SOCY 122 : C Wright Mills - The Sociological Imagination; summary notes

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Social Sci, Edu and Soc Work - Sociology
• Course: SOCY 122
• Professor: Rob Beamish

Document Summary

Beyond everyday stocks of knowledge --> everyday stocks of knowledge are things you don"t learn in school; things everyone knows. Innate attitude in which humans look at the world from their own perspective. People tend to feel their lives are a series of traps --> family, job, neighbourhood. Have to link micro and macro (look at local environment, time period, society) Most personal troubles can be linked to larger, social problems. Enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. Modernity concerns the interpretation of the present time in light of historical reinterpretation; postmodernism. Structure agency --> an understanding of micro structures presupposes an understanding of macro. Social structures: education, religion, family, corporate, government, etc. Act: thoughts, norms, feelings, free will, values. **intersect of personal biography with history and social structure.