Sociology

Sociology is the systematic study of human societies. C. Wright Mills, author of the Sociological Imagination, is a famous sociologist that stressed the role of sociologists in understanding social problems. One of his more famous quotes is as follows: "The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within society. That is its task and its promise" (Mills, 1959). In other words, each society has particular characteristics and is located within a historical framework. To understand individuals' lives, you must understand these influences. To understand history, you must understand the interaction between biography and society.

Going a step further, Mills made an important distinction between personal troubles and public issues of social structure. Our personal problems may also be public issues. For example, perhaps you have experienced poverty as a child. This may feel like a personal trouble. It is, however, also a public issue. Seventy percent of our poor are children. Increasingly, we are seeing children and women fall below the poverty line as the incidence of single, female-headed families grows. So, what is a personal trouble may also be a public issue. Mills believed, ".....No social study that does not come back to the problems of biography, of history and of their intersections within a society has completed its intellectual journey."

For Mills, the task of the sociologist is to understand patterns and relationships amongst individuals and the larger society. Through the sociological lens, we can understand how individual level phenomena are shaped by social forces. Individual concerns and troubles can be viewed within the historical and social context.