Seeing the Social World in A New Light: Personal & Larger
Social
The average person lives too narrow a life to get a clear and
concise understanding of today’s complex social world. Our daily
lives are spent among friends and family; at work and at play. We
spend many hours watching TV and surfing the Internet. No way can
one person grasp the big picture from their relatively isolated
lives. There are thousands of communities, millions of
interpersonal interactions, billions of Internet information
sources, and countless trends that transpire without many of us
even knowing they exist. What can we do to make sense of it
all?
When I learned of the sociological imagination by Mills, I
realized that it gives us a framework for understanding our social
world that far surpasses any common sense notion we might derive
from our limited social experiences. C. Wright Mills (1916-1962)
was a contemporary sociologist who brought tremendous insight into
the daily lives of society’s members. Mills stated that “neither
the life of an individual nor the history of a society can be
understood without understanding both" (Mills, C. W. 1959. The
Sociological Imagination page ii; Oxford U. Press). Mills
identified “Troubles” (personal challenges) and "Issues" (Larger
social challenges) that are key principles for providing us with a
framework for really wrapping our minds around many of the hidden
social processes that transpire in an almost invisible manner in
today’s societies. Before we discuss personal troubles and larger
social issues let’s define a social fact.
Social Facts are social processes
rooted in society rather than in the individual. Émile
Durkheim (1858-1917, France) studied the “science of social facts”
in an effort to identify social correlations and ultimately social
laws designed to make sense of how modern societies worked given
that they became increasingly diverse and complex(see Émile
Durkheim, The Rules of the Sociological Method, (Edited by Steven
Lukes; translated by W.D. Halls). New York: Free Press, 1982, pp.
50-59). See the Sociological Imagination diagram below.
The national cost of a gallon of gas, the War in the Middle
East, the repressed economy, the trend of having too few females in
the 18-24 year old singles market, and the ever-increasing demand
for plastic surgery are just a few of the social facts at play
today. Social facts are typically outside of the control of average
people. They occur in the complexities of modern society and impact
us, but we rarely find a way to significantly impact them back.
This is because, as Mills taught, we live much of our lives on the
personal level and much of society happens at the larger social
level. Without knowledge of the larger social and personal levels
of social experiences, we live in what Mills called a False
Social Conscious which is an ignorance of social facts and the
larger social picture.
Personal troubles are private problems
experienced within the character of the individual and the range of
their immediate relation to others. Mills identified the
fact that we function in our personal lives as actors and actresses
who make choices about our friends, family, groups, work, school,
and other issues within our control. A college student who parties
4 nights out of 7, who rarely attends class, and who never does his
homework has a personal trouble that interferes with his odds of
success in college. On the other hand, when 50 percent of all
college students in the country never graduate, we call that a
larger social issue.
Larger Social Issues are those that lie
beyond one's personal control and the range of one's inner
life. These pertain to society's organizations and
processes. These are rooted in society rather than in the
individual. Nationwide, students come to college as freshmen
ill-prepared to understand the rigors of college life. They haven’t
often been challenged enough in high school to make the necessary
adjustments required to succeed as college students. Nationwide,
the average teenager text messages, surfs the net, plays video or
online games, hangs out at the mall, watches tv and movies, spends
hours each day with friends, and works at least part-time. Where
and when would he or she get experience focusing attention on
college studies and the rigors of self-discipline required to
transition into college credits, a quarter or a semester, studying,
papers, projects, field trips, group work, or test taking.
Figure 1. Diagram of the Seven Social Institutions and the
Sociological Imagination
© 2005 Ron J. Hammond, Ph.D.
In a survey conducted each year by the US Census Bureau,
findings suggest that, in 2006, the US had about 84 percent of the
population who graduated high school. They also found that only 27
percent had a bachelors degree. Given the numbers of Freshmen
students enrolling in college, the percentage with a bachelors
degree should be closer to 50 percent.
The majority of college first year students drop out, because
nationwide we have a deficit in the preparation and readiness of
Freshmen attending college and a real disconnect in their ability
to connect to college in such a way that they feel they belong to
it. In fact, college dropouts are an example of both a larger
social issue and personal trouble. Thousands of studies and
millions of dollars have been spent on how to increase a Freshman
student’s odds of success in college (graduating with a 4-year
degree). There are millions of dollars worth of grant money awarded
each year to help retain college students. Interestingly, almost
all of the grants are targeted in such a way that a specific
college can create a specific program to help each individual
student stay in college and graduate.
