Inclass Essay: Sociology

Society is a group of people involved with each other. People interact and create a society where changes peoples’ choices on their future pathways. The ways we do things are based on the society we live in. Going to school, doing homework, living with parents, and making friends are influenced by the society. Nowadays, society plays a role in shaping our individual lives, which gives people sociological perspective, thinking about society differently.  An individual cannot change the society, but a group of individuals can create a society. Studying sociology, people have social imaginations. Because of sociological imagination, people see things socially and how they interact and influence each other. The Sociological Imagination article and Louise M. Rosenblatt article impact my perspective on literacy, education, learning, as well as college.

Literacy is about people read and write. Most people think that reading and writing are completely different, but in reality, they are interrelated. Before reading the article, I thought  reading and writing were not parallel. We do not need to read in order to write and write in order to read. But according to The Transactional Theory article, the interconnectedness of writing and reading helps us to become a better reader and writer. Writer “starts with a blank page” and reader “starts with written or printed text”.  People should know “the relationship between reading and writing signals an already-widespread recognition that these two kinds of linguistic activity are closely linked" (Rosenblatt). After reading the article and applying sociological imagination, I realized that writers discover the need to read in order to enlarge knowledge and experience. Readers write to record, express, and clarify ideas and feelings. In order to become a better reader or writer, one needs to do both at the same time.

Education is what most people need to go through. Most people do not know why they need education. Before reading the Sociological Imagination: An Introduction article, my perspective on education was that to learn more knowledge and the common among the people. The article changed my perspective on education. According to the article, the author uses sociological imagination to explain the society. If we look at education with sociological imagination, education gives people social equality, and it promotes social mobility. Because people have education, people can build new technology and benefit the society. Since 1900s, our technology has advanced. With education, we can develop to our full potential and achieve in the society. Building machines, making medicine, and solving financial problems require education. Sociology of education is a way to understand why we need education since kindergarten.

Learning is always the most important skill in our society. As we learn, we apply to our new knowledge to the society. Also, learning new things can benefit our society by contributing the knowledge we know. In the article of Sociological Imagination, C Wright. Mills defines sociological imagination as it "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" (Mills). We need to learn about historical events and understand own experience. Thinking with sociological imagination, people need to learn about the history in order to change the society, such as learning about Great Depression can help us to prevent many difficulties in the future. WWII let us to prevent casualties. If we had not learned about historical scene, we would face the same scene again. Learning is an important skill. With the perspective of sociology, learning is a way to overcome and give us social equality among people.

Nowadays, going to college is popular among students. We go to college because we want to get better job or earn more money after graduating. Even though we need to pay tuition, we get better jobs than high school graduates do. Thinking with sociological imagination can know why we go to college and why it is popular in the society. With sociological imagination, I think of going to college is a way to learn more knowledge and get better jobs than high school graduates. In the article of The Sociological Imagination: An Introduction, the author proves that people who graduate from college earn more money and have better lives than people who graduate from high school. If we "compare your college-degree-holding lifetime earnings to the lifetime earnings of someone who has only a high-school education, we find that with a college degree you will make $730,167 more than someone who went straight to work after high school” (Conley). Even though some people like Steve Jobs and Mark zuckerberg dropped out of college, majority of people still go through college. In the society, some people, call to be genius, do not have to go through college.

All in all, my sociological perspective on learning, education, literacy, and going to college changed how I used to think of them. Sociology helps us to understand why we do such things to the society and why some people are different from the majority of the people. The articles I read gave me a better understanding of sociology, how I can use sociology to think as a sociologist about things we do in the society. Because of the society, many individuals begin to change their thinking. If we compare our present society to past society, we can see differences of peoples’ choices make in the society.