The concept of sociological imagination, originally proposed by Charles Wright Mill in 1959, is a classic of sociology and is either explicitly or implicitly highly mobilized in social analysis. However, what exactly is the sociological imagination and what is the relevance?

Wright Mills frames his book The Sociological Imagination based on the following questions:

“(1) What is the structure of this particular society as a whole? What are its essential components, and how are they related to one another? […] (2) Where does this society stand in human history? What are the mechanics by which it is changing? What is its place within and its meaning for the development of humanity as a whole? […] (3) What varieties of men and women now prevail in this society and in this period? And what varieties are coming to prevail?” (Mills, 2000, pp. 6 and 7).

According to the Charles Wright Mills:

“The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions. [p. 5] […] It is a quality of mind that seems most dramatically to promise an understanding of the intimate realities of ourselves in connection with larger social realities” (Mills, 2000, p. 15).

Mills (2000) offers the following reasons for his use of the sociological imagination:

“(1) every cobbler thinks leather is the only thing, and for better or worse, I am a sociologist; (2) I do believe that historically the quality of mind has been more frequently and more vividly displayed by classic sociologists than by other social scientists; (3) since I am going to examine critically a number of curious sociological schools, I need a counter term on which to stand” (Mills, 2000, p. 19).

The author felt that articulation between biography, history, culture, and society was critical in developing this sociological imagination as the “capacity to shift from one perspective to another” (Mills, 2000, p. 211), in which the capacity for empathy is crucial.

In Mills’ (2000) own words, “the personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues” (p. 5).

As Mills (2000) sustains about this analytical instrument,

“intricate connection between the patterns of their own lives and the course of world history, ordinary men do not usually know what this connection means for the kinds of men they are becoming and for the kinds of history-making in which they might take part. They do not possess the quality of mind essential to grasp the interplay of man and society, of biography and history, of self and world. They cannot cope with their personal troubles in such ways as to control the structural transformations that usually lie behind them […]

The sociological imagination enables its possessor to understand the larger historical scene in terms of its meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals. It enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions (pp. 4 and 5).

In a synthesis:

“the sociological imagination is the quality of mind that allows one to imagine how historically conditioned social forces shape the inner life and personal experience of the individual, and how acts of individuals can, in turn, shape the social structures in which they are situated” (Seeger & Davison-Vecchione, 2019, p. 48).

Note: Text based on Serpa, S., & Ferreira, C. M. (2020). Heuristic Potentials of the Sociological Imagination. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 10(4), 11-16. doi:10.36941/jesr-2020-0060. For further development see these text.

References

Mills, C. W. (2000/1959). The sociological imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Seeger, S., & Davison-Vecchione, D. (2019). Dystopian literature and the sociological imagination. Thesis Eleven, 155(1), 45-63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0725513619888664

Serpa, S., & Ferreira, C. M. (2020). Heuristic Potentials of the Sociological Imagination. Journal of Educational and Social Research, 10(4), 11-16. doi:10.36941/jesr-2020-0060.

Authors:

Sandro Serpa - Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social and Human Sciences, University of the Azores, Portugal; Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences - CICS.UAc/ CICS.NOVA.UAc; Interdisciplinary Centre of Childhood and Adolescence - NICA – UAc.

Carlos Miguel Ferreira - Centro Interdisciplinar de Ciências Sociais - CICS.NOVA, Lisbon, Portugal.