My Sociological Imagination - Essay Example

My Sociological ImaginationAn Embarrassing Situation in Which I Was the OffenderIt was during the spring of 2009 when I embarked on my foremost go-kart league contest. It was a competition for drivers with tremendous skills, and it was a terrorizing condition despite my entire decade practicing. The regulations of the race asserted that a racer was to evade: extreme hostility, brake checks, hitting and also pushing of other contestants. Initially, I had an erroneous presumption that, in a union competition, the race would be fair and straightforward enough to permit interactions amongst competitors, due to diversity.

Initially, the race was devoid of any corruption, contesters were moving up positions, and the overtaking was clean. In addition, I also tried to overtake a colleague racer deep in a bend and at the final seconds through the dive bomb tactic. However, the tactic was defectively executed since the timing was erroneous. This pushed my opponent into a wall creating a chain effect of accidents behind, and thus he had to leave the competition. After the contest, there was a conversation about the identity of the contestant who caused the mishap.

This required the culprit to surrender and claim accountability, but I panicked and did not admit the misdemeanor. Therefore, experts stated that the individual who caused the error should be an exemplar to other contestants. This was extremely embarrassing for me, and I felt segregated. Functional AnalysisFunctionalism is a hypothesis that analyses community through interrelating components, utilizing a biological perspective. Social organizations such as the racing league function for the interests of the whole community and that functioning resembles the operation of the organs of a human's body.

Moreover, stable communal interrelations or systems implicated in an individual's actions. These systems emanate from mutual values and might add or detract from community stability. For instance, in the racing contest, all contestants share stipulated values and need to adhere to outlined regulations. These stipulations govern the racers for stable functioning of the league. This hypothesis also asserts that restoring balance and augmenting societal unity can resolve most community quandaries.

Moreover, in the occurrence of deviant conduct supports that an amount of crime is a prerequisite in a community. At equilibrium, nonstandard behavior has covert functions that add to the wellbeing of a community. In the race contest, the embarrassing situation was utilized as an exemplar to other racers as well as to evade such occurrences in the future. Latent roles of misdemeanor incorporate an exemplar of inappropriate conduct to other community affiliates. Furthermore, in this perspective, regulations, and positions exist in the community for societal order, which is necessary for the continued existence.

Therefore, it concentrates on a macro level hypothesis. This hypothesis concentrates on societal structure, social procedures and quandaries and their interactions (Ferrante and Caldeira, p. 43).Conflict AnalysisThe conflict perception concentrates on the negative, clashed and transforming aspects of the community. This perception confronts the status quo it evades social transformations. For instance, in the race, the veterans were imposing the rules and intimidating the new contestants. There was no allowance for novel contributions, which would alter the rules and the functioning of the affiliation.

This would have created a liberal forum, even for a deviant individual to admit their misdemeanor. This hypothesis proposes that affluent individuals coerce societal order on the underprivileged and the weak, to serve their selfish necessities. Additionally, this hypothesis combines micro as well as macro levels. It advocates for distribution of existing opportunities. Micro-level concentrates on persons and their interrelationships. Macro-level focuses on societal structure, social procedures and quandaries and their interactions.

The racing league should have integrated the regulations to ensure that they accommodate all racers fairly (Ferrante and Caldeira, p. 102).My Definition of the SituationSymbolic interrelation concentrates on systems of interrelationships. Individuals attach diverse meanings to their actions. Moreover, symbolic interrelation denotes the systems of communication, comprehension, and adjustment amongst persons. There are spoken and nonverbal rejoinders that audiences give and are analogously created in anticipation of how the initial speaker will respond.

In the race situation, the panic and embarrassment resulted from the terror that the other contestants might direct all the blame towards me. Evidently, the veterans were angry at the culprit and the panic resulted from the thought of worsening the situation and being labeled as deviant. In figurative interaction truth is societal and it emanates from interrelating with others. Therefore, analogous to my situation, individuals do not react to reality straightforwardly, but one describes the condition as it exists.

Actions are not described by compulsions from the surroundings such as instincts, but via impulsive, socially comprehensible meanings of both the present interior and exterior motivations.My Self ImageThere is a self-perception that individual forms of interactions, experiences as well as actions. The perception towards the embarrassing situation and action resulted in a tainted self-image. This was due to behavior that was against regulations in the race. An individual’s action relies on interactions with one’s self and others.

Moreover, the description of a situation results from relations and thinking. I defined the situation as embarrassing because that is what my thinking comprehended the situation. The explication of this is that individuals act towards things, including other individuals, on the foundation of meanings they possess for them. These meanings arise from social relations with others. These implications are controlled and changed via comprehensive procedures that individuals utilize to tackle the entities that comprise their social universes (Ferrante and Caldeira, p. 121).Work CitedFerrante, Joan and Caldeira, Chris.

Seeing Sociology: An Introduction. Cengage Learning, 2010.