Wright Mills defined the sociological imagination as “the vivid awareness of the relationship between personal experience and the wider society” (1959:6). It enables us to “grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society” (1959:6).

Wright Mills mean when he spoke about biography and history? He meant that “history” is the fact that society is located in a broad stream of events, and “biography” refers to an individual’s specific experiences.

sociological imagination: the use of imaginative thought to understand the relationship between the individual (personal troubles) and the broader workings of society (public issues).

Sociological imagination is the capacity to shift from one perspective to another. To have a sociological imagination, a person must be able to pull away from the situation and think from an alternative point of view. It requires us to “think ourselves away from our daily routines and look at them anew”.

One criticism of the structural-functional theory is that it can’t adequately explain social change. Also problematic is the somewhat circular nature of this theory; repetitive behavior patterns are assumed to have a function, yet we profess to know that they have a function only because they are repeated.

Which of the following is the most serious critique of structural functionalism? It tends to argue that any social feature that exists must serve a function.

The strength of conflict theory is that it seeks moral ends: the emancipation of humanity from false claims of “universality.” Universality is when one group takes power and seeks to justify it on the grounds that it represents “freedom for all.” The reality is that it is “freedom for them.” Using universalist rhetoric …