Recently in my Sociology class at school we spent some time learning what it means to have a sociological imagination and sociological mindfulness. Before reading a couple of assigned articles in class, I had never heard of these terms before.
Now that we have spent some more time in class, these particular terms have become a lot nicer. Lets start with sociological imagination, this means that as a person in society you understand how you are molded by the world around you. That the person you have become is based on your history and biography. Furthermore, that people around you influence your everyday life. Simply put sociological imagination is the understanding of how you are affected by everything around you.
While on the contrary, sociological mindfulness is the understand that in the present moment you are affecting others. So in a sense it is the opposite of sociological imagination. Also this term encompasses the understanding of how society is complex and how we are all a part of that. Personally I believe that sociological mindfulness teaches that one must understand a person and their feelings, then learn how they affect such emotions.
Going off on a tangent, I was at work recently and I've progressed my way up where I can train new employees. Every new employee that is hired has varying levels of knowledge of working in food. So the people I get to train are either super quick learners or a bit thick. Just now I realized that I'm sociologically mindful, because the better I train that employee the better the outcome for them. Me being their so called teacher / fountain o' knowledge, I make an impression on them. Both shaping them as a better employee and possibly a better person. Eh? Who knows?
That's sociology for this week all written and done.
its interesting how learning something makes you see things differently isn't it? I didn't know what those terms meant but now that i do i see thing differently.
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