Week One - Sociological Imagination & Mindfulness

This week in sociology we discussed sociological imagination and mindfulness. Sociological imagination is the idea that when you are and where you are affects who you are- your decisions, views, attitudes, thoughts, interests etc. For example, someone who was born today would act very differently opposed to someone born 50 years ago due to things such as advances in technology. The world around a person shapes that person. Sociological mindfulness is being able to appreciate people's qualities, ignoring/not contributing to stereotypes, and being aware of how everyone is interconnected to one another. For example, if a comedian tells a discriminatory joke, he/she is not being mindful of how that reinforces beliefs that aren't always true about certain types of people.

I am most able to connect sociological imagination to my experiences visiting India. I'm able to see how different my life would be if my parents hadn't moved and I had been born there. Pretty much all of my family lives there and the lives of my cousins my age are completely different. They place a way higher value on after school studying than over here. It's normal for virtually everyone to have tutoring multiple times a week, whether or not they're struggling. Over here, you only get a tutor if you need one. If anything, I would be embarrassed to get a tutor here because it would show that I don't understand something as much as I should. Another difference in school is that teachers never get to know their students on a personal level. I love getting to know my teachers- I've become very close with a few of them dating back to elementary school. If I was in India instead of over here, that would not be considered appropriate. Teachers still slam the children's fingers as a form of discipline over there. I remember telling my 13 year old cousin about my school life here and he couldn't believe it. Another area I see majorly different is the way children interact with parents, at least within my relatives. There is a very low tolerance for any kind of disrespect. I always knew that my parents seemed to have a lower tolerance for talking back than my friends' parents did and now I see that that could be because of their sociological imagination shaping the way that they raise me. My mom always tells me and my sisters that if my grandparents knew about some of the things my sisters and I did- like wear a bikini at the beach- they would have a heart attack! I would be a completely different person if I was born there.