C Wright Mills Sociology

One main premise of sociologist C. Wright Mills’s work was that, all throughout the world, individuals feel “trapped” by the ups and downs of their personal lives and, even worse, feel that society is evolving beyond their control (Mills 1959/2013:11). In such unpredictable circumstances, the fear of the unknown leads to desperation and even hopelessness. The remedy Mills presented was “the sociological imagination,” a state of mind in which a person acknowledges the difference between his own personal struggles (which Mills called “troubles”) and the problems experienced by many or even all of a society’s members (that is, “issues”) (Mills 1959/2013:14). These issues have a subtle but powerful pull on the lives of individuals (Andersen, Taylor,

Wright Mills firmly believed that this awakening of the sociological imagination has practical benefits. For example, a person who has learned to live in this state of mind enjoys unprecedented relief from plaguing worry about the future. As Mills put it, such a person can finally “gauge his own fate… [and] know his own chances in life by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his circumstances” (Mills 1959/2013:12). Mills also felt that as people finally emerged from their cocoons and became aware of society’s overarching issues, they would trade their “indifference of publics” for “involvement with public issues” (Mills

The common difficulty gathers these people into a social group—more specifically here, a social class—and leads to shared experiences, like falling short of standardized test benchmarks. How exactly can social class or socioeconomic status (SES) affect academic progress? As an example, children from low-income families tend to live in certain neighborhoods and, by extension, attend schools that statistically receive inadequate funding for standardized test preparation classes (sometimes even “regular” classes). Families with low incomes may also do without some “less necessary” school materials, like scientific calculators or graph paper, which can greatly help during test-taking. If, due to low income, their only option for medical insurance was that offered by the state, these families may also have lacked full medical care, costing their children quality of health and school attendance