Sociology is an academic discipline that examines the nature of
society, particularly modern societies, and the relationships between
individuals and the societies in which they live. While there are
many useful sociological theories and concepts, perhaps the most
important attribute for introductory sociology students to acquire is
a sociological curiosity. This requires asking about the social contexts
in which individual behavior and individual choices are occurring.
Introductory-level sociology class reading lists often include Charles
Wright Mills’ essay entitled “The Sociological Imagination.”
sociological curiosity:
Contexts, Vol. 20, Issue 3, p. 34-39. ISSN 1536-5042. © American Sociological
Association. http://contexts.sagepub.com. 10.1177/15365042211035337.
34 contexts.org
Mills outlines several important concepts but, more
importantly, urges students to ask questions about how social
arrangements create the conditions for individual choices. Developing
the routine of asking questions about how social structures
affect individual experiences is essential for understanding
modern society and our position in it.
This short article updates Mills’ essay, closely following
Mills’ ideas while employing more contemporary language and
examples. The goal is to enable students and other readers to
pivot directly from Mills’ framework to contemporary social
issues. In this way, we can begin to locate our personal biographies
in the current historical moment.
mills’ concepts
Mills delineates two related pairs of conceptual distinctions:
personal troubles versus public issues; and situating sociology
at the intersection of individual biographies and social history.
We all have personal troubles at some point in our lives.
For example, we might be disappointed in the trajectory of a
romantic relationship; we might fail an exam; we might mess up
during an interview for a job we were really hoping to get; our
car might be involved in a traffic accident. Some people prefer
to keep very personal troubles, such as suicidal thoughts, traumatic
personal experiences or drug use, private and confidential.
Public issues are the same situations viewed from a different
vantage point. However personal and private, these life
Saul Landau with the sociologist C. Wright Mills.
InstituteforPolicyStudies,Flickrcc
updating c. wright mills
by jerry a. jacobs
35SUMMER 2021 contexts
36 contexts.org
events are often common occurrences that
many other people are also experiencing.
The sociological observer seeks to connect
these personal experiences with structural
arrangements in the social system. Mills
uses the example of unemployment to
develop this contrast.
In these terms, consider unemployment.
When, in a city of 100,000, only
one [person] (Mills uses the masculine
pronouns; I have changed “man” to
“person” and use the gender-neutral
“they” instead of “he” and “his.”)
is unemployed, that is their personal
trouble, and for its relief we properly
look to the character of the person,
their skills and their immediate opportunities. But when
in a nation of 50 million employees, 15 million people are
unemployed, that is a public issue, and we may not hope
to find its solution within the range of opportunities open
to any one individual. The very structure of opportunities
has collapsed. Both the correct statement of the problem
and the range of possible solutions require us to consider
the economic and political institutions of the society…
It is not hard to identify contemporary examples of public
issues that extend beyond the realm of personal troubles:
A married couple may seek a divorce for any number of
personal reasons, but when nearly half of marriages end in
divorce, we may ask about the social conditions that give
rise to these very personal decisions.
A high school student-athlete may experience a sportsrelated
injury and may view the matter as bad luck, but
when millions of athletes suffer from injuries, we may be
justified in seeking to identify systemic causes.
A middle-aged person who gains weight because of their
sedentary job may blame themself for eating too much or
exercising too little, but when millions of people exceed
the clinical definition of obesity, weight issues become a
public health issue and not just a matter
of individual dietary choices.
Why don’t people easily grasp the
social dimensions of their private lives?
After all, we are all social beings, proficient
at language, equipped with “social
intelligence” that enable us to read even
subtle social cues. Mills’ answer was that
while we are adept at navigating within
our own immediate social setting—that
is, our school, job, family and neighborhood—we
can easily lose our way in the
much broader and more complex social
world that extends far beyond our personal
experience. The economy, culture,
political system and complex social institutions
are broad and powerful social arrangements that channel
and constrain individual choices, but they often remain opaque.
