The term “sociological imagination” was created by C. Wright. Mills (1959) to explain the relationship between the individual and the society. The sociological imagination enables us to grasp history and biography and the relations between the two within the society (Mills, 1959). It is the capacity to shift from one perspective to another, and see the connection between personal trouble and public issues (Mills, 1959).
To understand oneself, we must fully understand the relationship between individuals and society. We learn to socialize through the process of interacting with each other in certain contexts, play different roles, become parts of the society, and keep the society functioning and moving forward. Societies and individuals are inseparable, and so as personal troubles and public issue. To understand public issue, we must connect it with personal trouble, and likewise, to understand personal trouble, we must consider it within the big pictures of the whole society.
Personal Trouble and Public Issue …show more content…
If one couple is divorced, it is a personal trouble, but if hundreds of couples are divorced, it would be public issue. According to Emile Durkheim (1897), suicide is an individual behavior, but it is also a social phenomenon because there are patterns in the kinds of people who commit suicide. The critical knowledge provided by social science might grant people the chance to relate their personal troubles to wider public issues: to see the links between their everyday difficulties and social structures and processes (Puga, Puga, Easthope, & Taylor, 2017, p.26). To understand personal trouble, we must put it in the context of the