Thursday, January 13, 2022

1SocPerspective 8: Imagine when...Sociological Imagination part 2

Can you recall what C. Wright Mills means by having a sociological imagination?



Seeing the world with a sociological imagination means being able to see how individuals are affected by where and when they live.  Yesterday's lesson applied the sociological imagination to where a person lives.  Just ten miles apart from SHS students might have a very different experience.  Today we will use our sociological imagination to examine how people might be affected by when they live.  Using old yearbooks from the school's library, examine the pictures of our school from years past.



Applying the sociological imagination to when a student attended SHS

In small groups, do a qualitative content analysis of the yearbooks from SHS past.  Look for differences between SHS now and then.  Answer the following questions on this Google Form:

1. What are the differences between that year and now?


2. How might you be different if you had been attending SHS during that time?


Private troubles and public issues
3. What are the different obstacles that you might've faced then instead of now?


4.  What are some ways that you might feel differently about yourself/school/etc if you attended SHS then?


Here are some of the pictures that I found:







Further sociological research on yearbooks
Here is a sociology research article that is a qualitative study of high school yearbooks and inclusivity/diversity.


OK, Boomer!
Another way of applying a sociological imagination to when someone lives is using this research from the Pew Research Center.  Click on the link and use the research to see how different generations have been shaped.  Remember that when we joke around about different generations (like saying  "Ok Boomer"), we are acknowledging that being born in a different generation means being more likely to think a certain way.


Beloit Mindset

Think about how a student being born today might experience the world differently than you?  Put another way, what has shaped you that a baby born today might never experience? 

This example of sociological imagination is based on the Beloit Mindset list. Beloit College used to publish a list of how the current year's college freshmen have experienced the world differently.  
A couple examples of this are from the NY Times:
Here is an article about students not writing in cursive.
And, this link is about the changing role of the wristwatch.
Another example is this video of a child who is trying to use a magazine like an ipad:










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