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Sociological Imagination Essay

Galen College of Nursing

Sociological Imagination Essay
In 1959, sociologist, C. Wright Mills, had said that in order to think critically about the world around us, we need to use our sociological imagination in order to see the connections of our personal lives to the larger groups on history (Conley, 2011). Mills states that this is the idea of an individual being able to understand their own life experiences by inserting themselves in their own time period and ability to gauge happenings in life by being aware of individuals surrounding you in the same circumstances (Conley, 2011).
As I ponder the thought of sociological imagination, I tend to see this as a guideline of how society has impacted all of our lives. As history repeats itself and society affects our day to day lives, do these life circumstances reflect individuals today as they have in the past? You may ask how this affects us in our lives daily where all cultures are different in some way than others where traditions that are strange and unheard of might be absolutely normal to another group. If you can take into consideration the connection of other people’s traditions and way of living, then you become to have an understanding of sociological imagination.
Personal Explanation
As I make my journeys through nursing school, it has been awkward in some situations just because I am a male in a female dominated career. My particular reason for choosing this as a topic for my sociological imagination essay is that I have been denied learning opportunities in the clinical settings because of my gender.
Male student nurses are expected to be physically stronger than their female peers and are often asked to assist with lifting heavy patients. They do not always have the same opportunities as women in this field. They may miss out on scholarships created specifically for female students in a predominantly-female school or they



References: Conley, Dalton. (2011). You May Ask Yourself: An introduction to Thinking Like a Sociologist New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Hicks, C. (1999). Incompatible skills and ideologies: The impediment of gender attributions on nursing research. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 30, 129–139. Lupton, B. (2000). Maintaining masculinity: Men who do women’s work. British Journal of Management, 11, 33–48. Springer Publishing Company (2013). Discrimination in Nursing.

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