According to C. Wright Mills, sociological imagination is how our external influences become part of our thinking and motivation. The ability to grasp history and biography, meaning location and orientation to life, is sociological imagination. The main focus is how groups influence people, predominately how society influences the decisions of people. Sociological imagination, or sociological perspective, can be used to understand many different aspects of society, from unemployment and homelessness to marriage and divorce rate. This concept can also be applied to understand the less obvious aspects of our society, such as teenage pregnancy. In addition to focusing on history and biography, a key to understanding sociological perspective is the difference between person …show more content…
A trouble occurs within and individual and does not matter to others; an issue is a matter that transcends one person, meaning it concerns many others. With teen pregnancy being the example, the trouble would be how it affects Mary to be pregnant between ages 15-19. It becomes an issue when Mary’s peers become increasingly pregnant between ages 15-19. While teen pregnancy may have started as a personal trouble, it has become a public issue. The ratio of pregnant teens in America is one of the highest of any industrialized country. To develop an understanding further than this, one must grasp the external influences. A big, possibly the biggest, influence on today’s teens is mass media. Media is everywhere, from magazines and movies to internet and cell phones even. Now, the media more commonly portrays teen motherhood. Because the media relays information of what is “normal,” this hugely impacts what teens see as acceptable behavior. More and more, young sex and promiscuity are seen as the norm, making becoming a pregnant teenager not nearly as big of a deal as it used to be even 50 years