Applying Sociology: The Sociological Imagination and Outliers
Please read the intro from Outliers.
Please answer the following questions on page 31 of your reading packet:
1. Describe life in Roseto.
2. What did Dr. Wolf set out to study originally?
3. What did he find instead?
4. Were the people aware of these effects? Explain.
In the book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell uses a sociological imagination to understand extreme success stories (aka Outliers). Using the introduction to understand sociology we see a few important ideas.
First, sociologists study how people are affected by their social groups. People are influenced by the groups they are a part of, whether it is family, a church, a town, etc. This often contradicts the idea that people are the sum total of their own individual genes and decisions. An important sociologist, C Wright Mills, calls this having a sociological imagination. The "sociological imagination" is an important theme throughout our semester. The idea of the sociological imagination was developed by C. Wright Mills who said that having a sociological imagination helps one to see the connection between history and biography. That is, who we are (our biography) is determined by where and when we live (history).
Second, we see that sociologists do not simply make opinions or philosophical ideas, rather they make claims based on research and data.
Lastly, understanding sociology can change how we think about the world and who we are. For example, in this excerpt, one might change how he thinks about good health.
Do you see how the excerpt highlights these three ideas?
The rest of Gladwell's book uses a sociological imagination to explain extreme success stories. For example, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs tremendous success and wealth stemming from the development of computers:
Gladwell describes how being born in the mid 1950s was particularly fortuitous for those interested in computer programming development (think Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, both born in 1955). It also helped to be geographically near what were then called supercomputers, the gigantic predecessors to the thing on which you’re reading this post. Back in the 1960s, when Gates and Jobs were coming of age, a supercomputer took up a whole room and was not something most youngsters would have had a chance to see, let alone work on. But because of their proximity to actual computers, both Gates and Jobs had a leg up on others their age and had the chance to spend hours and hours (10,000 of them in Gladwell’s estimation) learning about programming.We can apply this model to more than just financial success. Think about what opportunities your own biography and history have afforded you. How has when, where, and to whom you were born shaped your life today?
The Outliers reading provides an example of how the people of Roseto were affected by where and when they live. Because they lived in the town of Roseto at that time, they lived in a way that affected them (without even knowing it) so that they had a much lower chance of getting heart disease and living longer than the rest of the country. In sociological terms, understanding the effects of when and where people live is called a sociological imagination.
Applying Sociology: Sociological Imagination and School
Recall that a sociological imagination is understanding that an individual's experience is shaped by where and when they live. If you have questions, please consult my post from yesterday and ask a student sitting near you. Today, I want you to use data to use a sociological imagination to understand your own life better. We will compare North Chicago to SHS/Lincolnshire. North Chicago is just 10 miles northwest of SHS.
Use your sociological imagination to analyze the three data sources below. Using your sociological imagination, create a hypothesis for each of the three data sources. Be sure to cite data to support your hypothesis.
1. Compare high school data from Illinois High School Report Card Data here. Use data from the link to hypothesize how you (and the opportunities presented to you) might be different if you were going to school in North Chicago as opposed to Stevenson.
If you have trouble accessing the website, here is 2018 data for SHS.
Here is 2018 data for North Chicago.
2. Compare the community data from CMAP. Here are community snapshots for North Chicago and Lincolnshire. Hypothesize how the data might shape your experience, opportunities, and challenges if you lived in North Chicago as opposed to Lincolnshire.
3. How might this data reveal that some of the private troubles of different students are really public issues: First, brainstorm with your group, what might be the private troubles of these students? Then use your soc imagination to think about how living in North Chicago instead of Lincolnshire might be part of the problem.
4. Please use a sociological imagination using this research from the Pew Research Center. How might this help you understand your own life better? Cite data.
Another exercise in sociological imagination and college is at this post. It has some ways of both using data and exploring college and the sociological imagination.
Refer to Ferris & Stein (textbook) pgs. 9-13, 17 for more info.
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