The real power of the sociological imagination is found in how
you and I learn to distinguish between the personal and social
levels in our own lives. Once we do, we can make personal choices
that serve us best, given the larger social forces that we face. In
1991, I graduated with my Ph.D. and found myself in a very
competitive job market for University professor/researcher.
positions. With hundreds of my own job applications out there, I
kept finishing second or third and was losing out to 10 year
veteran professors who applied for entry level jobs. I looked
carefully at the job market, keeping in mind my deep interest in
teaching, the struggling economy, and my sense of urgency in
obtaining a salary and benefits. I came to the decision to switch
my job search focus from university research to college teaching
positions. Again, the competition was intense. On my 301st job
application (that’s not an exaggeration),I interviewed and beat out
47 other candidates for my current position. In this case, knowing
and seeing the larger social troubles that impacted my success or
failure helped in finding a position. Because of the Sociological
Imagination, I was empowered because I understood the larger social
job market ,and was able to best situate myself within it.
Making Sense of Divorce Using the Sociological Imagination
Let’s apply the sociological imagination to something most
students are deeply concerned about—divorce. Are there larger
social and personal factors that will impact your own risk of
divorce? Yes. In spite of the fact that 223,000,000 people are
married in the U.S., divorce continues to be a very common
occurrence (see http://www.Census.gov ). Divorce
happens and since millions of us (me included) had our parent’s
divorce, we are especially concerned about the success of our own
marriage.
What’s in the larger social picture? Estimates for the U.S.
suggest that 85 percent of us will marry (Popenoe, D. 2007 in 5
June, 2008 from marriage.rutgers.edu/Publicat...XTSOOU2007.htm ).
Yet, so many of us feel tremendous anxiety about marriage. Consider
the marriage and divorce rates in Table 1 below. The first thing
you notice is that both have been declining since 1990. The second
thing you notice is that the ratio of marriages to divorces is
consistently 2 marriages to 1 divorce (2:1). To point out, the
divorce and marriage rates in Table 1 are called Crude Divorce and
Crude Marriage rates because they compare the divorces and
marriages to everyone in the population for a given year, even
though children and others have virtually no risk of either
marrying or divorcing.
Table 1: Comparison of US Marriages/1,000 Persons to
Divorces/1,000 Persons 1990, 2000, and 2005*
|
1990 Rates |
2000 Rates |
2005 Rates |
3-year Average |
| US Marriages |
9.8/1,000 |
8.3/1,000 |
7.5/1,000 |
8.5/1,000 |
| US Divorces |
4.7/1,000 |
4.1/1,000 |
3.6/1,000 |
4.1/1,000 |
| US Ratio of Marriages to Divorces |
2:1 |
2:1 |
2:1 |
2:1 |
*Statistical Abstracts online: Table 121. Marriages and
Divorces—Number and Rate by State: 1990 to 2005 Taken from the
Internet on 5 June, 2008 from
www.census.gov/compendia/stat..._divorces.html
Does sociology provide personal and larger social insight into
what we can do to have a good marriage and avoid divorce?
Absolutely! However; before we discuss these, lets set the record
straight. There never was a 1 in 2 chance of getting divorced in
the U.S. ( see http://www.Rutgers.edu the
National Marriage Project, 2004 “The State of Our Unions” or Kalman
Heller “The Myth of the High Rate of Divorce taken from Internet 5
June, 2008 from http://www.isnare.com/?aid=217950&ca=Marriage
). Divorce rates peaked in the 1980’s and have steadily declined
since then (See Figure 1 below). Even though all married people are
at risk of divorce, most of them will not face this reality. Many
studies have consistently shown exactly how our personal choices
and behaviors can actually minimize our chances of divorce. Here’s
a brief summary:
-Wait to marry until you reach your mid-20’s. Teens who marry
have the highest risk of divorce
(see Center for Disease
Control “First Marriage Dissolution, Divorce, and Remarriage:
United States taken from Internet 5 July, 2008 from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad323.pdf
).
-Avoid cohabitation if you plan to ever marry. While
cohabitation is on the rise in the U.S., it is still associated
with higher risks of divorce once one is married. Numerous studies
have rigorously researched the impact of having cohabited on the
odds of marital success. (see Lisa Mincieli and Kristin Moore, "The
Relationship Context of Births Outside of Marriage: The Rise of
Cohabitation," Child Trends Research Brief 2007-13 (May 2007); or
Matthew D. Bramlett and William D. Mosher, Cohabitation, Marriage,
Divorce and Remarriage in the United States, National Center for
Health Statistics, Vital and Health Statistics, 23 (22), 2002; Or
Larry Bumpass and Hsien-Hen Lu, "Trends in Cohabitation and
Implications for Children’s Family Contexts in the U. S.,"
Population Studies 54 (2000): 29-41; or Jay Teachman, "Premarital
Sex, Premarital Cohabitation, and the Risk of Subsequent Marital
Disruption among Women," Journal of Marriage and the Family 65
(2003): 444-455.
