SY210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: The Sociological Imagination, Organ Donation, Social Inequality
Document Summary
Wright mills wrote that the sociologist"s main task is to identify and explain the connection between personal troubles and the social structures in which they are embedded. He called the ability to see the connection between personal troubles and social structures the sociological imagination. brym/lie, soc+ (2015) The sociological imagination may be most useful in helping sociologists see the linkage between private troubles and public issues. Example: organ donor rates (real life case study) % of population agreeing to be organ donors. Question: what might account for such a massive difference: cultural and religious differences. Because the book is seen to present an example of what to do as a sociologist. Suicide rates per million inhabitants and rank order (table iii in suicide) Look at conditions external to the individual to explain social phenomena. Mills: two types of external condition especially important. Another example: using the sociological imagination to problematize voluntary sterilization as choice.
