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Essay / Sociological Imagination
The term "sociological imagination" was coined by an American sociologist named C. Wright Mills in 1959. Mills described "sociological imagination" as "the vivid awareness of the relationships between personal experience and society at large. » The goal of using sociological imagination is to acquire the ability to analyze different things in society and to become able to discern different or similar patterns between society and oneself. With sociological imagination, you can create a broader perspective to see the factors of how different changes or norms in a society affect the average person, allowing you to see the whole picture rather than just one point of view. view. An example to better understand this concept is that of a company that lays off its employees. From an individual point of view, the worker would question the efforts he made to keep his job, or wonder what he could have done to keep his job. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay However, if the worker looked through a lens with a sociological imagination, he would be able to see that losing his job was not a consequence. the result of weak character, but the fact that their jobs were given to cheap labor in another country, a massive outsourcing of jobs. (The example is from Macionis 9.) Using the power of the sociological imagination, people are able to better discern similarities and differences in social trends and personal experience. On Friday, July 13, 2018, my family and I went camping with a group of family friends in Livermore, California. I knew little or nothing about the people we were leaving with; everyone was completely unknown to me. When we arrived and finished setting up the tents, my parents introduced me to one of their good close friends, Chi Nguyen. Chi Nguyen is a 63-year-old Vietnamese woman who loved to laugh at people and was surrounded by a friendly and welcoming aura. She was a short, pale-skinned, energetic woman who definitely acted much younger than she really was. Chi grew up in a poor, Catholic neighborhood in California. His mother worked in a newspaper printing company and his father was a farm worker. Some evenings, they often struggled to get food on their plate and technology was not as prevalent in their lives. Education was poor and a good education was reserved for the privileged growing up. Despite this, she worked extensively in schools. She was one of four children and received a lot of love from her parents and neighbors, although this love was shared between four children. Chi remembers how small her community was on her street and how she treated everyone like family, and how they had houses with open doors and lots of conversations. They often traded goods, washed each other's clothes, and held potlucks or religious gatherings. Her life, as she described it, was hard, but nevertheless peaceful and beautiful. Chi met her future husband Khan at community college. They stayed in one house with his relatives. At that time, for her, she only saw Asian Americans and African Americans residing in her area. Chi married Khan when she was 24 and they had the first of three children when Chi was 25. This decision to have so many children was never something she had to think about, she wanted alarge family due to the importance of the family. her. Chi never divorced anyone, as she never believed in the concept and loved her husband very much, possibly due to his religious affiliation. Finding stable employment with her husband was difficult and her family was poor. They had very little and Chi worked part-time as a cashier at a grocery store, but she spent most of her time at home raising her children. At the same time, she attended Community College to obtain her bachelor's degree. Chi's time finding employment and housing was difficult. They were constantly moving from house to house because of dawn. Despite the obstacles, she slowly progressed in her career, starting as a cashier, then a seamstress, and finally as a public nurse after years of hard work. She is a very religious woman and says Catholicism has helped her stay on track to create a better future for her family. She attends mass and confession every week and enrolls her children in a Catholic school. Apparently, her parents were also heavily influenced by Catholicism, and she was somewhat forced to conform to their Catholicism due to strict parenting. It was clear that religion was an important driving force for Chi, and this apparently still is the case today. Chi is a very positive and hardworking woman who had to overcome many obstacles to get to where she is today. It's easy to see that my life is very different from Chi Nguyen's. Hearing Chi talk to me about all these things, like the struggles of finding a job and growing up in a poor environment, made me really feel grateful for what I have and recognized my privilege to live a much easier life. I grew up as one of two lower-middle-class kids in Berkeley, and I never had to worry about being able to get enough food each night or finding stable housing. A good education was a privilege for me, and the rise of media and technology became one of my primary ways of socializing. My life was peaceful and without struggles. To begin with, we only have one similar thing. The only similarity we share is that we are both Vietnamese Catholic. However, I was not required to conform to Catholicism as much as Chi. Chi and I are completely different in almost every way. One of those differences that sets us apart is technology. Growing up for me, technology became one of the primary ways to communicate with others. Emails, phone calls, text messages, etc. have all but erased the concept of face-to-face discussion that Chi had so often. As a result, many face-to-face connections and bonds were rare for me, as I had the ability to talk with my friends or make new ones at my fingertips. I grew up not knowing any of my neighbors, like many other millennials, because we no longer need to knock on anyone's door. Not needing to socialize with your neighbors because of messages and media became the catalyst for the disappearance of face-to-face meetings, and the things Chi did to socialize, like potlucks and gatherings, disappeared In my opinion. Another difference is the social environment. Chi grew up in a poor neighborhood in California, at a time when minorities and whites lived in separate neighborhoods. For this reason, she mostly saw Asians, African-Americans and Christians, ignoring the great diversity of cultures and religions. For this reason, she grew up ignorant of other norms and cultures. She gave me..