Socioraptor

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The sociological imagination is like putting on a pair on sunglasses, you imagine yourself looking through and understanding someone else’s perspective.

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Personal trouble: Individual choice

Social issue: Social context

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How Do Social Forces Create Problems?

Structures: 

-culture, education 

(system that influences our everyday lives)

Practices:

-social norm, media, social beliefs

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Personal Trouble VS. Social Issue

Personal Trouble: Stops/starts with the individual

Social Issue: Stops/starts with society

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Musular Empathy

To ask why this is happening 

To take your morals out of the situation

Being objective

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We do not notice all of the social forces and structures that shape our daily lives. (Ex: does the fish know it’s in water?)

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Society assigns meaning and value to biological and physical realities (Ex: pet or food)

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Social beliefs and ideas influence our decisions and ideas. (Ex: “fancy”, white wedding dresses)

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Historical events shape our current existence and experiences. (Ex: family immigration)

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Food

All of us need food, it’s a basic necessity. Food also has a social meaning, more than just a biological meaning. We consider food to be part of our identity. Food is a personal thing, but they aren’t always. People in America eat foods such as pizza, burgers, and pretzels. These foods are considered normal and tasty to people. When Americans see scorpions or grasshoppers, they don’t see it as something they would typically eat, but other people in the world do. For example, people in Asia have more of these insect food options. People in their country definitely have their own preference of what they’d like to eat and don’t like to eat. The range of choices we have are often connected in the society to which we live in. Another social problem that is associated with food would be is how hungry we are. If a country is going through an economic trouble, the foods we once thought were gross, becomes tasty in time of need.

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Unemployment

If you lose your job, you’re likely to think of that as a personal problem. It’s a personal problem that you don’t have a job. When you look around and see millions of other people going through the same thing for similar reasons. You then start to realize that personal private concern is actually a small part of a much larger issue. Personal issues are the result of social issues.

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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.

C. Wright Mills

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what is the sociological imagination?

it enables its possessor to understand the the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and external career for a variety of individuals.