Assignment 1 Part One - 1. What is the sociological imagination? In 250 words, explain this idea in PDF

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1. What is the sociological imagination? In 250 words, explain this idea in your own words, being sure to reference the Module 1 and 2 set readings and online modules where appropriate....

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1. What is the sociological imagination? In 250 words, explain this idea in your own words, being sure to reference the Module 1 and 2 set readings and online modules where appropriate.

Sociological imagination is an integral part of sociology, which encourages people to be selfaware and socially aware to stimulate their ability to make decision that are free from biased social norms. Understanding of sociological imagination can assist to comprehend the relationship between history and biography in the society (Mills & Gitlin 2000). The holistic understanding of social imagination can provide the tools to move individual perspective to wider social context. As McCormack et al. (2018) stated that, sociological imagination is being aware of how people and culture are interacting with each other rather than a mere theory.

The sociological imagination provides the wider perspective to issues in the society by asking critical questions. Issues are analysed based on the facts and evidence. Often in the current social context, people easily believe in anything just based on the headline of the news without checking any validity, realisable source and author. For example, people believing that migrant workers at taking jobs of Australian people. In the context of social imagination, instead of believing what is being published, it is the duty as a sociologist to ask the questions on its credibility rather than just making any false assumption. There is a huge stigma attached to migrants linking to lack of job opportunity for local people. There is no logical explanation about it since stigma are based on norms and prejudice (McCormack et al. 2018).

Thus, the sociological imagination plays an important role shaping our today’s society and promotes equality and progressive society.

2. Drawing on the weekly online module and set reading, provide a brief (250 word) summary of the concepts and/or theories that the following thinkers introduced to Sociology: Marx, Durkheim, Weber.

The pioneers of sociology, Marx, Durkheim and Weber are the key sociological thinker who have made significant contribution in sociological study.

Marx was the central thinker to introduce the concept that the social world could be fully explained by examining the prevalent material conditions, which is known as historical materialism. Marx insinuated that the individuals are the social being whose actions and beliefs are based on the social situation around them (McCormack et al. 2018). Marx established his work on capitalism on the basis of historical approach regarding the evolvement of society through various economic stages.

Durkheim’s book on Suicide is considered one of the founding material in the sociology context, which helped to recognise it as important academic discipline. Suicide at that time was considered to be more influenced by psychological perspective as a personal choice and not related to sociology. Durkheim studied suicide rates of people across the Europe to establish the pattern of sociological effect by being objective and without any influence from personal belief (McCormack et al.2018).

Weber’s work has a significant influence in religion, capitalism and economic development. According to Weber, sociology is a science to understand how individual behave. To understand society it is essential to study individuals as individuals are the result of society. Weber established that there are three dimensions of social satisfaction, which are class, rank and power. Weber made a significant contribution to replace traditional non logical rules with calculated rationales in both religion and economy (McCormack et al. 2018).

Reference:

McCormack, M, Anderson, E, Jamie, K & David, M 2018, Discovering sociology. Palgrave, London, UK

Mills, C, & Gitlin, T (2000) The Sociological Imagination, Oxford University Press USA...