Sociological Perspective,

Sociological Imagination and

Sociological Thinking
Dr Upasana Borthakur
• Sociological perspective is a way of looking at society from a
sociological point of view.
• The sociological perspective opens a window into unfamiliar
worlds and offers a fresh look at familiar worlds.
• This perspective stresses on the broader social context of
behaviour by looking at individuals social location which may
include employment, income, education, gender, age, race, caste
etc.
• Sociologists study the broader social contexts that underlie
behaviour. These includes the social groups that influence human
behaviour and the larger society that organizes it.
• The sociological perspective is an approach of understanding
human behaviour by placing it within a broader social context.
How society shapes our attitudes and
behavior
• Individuals have freedom in society but that freedom is limited by society’s
expectations.
• Moreover our views and behaviour depend to some degree on our social
location in society- our gender, race, social class, religion, caste and so forth.
Thus society as a whole and our own social backgrounds affect our attitudes
and behaviours.
• The social location also determines our life chances of being healthy,
wealthy, and well educated etc.
• Thus our society and social backgrounds influence our attitudes, behaviour
and life chances. Thus we are not just individuals but rather social beings
deeply enmeshed in society.
• The sociological perspective tells us to look for general patterns in
the behaviour of particular people.
• Every individual is unique but a society shapes the lives of people in
patterned ways that are evident as we discover how various
categories (such as women and children, rich and poor) live very
differently.
• We begin to see the world sociologically by realizing how the general
categories into which we fall shape our particular life experiences.
• Society guides our actions, thoughts and beliefs. If we take the
example of marriage we may feel that it results from the personal
feelings of love. But from a sociological perspective factors such as
age, sex, race, caste and social class guide our selection of a partner.
• Society plays very important roles in our everyday lives.
• Society also shapes our very personal choices like for example the number of
children a women wish to have in her lifetime. This also differs from country to
country. In the advanced countries like the US a women might have on an
average only 2 children during her lifetime however women in the poor
countries like Yemen or Niger, the average woman had more than six children.
• The socio-economic conditions play an important role in the individual choices
of people. In poor countries women are less educated, have fewer economic
opportunities and have less access to contraception.
• Another famous example of power of society to shape even our most private
choices is from the study of suicide. We might think that suicide can be a
personal choice but Durkheim in his work. ‘Suicide’ shows that social forces
compel an individual to commit suicide. Categories of people with strong
social ties had low suicide rates, and more individualistic categories of people
had high suicide rates.
 Marginality and Crisis
• All of us can learn to see the world using the sociological perspective.
• But for the people living in the margins of society and some people facing social crisis, they can
clearly see how society shapes their individual lives.
• For example the African Americans living in America and Dalits and low castes people living in India.
• For these people their social identity of race and caste shapes their individual lives.
• Even during periods of change and crisis we have to use the sociological perspective.
• During the great depression period of the 1930’s unemployment rate soured to 25% and people
who were out of work could not help but see general social forces at work in their particular lives.
• Thus by learning the sociological perspective we learn more about how the system or society
operates and the more we want to change it in some way.
• For example by becoming aware of the power of gender, has caused many women and men to try
to reduce gender inequality in our society.
 Global Perspective

• Globalization and the advancement of information technologies has necessitated us

for developing a global perspective which will study the larger world and our society’s
place in it.
• This global perspective is very important as global awareness is a logical extension of
the sociological perspective.
• As sociology shows us that our position in the society shapes our life experiences, so in
the same way the position of society in the larger world system affects everyone in the
world.
• The countries of our world are divided into three categories based on their economic
development.
• High income countries
• Middle Income countries
• Low income countries
• Thus where we live shapes the lives we lead.
• For example woman living in rich countries prefer to have less children and
the woman in the poor countries have more children.
• Moreover in the global age, societies are increasingly interconnected with
the spread of information and communication technology.
• Food, clothing, music, or in other words culture is now globally transmitted
and people around the world share similar tastes.
• Now we also have a global economy as trade and business are across
national borders.
• Thus we have to learn to think globally as it helps us to learn more about
ourselves. In this interconnected world we can understand ourselves only to
the extent that we understand others.
• Thus the sociological perspective will help us to learn a new way of looking
at the world around us.
 Importance of sociological perspective
• The sociological perspective makes us more active and aware and we develop critical
thinking.
• We learn to differentiate between sociological knowledge and common sense.
• Using sociology benefits us in four ways.
• The sociological perspective helps us to see the opportunities and constraints in our lives.
• It helps us to learn more about the world so that we can pursue our goals more effectively.
• The sociological perspective empowers us to be active participants in our society. It helps
us to live in a diverse world of people with different races, classes, castes, gender etc.
• We learn to think critically about the relative strengths and weaknesses of all ways of life,
including our own.
 
Sociological Imagination
• The concept of ‘sociological imagination’ was given by the famous American
Sociologist C.W Mills.
• The Sociological Imagination (1959), is one of the most influential books of Mills. It
describes a mindset for studying sociology and stresses that we need to connect
individual experiences and societal relationships.
• Three components form the sociological imagination.
• History: why society is what it is and how it has been changing for a long time and
how history is being made.
• Biography: the nature of “human nature” in a society and what kinds of people
inhabit a particular society.
• Social Structure: how the various institutional orders in a society function, which ones
are dominant, how they are kept together, how they might be changing too, etc.
Troubles and Issues
• He talks about personal troubles and social issues in his book.
• The idea of trouble is the concept originating from the individual’s character which is limited to
only the limited areas in life or which directly affect them.
• A direct definition which Mills gives out is the ‘values cherished by an individual are felt by him
to be threatened.’
• An issue is often associated with a crisis which arises in the institutional arrangements.
• For example unemployment may be viewed and regarded as an issue as it a problem of the
masses and it affects them negatively. Sociological imagination is the awareness of the
relationship between personal experiences and the wider society.
• To have a sociological imagination is the capacity to shift from one perspective to another. It
requires us to think ourselves away from our daily routines and look at them anew.
• Mills believed in the power of the sociological imagination to connect personal troubles to
public issues.
Some examples
• Thus the events that seem to concern only the individual actually
reflect larger issues. For example, divorce can be considered as a
personal trouble, but Mills points out that it is a public issue in the
present day Britain, where over a third of all marriages break up
within ten years.
• Unemployment may be a personal trouble but actually far beyond a
matter of personal despair as millions of people in a society are in the
same situation. Thus it is a public issue expressing large societal
trends.