Sociological Imagination Autobiography
You will write an autobiography to evaluate your personal stories from a sociological
perspective. This involves choosing specific events and relating them to society and
culture. The purpose of writing a social autobiography is to develop sociological
imagination, or the method of viewing yourself within society and culture as a whole.
Many individuals experience one or more social problems personally. Choose an aspect
or aspects of your life to consider in a broader view. Did you grow up in a traditional or
untraditional household? Did you grow up with family problems? Were your parents
employed? Were they stay at home parents or worked long hours outside of the house?
Analyze how your culture, race, religion, gender,class have impacted events in your
education and how that might make you a part of a group that suffers from the same
problem. For example, how have immigration issues affected you? Are you a child of
Norwegian immigrants living in the Midwest or born of Mexican immigrants in the
Southwest? Perhaps you are an undocumented worker, or one or both of your parents
are. Place yourself and your experiences within the greater historical perspective.
Briefly describe what in your behavior or life you would like to further investigate.
Explain how these experiences manifested in your social, emotional, cognitive, and
physical experiences that affected your schooling/education. The goal is to individually
and collectively identify and analyze how certain school processes and structures might
have affected your behavior/ attitudes and expectations. Use hindsight to write about a
social or cultural lesson you learned as a result of the experience.
Minimum: 4 pages
Maximum: 6 pages
Use classroom resources to reference your experiences.
