Sociological imagination

what did C. Wright Mills mean by the “Sociological imagination”? How could it be applied to, for example, watching people running in a marathon, where our children attend school, or where we shop for groceries?

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Introduction

Mills described sociological imagination as a mental quality which permits all persons, not just intellectuals to understand history and biography and their linkages within the confines of a society. Mills states that the variance between a failed thought and an effective sociological thought narrows down to the imagination. Therefore, he does not limit sociological thought to professors and intellectuals alone but states that it is a practice that all persons ought to attempt.

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