Social imagination and social perspectives with its implication

Sociological Imaginations And Sociological Perspectives

Before going through what sociological perspective is, it is necessary for us to know the definition of the perspective.In order to study anything, one must begin by making some assumptions about the nature of what is studied. For example, the ancient Greeks believed about the universe run according to the whims of the god. By contrast, all that the universe is orderly, and operates in certain regular ways which we may be able to discover.

Sociological perspective and imagination

Sociology is the systematic study of human society. There is a distinct point of view at the heart of sociology as a working set of assumptions called ‘the sociological perspective’. Sociological perspective can be described in the following ways:

1)Seeing the general in the particular

Peter Berger described the sociological perspective as seeing the general in particular. By this, he meant that sociologists seek out the general patterns in the behavior of particular people. Although every individual is unique. A society shapes the lives of its members. For example, people in the US are much likely to expect the love marriage to happen than people living in a traditional village of rural Nepal.

2) Seeing the strange one in familiar

Many of the events we have been observing in our daily lives in different places are both strange and familiar to us. The point of looking sociologically means challenging the familiar idea that we live our lives in terms of what we decide, considering instead the initially strange notion that society shapes our experiences.

3) Seeing individually in social context

How the power of society shapes the individual choices is the concern of sociological analysis. For example, a number of children women have: in the US the average women have slightly fewer than two children during the lifetime,  have categories of the people with strong social ties, whereas more individualistic categories have had suicide rates.

Use of sociological perspectives and imagination

Regarding the application of sociology in the social life, basically two situations are more responsible for understanding the fact of these social lives:

1)Sociology social marginality

From time to time and in people’s everyday life, everyone feels like an outsider. For some categories of people, however being an outsider, not the part of the dominant group is an everyday experience. This experience of being an outsider is known as the marginality. The greater people’s social marginality the better they are to use the sociological perspective and the imaginations. For example, no African American grows up in the US without understanding the importance of race. Similarly, in Nepal, Madhesi people feel like the outsider in the Kathmandu valley and in many of hill parts of Nepal, so they use more sociological perspective more remarkably than the parbate people or can be exemplified reversely.

2) Sociology and social crisis

Periods of change or crisis make everyone feel a little off balance and encourage or force to use sociological perspective. For example, Great Depression of the 1930s caused to increase the unemployment rate to 25 percent which encouraged social scientists or sociologists of that time like C. Wright Mills to seek social facts responsible for the Depression. Similarly, a decade-long conflict in Nepal caused to flourish the use of sociological perspectives and imaginations widely.

By understanding the above situations sociological perspectives can be applied in order to have benefits in our lives in the four following ways:

1) The sociological perspectives and imaginations help us to assess the truth of common sense:

We all take many things for granted, but these may not be true. For example. Causes of disease are the evil spirit or witchcraft which many of the people living in many parts of the rural Nepal follow. A sociological approach, by contrast, encourages us to ask whether commonly held beliefs are actually true and if they are not so, why they are so widely held.

2) The sociological perspective and imagination help us to see the opportunities and constraints:

Sociological thinking leads us to see how to seek different opportunities in different social institutions rooted in different social facts. The thinking also helps us to understand the social constraint obstructing our forthcoming process. In the sense, sociological perspective tries to seek the social facts of urban areas responsible for creating opportunities and constraints.

3) The sociological perspective and the imagination empowers us to be active participant:

The more we understand about how the society works, the most active citizens we become. The sociological imagination brings people together to create the change by transforming personal problems into public issues. It is only possible by applying perspective knowingly or unknowingly for making the members of the society participate in their social activities.

Use of social perspective and imagination in management and business administration

Sociology can be defined as the study of the human behavior, especially how humans interact with one another in the society. Due to the different facts that one can affect the other people, such as religion, education, ethics or morals each individual can act differently despite the identical nature of them. Sociology has numerous subfields in which the business administration and management are also involved.Essentially, sociology can be applied to every context that has human interaction in it. In business, we are dealing with the people all day, every day especially if we hold a high position. We must be able to help the colleagues and the customers needs and sociology can really come into play here. Since a business involves working with the people or entity of people, sociology can be used to find and discover group tendencies and predict human behavior determining business needs as a whole. Understanding sociology can help us to understand other cultures greatly and each individual may have a unique culture and know how their culture works can benefit the business decisions.Similarly, sociology and the management both focus on human relationships. Sociology provides knowledge of the individual in groups and how the group influences the individual. Besides, sociology highlights different types of the relationships whether financial or social. Sociology studies the impact of the group on the society and society on the group. Sociology is important because it provides insight into how people work in groups. Well, everything takes place in a sociological context. When we are managing a company, we are managing people and trying to meet needs and wants. Knowing about the people and dealing with them helps to manage more effectively because we are more in tune with what people value and how they interact. These are group tendencies of course and the individuals will each bring their unique perspective and imagination. The business world functions as a society and examines the individual’s role in the business world because sociology is the study of people’s role in the society. Since the other motive of the business is service, sociology helps in the business and management in providing and determining business practices on the basis of the needs of the people. It helps the companies to open new needs of the branch through giving the insight of sociological perspectives as well as the imaginations. It also helps in studying about how people relate to each other and how people and other things perceive one another.

References

Kerlinger, Fred N., 1978. Foundations of Behavioural Research, (2nd Ed). New Delhi: Surjeet Publications

Young, P.V., 1975. Scientific Social Survey and Research. New Delhi.

Scott, Willim P., 1986 Dictonary of sociology.

Reejal, P.R., 1995. Fundamentals of public policy analysis. Kathmandu: Mrs Indira Reejal.