As a result, Mills suggested, people are prone to feeling trapped,
with an unsettled sense that their lives are being shaped by
poorly understood social forces that remain beyond their individual
control. Developing a sociological imagination is a way
of overcoming these feelings and beginning to learn how to
navigate more effectively outside one’s immediate surroundings.
How common does a problem have to be before it becomes
a social issue? There is no clear line. Some problems are quite
rare yet frequently discussed, while other problems are common
yet are not recognized. For example, mass shootings receive high
visibility coverage in the media yet gun violence that occurs on a
daily basis is far more deadly while generally
receiving less coverage in the media.
Indeed, the journey that issues traverse on
their way to becoming established as public
issues has itself become an established area
of sociological inquiry.
Does a problem stop being a personal
trouble once it becomes a public issue? Not at all. In the
examples offered above, there is typically a personal as well as
a social dimension to the issue. The victims of gun violence and
their families experience this type of tragedy in a personal way,
and the support they provide and receive in the aftermath of
a shooting is unique to each family. A marriage that is on the
rocks is due to the unique circumstances of the couple—their
problems communicating, their financial concerns, and so on.
But it is still the case that broader social conditions contribute
to the struggles that individuals face in their own marriages.
Central to Mills’ approach is the interplay between the
C. Wright Mills is best remembered for
The Sociological Imagination, where he
set forth his views on how social science
should be pursued.
TheNile
Public issues personal troubles viewed from a
different vantage point.
37SUMMER 2021 contexts
individual and the social, and between personal and social
understandings of the same issue. For example, the overweight
man is not entirely wrong when he points to his personal actions
and inactions that have contributed to his weight. Indeed, his
focus on individual choices may be the most likely to accomplish
his particular goals. Mills, however, insisted that individuals are
even better off when they put their own circumstances in context—the
social and historical context. For example, food choices
are influenced by the ability of giant food corporations to profit
from food that can be processed at low cost and marketed by
a variety of carefully tested strategies. Our food system thus
provides a context in which bad choices are inexpensive and
readily available. Thus, Mills would urge attention to changing
the social context of food in addition to developing a personal
diet and exercise regime.
The term “social structure” appears twice in Mills’ essay and
is not defined either time. For our purposes, “social structure”
points to the constellation of social institutions, economic
systems, political arrangements, and cultural values in which
individuals find themselves situated. Social structure is the broad
social context which Mills contrasts with “personal milieu”—
one’s particular residence, circle of friends, immediate family,
and so on.
Mills was not satisfied with individual
explanations of important social trends,
although he is equally wary of attributing
all social problems to society. Mills tries
to avoid both extremes by focusing on
the interplay between the individual and
society. His unique way of expressing this
interplay is his famous claim that sociology’s domain lies at the
intersection of individual biographies and social history.
Mills called on students of society “to grasp history and
biography and the relations between the two in society…No
social study that does not come back to the problems of biography,
of history and of their intersections within a society has
completed its intellectual journey.
By history, Mills did not mean listing the presidents in order
or remembering which generals were in charge during which
wars. Rather what Mills had in mind are the social events that
become salient in the lives of individuals. Wars and presidents
can be consequential, to be sure, but so too are economic dislocations,
cultural trends, social policies, and social movements.
We can understand what Mills had in mind here from three
vantage points. In one sense, linking biography and history is
representative of Mills’ insistence on making sociology understandable
to a broader public. By placing individuals and their
biographies at the center of sociological inquiry, Mills sought to
make sociology meaningful and alive for individuals. This is one
aspect of what contemporary sociologists call “public sociology.”
Mills also emphasized the individual as a counterbalance to
the abstract sociological theory of his day. He viewed the formal
sociological theorizing that dominated the field as a problem
not only because it was difficult to decipher but also because
it exaggerated the role of impersonal social forces and downplayed
the agency of individuals. Individuals are influenced by
the established social structure, yet individuals acting collectively
are able to alter these established institutions.
