SOC 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: The Sociological Imagination, Distributed Transaction, System On A Chip
Document Summary
Individuals often believe that the problems that they (& others) face are personal, perhaps resulting from one"s own traits or decisions. Social scientists recognize that these seemingly personal troubles, if occurring in patterned ways, to large numbers of individuals, reflect important public issues or consequences of social structures. Sociology can help us understand the questions of what, why, and how public issues and personal troubles arise. When we learn to think sociologically, we can also better understand the most personal aspects of our own lives. People used to marry for different reasons (to keep property in the hands of the family). Neither romantic love nor its association w/ marriage can be understood as natural or universal feature of human life (rather, such love has been shaped by social & historical influences). Sociological imagination- the application of imaginative thought to the asking & answering of sociological questions.
