Download The Sociological Imagination

The Sociological Imagination
Chapter 1
Jeff Manza, Lynne Haney,
and Richard Arum
THE BIG QUESTIONS
• How can a sociological imagination help
you better understand your world?
• Why do social contexts matter?
• Where did sociology come from, and how
is it different from the other social
sciences?
• How can this book help you develop a
sociological imagination?
QUESTION 1
How can a sociological imagination help you
better understand your world?
Looking through a Sociological Lens
Sociological imagination
• Capacity to think systematically about how many things we
experience as personal problems (C. Wright Mills 1959)
Social networks
• Ties between people, groups, and organizations
Globalization
• Increased flow of goods, money, ideas, and people across
national borders
Challenging Stereotypes
Sociological imagination
• Challenges our basic impulses to see
aspects of life as inevitable or natural
• Provides insight into stereotyping and active
discrimination
• Facilitates more active and effective
participation in the world around us
Engaging Our Sociological Imaginations
Learning to ask good question
• Ability to ask hard questions instead of
accepting easily available answers is
hallmark of sociological imagination
How are these sociological questions
formed?
Let’s talk about an example
Forming Sociological Questions
• Why does the richest country in the world
have so many people living in poverty—far
more than other, less wealthy countries?
Forming Sociological Questions
Arum and Roksa (2011)
• Tracked young adults’ progress through diverse
colleges and universities and beyond
• Revealed different college experiences and different
postgraduate paths
• Found slightly more than a third of students
demonstrated no significant improvement on
general skills test
What questions would sociologists pose to understand
the above findings?
Forming Sociological Questions
What types of questions are sociologists
particularly well equipped to explore?
Here are four to consider:
• How do students’ lives before college shape their
experiences in college?
• How do the social organizations of college life shape
students; experiences?
• Does the experience of college benefit everyone
equally?
• How are students’ college paths shaped by the larger
labor markets awaiting students upon graduation?
Forming Sociological Questions
Here are questions that
directly affect YOU!
• What kind of jobs are recent college graduates
getting?
• How are students’ college paths shaped by the
larger labor markets awaiting students upon
graduation?
The Endless Reach of the Sociological Imagination
Immanuel Wallerstein
• Mapping development of a world economy
Troy Duster (1990)
• Political and economic ramifications of DNA research (i.e.,
race)
Harvey Molotch and colleagues (2010)
• Various aspects of popular culture
Colin Jerolmack (2013)
• Communication between pigeons and humans
Can you think of other examples?
The Endless Reach of the Sociological Imagination
What about exposure to violence?
• Living in a high-crime neighborhood increases
stress levels and is harmful to children in many
ways
• See Sharkey’s research findings later in the
chapter
QUESTION 2
Why do social contexts matter?
Individual Lives Unfold in Contexts
• Immediate family, parent educational level, and
income
• Neighborhood and community
• Education
• Types of organizations available and accessed
• Type of employment
• Country of birth
• Historical period at birth
How Do Our Families Shape Our Social Development?
Families as Context
• Give racial, ethnic, and religious identities
• Teach basic rules of society
• Provide first social networks
• Influence education and cognitive capacities
through life-long interactions
• Help in later life
How Do Our Communities Shape Our Social
Development?
Pat Sharkey
• Groundbreaking research on link between
neighborhood violence and children’s school
performance
• Demonstrates how violence can be absorbed by
and transmitted through neighborhood contexts
• Highlights how children, who are perhaps the most
vulnerable to such exposure, experience their
effects at school as well as home
How Do the Organizations and Institutions We Are
a Part of Help Us Form Our Identities?
Organizations and Institutions as Context
• Kinds of groups joined and contacts formed
create variety of opportunities
• Participation in organizations shape personal
and public identities available to us
What do you think?
Can our racial identity can change according
to the kind of institutions where we are
connected?
How Do the Organizations and Institutions We Are a Part
of Help Us Form Our Identities?
Would it be the same today as then?
• 1910 African American male in South
• 1940s child from Detroit working-class
family
• 1950s woman entering adulthood
Sociology as the Study of Social Contexts
Sociology
• Involves study of the diverse contexts
within which society influences individuals
• Distinguishes between social interaction
and social structure
QUESTION 3
Where did sociology come from, and how is
it different from the other social sciences?
Sociology’s Historical Context: Great Thinkers and Schools
Comte (1798-1859)
• Coined term sociology
Veblen (1857-1929)
Commons (1862-1945)
• Economics and sociology
Smith (1723-1790)
Marx (1818-1883)
• Philosophy and economic
relations
Durkheim (1858-1917)
• Father or sociology
• First European Sociology
Department and major
European journal of
sociology
University of Chicago
• First U.S. Sociology
Department
Sociology’s Historical Context
Industrialization
• Growth of factories and large-scale goods production
• New technologies and innovations
• Immense social changes
• Different approaches needed
Urbanization
• Growth of cities in late nineteenth century in U.S.,
Europe, and elsewhere
• Shift from agriculture to manufacturing
• Problems were markedly different
• New type of political challenge, including social
movements
Sociology’s Family: Siblings
How does sociology differ from other
social sciences?
• Concepts and theories cover wider range of
topics
• Explanations of how the external world shapes
behaviors of individuals and social outcomes are
broader
How is Sociology Different?
How we see a community or social setting
is shaped by what vantage point we use.
• Different levels
• Different units of analysis
• Wider range of connections than other social
sciences
Do you know ways in which sociology differs
from other social sciences?
Sociology’s Children
What are some of the spin-off fields that
originally started in sociology?
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Criminology
Gender Studies
African American Studies
Latino/a Studies
Organizational or Management Studies
Question 5
How can this book help you to develop a
sociological imagination?
Goal for this Book:
• To provide background on key areas and research findings
for the development of your own sociological imagination
• To facilitate an understanding how individuals’ lives are
embedded in social contexts that are not always of their
own choosing
• To develop an appreciation of how personal issues that
individuals face often can be understood as larger social
problems facing society
• To convey the idea that sociology as a discipline is a project