Finally, Mills’ focus on the intersection of biography and
history is another way of placing individuals in their social
context. In this way, Mills’ notion of biography and history is
an elaboration of his thesis about personal troubles and public
issues. Specifying the precise historical context at a particular
stage in one’s life enables us to see the role of social influences
most clearly. For example, those entering the job market in 2009,
in the wake of a global financial crisis, had a hard time, and the
effects of their difficult entry into the labor market endured for
years afterward. Turning to another case, queer people who
came of age during the period during which homosexuality
was illegal and almost unspoken had a very different life course
than those who were born after same-sex marriage had become
legal. In a final example, refugees seeking to escape war zones,
gang violence or ethnic cleansing now sometimes spend years
in makeshift camps, whereas an earlier generation had a better
chance to find open doors in destination countries.
The goal of situating individuals in their social context
is most fully developed when the specific historical context
is specified with precision. From this point of view, historical
context situates our experiences and the choices we make
as individuals. This approach puts personal troubles in the
context of the specific contemporary patterns as experienced
by individuals.
A sociological imagination is the ability to switch back and
forth between the individual viewpoint and the social viewpoint.
Sociological curiosity is the desire to seek out the social context
and connections between our own experiences and broader
cultural institutional, political and economic arrangements.
Mills called on students of society “to grasp
history and biography and the relations
between the two in society
38 contexts.org
Some view a sociological lens as
disempowering, leading them to ask,
“Doesn’t this mean that I am just another
statistic? Doesn’t this reduce my most
personal experiences to a routine and
common occurrence?” However, seeing
our experiences as part of a broader pattern
enables us to connect with others
who share similar (if ultimately unique)
experiences. If there are common social
explanations, then perhaps that can form
the beginning of an ability to make social
changes that will enable people to alleviate
their problems.
mills’ ideas: then and now
American society has evolved in many ways since Mills’
day. Today we face some of the same issues that the U.S. faced
in the 1950s, while some new challenges have emerged. Mills
would see these as instances of structural change that produce
widespread dislocations and raise issues requiring a socially and
politically aware citizenship. Mills would have us raise similar
questions about today’s pressing social issues as he sought to
raise in his time.
Some of Mills’ illustrations of social issues seem remarkably
contemporary. For example, Mills wrote that “It is not only information
that [we] need—in this Age of Fact, information often
dominates their attention and overwhelms their capacities to
assimilate it.” This concern has only grown with the advent of
the 24-7 news cycle and the rise of social media. Mills felt that
the accumulation of facts was of limited value unless these facts
were situated within a comprehensible framework.
Since Mills’ day, inequality has grown substantially, with
elites wielding even more concentrated power than ever. A
small set of elite families has amassed more wealth than the
bottom half of the country. At the same time, nearly half of
families recently reported that they would
not be able to cover an unexpected $400
expense. Jobs have become less stable and
secure, and creating satisfying careers now
requires more creativity and improvisation.
Perhaps most difficult to justify is the fact
that millions of children are growing up in
poverty in a country with unprecedented
wealth and resources. This not only makes
life more hazardous and challenging for
children in the present but also diminishes
their subsequent prospects for fulfilling
their potential—in school, employment,
and other settings—throughout the rest
of their lives.
Extreme levels of economic inequality, a long-standing concern
among sociologists, can spill over into political and social
spheres. Those with economic power seek to rewrite the rules
of the game in their own favor, thus protecting their advantages
in the future. Without a level playing field, the economic race is
engineered to favor those who currently have the most. Whether
it is internet platforms such as Uber shifting risks and costs onto
their drivers, or landlords pressing to make it easier to evict tenants,
the playing field is tilted, and consequently, one side ends
up winning most of the time.
For a curious, sociologically minded student, these patterns
of inequality raise many questions. Does inequality in
American society make it more difficult
for some to achieve the American dream?
Why is inequality more extreme in the US
than in many other developed countries?
Why is inequality growing? How does my
experience compare with others? How do I
personally fit in to this unequal landscape?
Mills would insist that outlining the
contours of inequality and injustice is just
the beginning. In addition to asking what
reforms would be most practical and beneficial,
Mills would ask what deeper trends contribute to growing
inequality. The tectonic shifts in globalization, technological
change, government policies increasingly hostile to workers all
contribute to inequality, and serious efforts at change need to
address all of these forces.
