Sociological Imagination

According for sociological perspective, there are two ways to look to this situation. One is a micro perspective and other is macro perspective. Like the family that had just experienced unemployment and foreclosure on their mortgage, will surely face the family’s financial problems which are personal troubles and public issues through sociological imagination. For micro perspective, the family members losing a job because they might lack of education and experiences towards their job or they are new employee and the company can no longer afford employ them and it causes the family financial problems. These persons would feel depressed and isolated, may worry about how to find new job, may lose identity and may move in other cities where they hope it’s easier to get a job with a low cost of living. Also, in case of new college graduates, they may move back home with parents. These are considered personal troubles which are the things that affect individuals immediately. For macro perspective, the company that the individual work for might be failing because of the recession or jobs are being outsourced to foreign companies for cheaper wages. The things that the whole society are facing like this considered public issues. In accordance with sociological imagination, Mills signified that to think sociology is to see oneself located in social and historical context, to understand that there are forces that influence our lives, choices and chances. This means that social forces and individual lives are linked. In other words, personal lives and troubles have their origins in societal arrangements. The most important distinction is between the issues and the troubles. As Mills states, “Issues have to do with the matters that transcend these local environments of the individual and the range of his inner life. Troubles occur within the character of the individual and within his range of his immediate relations with others. It has to do with himself and with those areas