ABSTRACT
It is our great privilege to introduce the work of C. Wright Mills (1916–1962), the American sociologist who reminds us that the things social workers often confront as personal problems (as failings in the individual, their upbringing or their personality) are in fact social problems; their remedies lie in society, not within individuals or even within families. This is an important message throughout social work practice, as we work with people who struggle with the impacts of poverty, poor housing, educational disadvantage, social exclusion and discrimination of all kinds. Although some of its language is dated, The Sociological Imagination has been hugely influential in shaping the thinking of generations of sociologists, feminists, radicals, policy-makers and, of course, social workers. The chosen extracts are from the book’s first chapter.