While he did not examine the civil rights movement in his
own studies, Mills’ distinction between personal troubles and
public issues can be readily applied to issues of racial justice. For
example, the “Black Lives Matters” movement has focused on
Sociological curiosity is the desire to seek
out the social context and connections
between our own experiences and broader
cultural institutional, political and economic
arrangements.
A sketch of sociologist C. Wright Mills.
CCBY-SA3.0,viaWikimediaCommons
39SUMMER 2021 contexts
violence and discrimination against African Americans and other
people of color in the criminal justice system. Video recordings
of encounters between the police and citizens, including cases
where police shot unarmed African Americans, have helped to
shine a spotlight on these issues. Police encounters with residents
are part of a broader pattern of racial disparities in the
criminal justice system. Efforts at reform include legislation to
reduce mass incarceration, reduce reliance on cash bail, reduce
re-incarceration during parole, and restore the voting rights of
ex-offenders.
Sociological curiosity could pose many questions here as
well. How does the criminal justice system connect to other
aspects of racial inequality, such as residential segregation
and disparities in education? What factors contribute to racial
disparities in behavior by police? Does more diversity in police
forces result in significant changes in behavior? Can new technologies
such as dashboard cameras and body cameras deter
misconduct? What challenges do new techniques like residential
surveillance cameras pose for racial profiling? We need to think
sociologically not only about social patterns and social causes
but also about possible reforms and solutions.
The “Me Too” Movement brought renewed attention
to gender-based violence and harassment. This is just one of
many aspects of ways that gender has shaped and continues
to influence the lives of all people. Personal experiences of
trauma—often too difficult to share—are becoming understood
as part of a broader pattern of men’s power over women.
In recent years, sociologists have come to view gender, race,
and ethnicity through an “intersectional” lens that focuses on
how the lived experience of particular groups reflects the combination
of class, racial, and gender experiences. An intersectional
focus raises many questions regarding how to connect personal
experiences and the economic and political context in which particular
groups live. Mills would ask whether common solutions
can be forged that speak to the experiences of diverse groups.
sociology for diverse publics
The current state of political polarization may make addressing
social issues such as those mentioned here seem unlikely if
not impossible. Yet even during the 1950s, a time Mills characterized
as one of unease, complacency, and malaise, there
were also important stirrings that led to social and political
movements that flowered in later decades: the civil rights, antiwar,
environmentalism, women’s and gay liberation, disability
rights, and environmentalism, among others. In other words,
the conservative period of the 1950s gave way to a remarkably
dynamic period of social change that spanned the 1960s and
1970s. Political impasses do not last forever, in part because
new generations with new formative experiences replace older
generations.
For Mills, a sociological imagination is not just for
sociologists. It is needed for journalism that can put the
cacophony of current events in a broader structural perspective.
It is needed by scientists and engineers to develop powerful new
technologies for good of society rather than endangering the
human race by risking unsustainable climate change, nuclear
annihilation, comprehensive computer-based surveillance and
genetic engineering. It is needed by novelists who can reveal
the nature of the contemporary experience thru their fictional
characters. Furthermore, as we endeavor to emerge from the
pandemic of 2020, a sociological imagination will be needed by
political leaders and activists who will try to restore a sense of
normalcy while working toward a better, fairer, safer, and more
resilient “new normal.”
Mills’ notion of a sociological imagination has intrigued
and inspired countless classes of sociology students. His call
to connect personal experiences and social institutions and
structures continues to lead curious students to explore the most
compelling issues of our time. Going beyond simply situating
individuals with their social context, Mills constantly endeavored
to think in fresh and unconventional ways about the challenges
facing our society and to call for action to redress injustice and
affronts to human dignity. This is the promise of a sociological
perspective as we—as individuals and as a society—face a future
full of risks and opportunities.
Jerry A. Jacobs is Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. His
multi-faceted exploration of the history and future of work focuses on technology,
gender, caring and aging.