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The Sociological Imagination By C. Wright Mills

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Sociology is the study of human social life in groups and societies. The sociological study of humans is a full range, from the analysis of passing encounters between individuals in the street to the passing of global social processes. Thinking sociologically is to “defamiliarize the familiar.” (Bauman, 1990, 10). C. Wright Mills an American author coined a famous phrase called Sociological imagination in 1959, which requires the individual to think away from everyday routines of daily lives to look anew. Common sense is the individual’s primary ability to perceive, understand and judge the ordinary understanding of society that will not based on evidence. Sociological thinking enables the individual to interrogate everyday assumptions, identify …show more content…

Wright Mills, in his book “The Sociological Imagination,” (1959) encouraged society to stop and question their preconceived common sense ideas of society. Such as don’t merely take the ideas about racism, but to explore and challenge them. Omi and Winant (1995) claim that humans are preconditioned to find a social meaning in simple biological features; such as skin colour. This term was coined racial common sense. These preconceived ideas about race there is expectancy for certain individuals and groups to behave in certain ways and differently from other groups. According to research completed by Richard Felson et al, (2007) black adolescents are more likely to commit violent crime than their white adolescent peers. Felson disregarded those in different socioeconomic status and different family structures; there was still a significant difference between the violent crime rates between white and black adolescents. A common sense explanation as to why more black adolescents commit more violent crime is that they act different from their white peers. However using sociological imagination theory it would give another explanation. Such as labelling theory by Howard Becker in 1963; if a person is labelled as a criminal, and then members of society may begin to address and view them differently which may cause a person to act in accordance with these

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