: any social pattern that may disrupt the operation of society.

Structural-Functionalism
A macro-level orientation, concerned with broad patterns that shape society as a whole. Views society as a complex system whose parts work together to promote stability and solidarity. KEY ELEMENTS Social structure refers to any relatively stable patterns of social behavior found in social institutions. Social Functions refers to the consequences of these stable patterns (structures, i.e., institutions) for the operation of society as a whole.

Whos Who in Social-Conflict Perspective

Karl Marx (c.1820-1883): The father of conflict-theory wanted to put power into the hands of the workers. The philosophers have interpreted the world , in various ways, however, the point is to change it. W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963) The first Black American to graduate from Harvard University; one of the founders of the Niagara Movement that led to the formation of the NAACP; the founder of Pan-Africanism; championed the talented-tenth; and became a critic of American society and went to Ghana where he died in 1963.

SOCIAL-CONFLICT PERSPECTIVE
A macro-oriented approach paradigm Views society as an arena of inequality that generates conflict and social change KEY ELEMENTS Society is structured in ways to benefit a few at the expense of the many. Factors such as race/ethnicity, sex, class, and age are linked to social inequality. Dominant group vs. minority group relations. Incompatible interests and major differences

Whos Who in Symbolic-Interactionism?

Max Weber: Understanding the setting from the people in it. George Herbert Mead:How we build personalities from social experience. The self is composed of the I and the Me. Erving Goffman: Stigma and Dramaturgical Analysis George Hamans and Peter Blau:Socialexchange analysis

SYMBOLIC-INTERACTION PERSPECTIVE
A micro-level orientation, a close-up focus on social interaction in specific situations. Views society as the product of everyday interactions of individuals KEY ELEMENTS Society is nothing more than the shared reality that people construct as they interact with one another. Society is a complex, ever changing mosaic of subjective meaning.

Feminist Perspective
Harriet Martineaux: Translated Durkheims work from French to English Jane Addams: Founder of Hull House in Chicago and member of the Chicago School Simon de Beauvoir: The Second Sex within which she emphasized the importance of economic equality for women. She said women were considered to be other. Betty Freidan: The Feminine Mystique: The origins of the modern feminist movement Gloria Steinem: Expose of Playboys exploitation of their Bunnies. Wrote: Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellion