Sociological imagination is the awareness of the relationship between an individual and the wider society. Similar to that in psychology of having a metacognitive thinking skill, sociological imagination is where an individual must think outside of their societies restraints and into a much wider view of a larger society. C. Wright Mills explains that the term means the ability to view one’s own society as an outsider would, rather than only from the perspective of personal experiences and cultural biases (Schaefer, 2014). Without sociological imagination it would be more difficult to understand communities and how certain smaller cases work like divorces. People with sociological imagination are able to understand and research how certain
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The first theory is named functionalism, due to the fact that the perspective is to emphasize the way in which the parts of a society are structured to maintain stability (Schaefer, 2014). This differs from the conflict theory since the conflict perspective is used to assume that social behavior is best understood in terms of tension between groups. Functionalism and conflict theory could both be described as macrosociology since both perspectives look at large communities instead of small groups. An example of microsociology would be the symbolic interactionism which is a sociological framework in which human beings are viewed as living in a world of meaningful objects (Schaefer, 2014). Examples of “objects” would include relationships, symbols and material things; further examples would be showing respect with a salute, and raising the middle finger for an insult or to show disrespect. Since symbolic interactionism is a study of objects, it can be classified as microsociology since objects are used by individuals, not large communities. Out of all the three major perspectives, they all have one thing in common and that is each one involves the society in some aspect. Whether it be large communities or small towns, sociology covers a full array of
The first theory is named functionalism, due to the fact that the perspective is to emphasize the way in which the parts of a society are structured to maintain stability (Schaefer, 2014). This differs from the conflict theory since the conflict perspective is used to assume that social behavior is best understood in terms of tension between groups. Functionalism and conflict theory could both be described as macrosociology since both perspectives look at large communities instead of small groups. An example of microsociology would be the symbolic interactionism which is a sociological framework in which human beings are viewed as living in a world of meaningful objects (Schaefer, 2014). Examples of “objects” would include relationships, symbols and material things; further examples would be showing respect with a salute, and raising the middle finger for an insult or to show disrespect. Since symbolic interactionism is a study of objects, it can be classified as microsociology since objects are used by individuals, not large communities. Out of all the three major perspectives, they all have one thing in common and that is each one involves the society in some aspect. Whether it be large communities or small towns, sociology covers a full array of