1) What do you understand by the term "Sociological Imagination"?

In his book, Introduction to Sociology, Anthony Gidden defines sociological imagination as "the application of imaginative thought to the asking and answering of sociological problems." In a specific sense it means imagining and understanding the relationships between the overarching themes of sociology and the individual decisions made by individuals and vice versa. If I see a dysfunctional family in the supermarket I can witness that behavior and extrapolate how that behavior multiplied by thousands or hundreds of thousands of families across the country can impact society in general.