INTRODUCTION

• One common advice to students is “Study hard and you will do well in life”, which places the onus on the individual.

• Another advice suggests that apart from individual effort, the job market influences success, and certain subject choices may increase or decrease chances of employment.

• A third advice brings in gender considerations, questioning subject suitability for boys or girls.

• A fourth advice factors in family needs or family business, influencing subject and career choices.

• The first advice focuses solely on personal effort, while the other three introduce additional social factors.

• Success is shaped not only by hard work but also by job market conditions, socioeconomic background, and gender.

• Other possible factors include culture, social norms, respect, social recognition, and individual satisfaction in defining a good job.

• Definitions of a good job vary across societies; money, respect, and recognition may hold different importance.

• The job market is shaped by economic needs, which are influenced by government policies.

• An individual’s opportunities are affected by political and economic measures as well as family background.

• Sociology studies human society as an interconnected whole and explores the interaction between society and the individual.

• The personal worry of choosing subjects is also a public issue affecting students collectively.

• A task of sociology is to connect personal problems with public issues.

• The social esteem of a job depends on the culture of the person’s relevant society.

• A relevant society could mean neighbourhood, community, caste, tribe, parents’ professional circle, or the nation.

• In modern times, individuals belong to multiple societies.

• Societies are unequal.

• Sociology is a systematic study of society, distinct from philosophical, religious, and common sense understandings.

• Understanding sociology benefits from studying its historical and intellectual origins.

• Sociology originated mainly in the West but has had global consequences.

• The discipline emerged in India with its own trajectory.

• Just as individuals have a biography, disciplines too have a history, which helps understand them.

• The scope of sociology includes its relationship with other disciplines.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION: THE PERSONAL PROBLEM AND THE PUBLIC ISSUE

• The relationship between the individual and society is dialectically linked, a concern of sociologists across generations.

• C. Wright Mills bases his concept of the sociological imagination on understanding how the personal and public are connected.

• The sociological imagination allows us to grasp history, biography, and the relations between them within society.

• A key distinction in sociological imagination is between personal troubles of the milieu and public issues of social structure.

• Troubles occur within the character of the individual and within their immediate relationships, involving areas of life they are directly aware of.

• Issues concern matters that transcend local environments and go beyond the individual’s inner life.

• Contemporary history includes facts about the success and failure of individuals.

• Social changes impact individual lives:

  • In industrialisation, a peasant becomes a worker.

  • A feudal lord is eliminated or becomes a businessman.

  • When classes rise or fall, people gain or lose employment.

  • Changes in the rate of investment affect whether individuals prosper or go broke.

  • In war, people’s roles shift — an insurance salesman may become a rocket launcher, a store clerk a radar operator, a wife may live alone, and a child may grow up without a father.

• The life of an individual and the history of society cannot be understood separately; understanding one requires understanding the other.

PLURALITIES AND INEQUALITIES AMONG SOCIETIES

• In the contemporary world, individuals often belong to more than one society.

• Among foreigners, “our society” may mean Indian society, but among fellow Indians, it may refer to a linguistic, ethnic, religious, caste, or tribal community.

• This diversity makes it difficult to determine which society is being referred to.

• The challenge of mapping society is not unique to sociologists.

• Satyajit Ray reflected on what to focus on in his films:

  • Depicting the village with cows grazing, shepherd’s flute, and the rhythm of a boatman’s song (pure, fresh, romanticised).

  • Going back in time to the Epics, with gods and demons, great battles, and brothers killing brothers.

  • Staying in the present, portraying the monstrous, teeming, bewildering city with its contrasts of sight, sound, and milieu.

• The question of focus in representing society is central to sociology.

• Ray’s village depiction can be contrasted with a sociologist’s account of a Dalit in a village:

  • Muli, a 40-year-old Untouchable, sits on a dusty road outside a thatch-roofed tea shop, placing his glass and saucer beside him as a silent signal to the shopkeeper.

  • He has betel-blackened teeth, long hair swept back, and visibly faces social exclusion (Freeman 1978).

• Amartya Sen highlights inequality as central to differences among societies:

  • Some Indians are rich, most are poor.

  • Some are well educated, others are illiterate.

  • Some live in luxury, others toil hard for little reward.

  • Some are politically powerful, others powerless.

  • Some have opportunities for advancement, others have none.

  • Some are treated with respect by police, others are treated like dirt.

• These different kinds of inequality require serious attention.