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Chapter Overview / Summary
Chapter 1 introduces sociology as a structured way of understanding the world. Sociology studies the ways people shape, and are shaped by, the groups and communities to which they belong. Sociological understanding relies on key concepts which include norms, roles, structure, and culture.
The chapter tells the reader about C. Wright Mills’ idea of the sociological imagination. This distinctive way of seeing the world connects the micro-level of everyday experiences to broader macro‑level circumstances, whether those circumstances are historical, economic, political, or otherwise. The sociological imagination recognizes how people operate within systems which both constrain and enable the way they make their way through everyday life.
Sociology itself emerged out of specific historical circumstances, in particular the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution. Technological, economic, and scientific developments provided a context of rapid social change, and they enabled and compelled thinkers to pursue a ‘science of society’. Sociology aspired not only to understand society but also to be able to intervene for the benefit of society.
Sociology has developed a number of ways of thinking: Functionalism allows us to see how the interdependent parts of society interact to produce social cohesion. Feminist theorizing looks at how gender structures people’s lives, often in unjust ways, as demonstrated by patriarchal institutions. Conflict theory looks closely at how fundamental struggles over power and resources shape our world. Symbolic interactionism examines the role symbols and meaning play in everyday life.
All this together demonstates the virtue of sociology: through evidence and theory one can move beyond common sense intuitions about society, to see, as Peter Berger says, the ‘strange in the familiar’ in order to grasp how things actually are. This approach has value in and beyond a career in sociology: everyday life, institutional policy, and anywhere there are group dynamics are all opportunities to put a sociological imagination to use.