-Finish college. College graduates divorce less then dropouts or
high school graduates (see
mtsu32.mtsu.edu:11422/315/adu...divfactos.html ).
-Be aware of the three-strike issue: Strike 1, you are poor;
Strike 2, you are a teenager when you marry; and Strike 3, you are
pregnant when you marry. These issues could prove to be a terminal
combination of risk factors as far as staying married is concerned.
These three in combination with others listed below may increase
your risk of divorce.
-Know which factors you can control that will likely impact your
marital success odds. Other scientifically identified divorce risk
factors include: high personal debt; falling out of love; not
proactively maintaining your marital relationship; marrying someone
who has little in common with you; infidelity; remaining mentally
“on the marriage market…waiting for someone better to come along,”
having parents who divorced; neither preparing for nor managing the
stresses that come with raising children, and divorcing because the
marriage appears unhappy and hopeless in terms of resolving
negative issues ( see Glenn, N. 1991 “Recent trends in Marital
Success in the US” May, J. of Marriage and the Family, pages
261-270). Often couples on the fringe of divorce later emerge from
those states of unhappiness and hopelessness with renewed happiness
and hope, by simply enduring the difficult years together.
In all of these factors listed above you can decide how to best
situate yourself to deal with the certain issues before divorce
becomes the ultimate outcome. But, as Mills taught, you must
consider both personal and larger social issues simultaneously to
fully benefit from the sociological imagination. It is true that
divorce is still very common in the U.S. Notice the peak on this
figure found in the 1980s, and the trend (at least up to the most
recent 2005 data) shows a slightly decreased pattern since
then.
Figure 2: United States Historical Data-Divorce Trends 1920-2005
*
*US. Bureau of the Census Historical Statistics of the United
States, Colonial Times to 1970, Bicentennial Edition, Part 2;
Washington, D.C., 1975Series B 216-220 “Divorce 1920-1970 and
Statistical Abstracts of the United States 2001 Page 87 Table 117
and 2002 Page 88 Table 111.
What are some of the larger social factors that have
historically contributed to these patterns of divorce? You’ll
notice a brief spike in divorce after World War II. The post-war
year, 1946, was a true anomaly as far as rates measuring the family
are concerned. It was the highest rate of marriages, highest rate
of births (The Baby Boom began in 1946), and the lowest median age
at marriage in U.S. history. Divorce rates surged in 1946 as all
the soldiers returned home having been changed by the trauma,
isolation from their families, and challenges of the war. They were
probably less compatible with their wives once they came back.
Divorces tended to follow wars for marriages where one spouse is
deployed into combat (WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Korea, Kuwait, and
Iraq).
Other factors influencing this divorce pattern have to do with
the economy, marriage market, and other factors. Divorces continue
to be high during economic prosperity and often decline during
economic hardships. Divorces tend to be higher if there is an
abundance of single women in the society. And divorces tend to be
more common in: urban rather than rural areas; the Western US than
in the Eastern; among the poor, less educated, remarried, less
religiously devout, and children of divorce. Please note that
recession, war, secularism, and western US cultures don’t cause
divorce. Scientists have never identified a “cause” for divorce.
But, they have clearly identified risk factors.
Could there be larger social factors pressuring your marriage
right now? Yes, but you are probably not enslaved to those forces.
They still impact you, and you can follow Mill’s ideas and manage
as best you can within your power concerning consequences of these
forces. What can you do about it? Well, if you are single, you’d
best situate yourself in terms of marital success by waiting to
marry until you are in your 20’s, finishing and graduating from
college, paying careful attention to finding the right person
(especially one with common values similar to your own), and doing
some sort of self-analysis to assess working proactively to nurture
your marriage relationship on an ongoing basis. Finding counseling
to help mediate the influence of your parents' divorce on your
current marital relationship can also be helpful. If you are
married and things appear to hit a wall, consider counseling,
consulting with other couples, and reading self-help books. Often
the insurmountable walls that couples face in marriage slowly
collapse with time and concerted effort.
Years ago, a colleague and I wrote a self-assessment to help
students identify the personal divorce risks so that they could
strategize what to do when faced with those risks. Take 10 minutes
and learn what you can about your own divorce risks. (also take the
time to watch another example of the Sociological Imagination in
the case of W. E. B. Du Bois below).
Divorce
Risks Assessment Questionaire PDF
One last note about the Sociological Imagination. One of my
personal heroes is W.E.B. Du Bois. He was the first black Harvard
Graduate, the first to scientifically analyze U.S. blacks (See The
Philadelphia Negro), and one of the most prolific Sociological
writers ever. Watch my short lecture video on how the Sociological
Imagination helps us to understand the personal lives of this hero,
and think about the tragedy that could have been had he grown up in
the U.S. Southern states instead of in Massachusetts.
