Sociological Imagination In Education

As Americans, we view the Constitution as a stepping stone to making the great country we live in today. Yet, we the people of the United States failed to realize another component in order to form a perfect union. Which is to establish and promote equal opportunities for a quality education for all. However, we live in a society where social locators such as class, gender, and race are huge factors in the determination of one’s educational future. Our social location determines our access to power, privilege, or our lack of power and privilege. It gives us status and blocks us from having status. Statistically, there is thirty-seven percent of Americans who go to College while sixty-four percent do not. I am an African American eighteen-year-old

One’s personal situation is linked to current history and the society they live in. The correlation between the two is called sociological imagination created by American sociologist C. Wright Mills in his essay, Sociological Imagination. In clarity, “neither the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be understood without understanding both” (Mills 1). In order to develop such skills, you must be able to free yourself from one context and look at things in a different point of view. He argued that one of the main tasks of sociology was to transform personal problems into public and political issues or vice versa. To have sociological imagination is to have “vivid awareness of the relationship between experience and the wider society" (Mills 2). Overall, sociological imagination is the concept which is based on social locators. As mentioned previously, there is a difficulty to grasp control on class, gender, and race because a person is born into these three categories. In a practical sense, my personal choices are shaped by my social locators. Sociological imagination currently plays a role in my presence at Sacred Heart University. The reasoning of why I enrolled and the factors of how I got into college relate back to C. Wright Mills’s concept of sociological

With class, there is a strong indication of where a person residential area is. Living in Trumbull the property tax is high because the houses are big, and the majority of the town are homeowners. Thus, creates a bigger pool of money for the local government to fund the public schools in my area. My high school is ranked 20th in the state of Connecticut (Niche). Where twenty-five AP classes are offered to give greater opportunity for individualized programming and accomplishments. Also, my school has an alternate program which is a place for a smaller classroom environment. As well as, close supervision and individualized attention to improve grades, and assistance in curbing excessive absences. Which lowers the dropout rate compared to other school. As well as a clubs, sports, and other activities are funded. All these components are key factors to why the majority of the population attend college and have the opportunity to be an NCAA athlete including myself. Whereas, students in the lower income in A Tale of Two Schools do not have the necessary supplies for their education to the point where teachers have to pay for supplies for their own students. Also, the education is not as comprehensive therefore not providing equitable college prep to be successful in their educational