Answer one question of your choice in a thoughtful paragraph.
- Sociology emphasizes that individual lives are shaped by social processes. Discuss how individual actions can be constrained by external circumstances, supporting your answer with information about trends in such aspects as gender, sex, sexuality, race, religion, the economy, and politics.
- Pick one problem that you had previously thought of as strictly related to individual actions and use your sociological imagination to explain it otherwise.
- Why is it important to see the social connections behind our everyday lives?
- How does C. Wright Mills relate his concept of “troubles” and “issues” to various social problems such as unemployment?
- Peter Berger talks about ways in which sociology “looks behind” the facades of social structures. Give several examples from his discussion of how sociology does this.