Essay: Social Construction, Sociological Imagination, and Unemployment

This essay delves into the concepts of social construction and sociological imagination, applying them to the understanding of unemployment as a social problem within the context of Australian society. It begins by defining social constructionism as the process by which groups create shared perceptions of events, which then become accepted societal norms, and sociological imagination as the capacity to understand outcomes as a result of social actions. The essay aims to analyze how societal views contribute to inequality, focusing on the barriers to employment. It examines social perspectives on unemployment in Australia, highlighting the negative perceptions and the attribution of unemployment to the unemployed themselves, which creates stress. The essay discusses various barriers, including social, economic, racial, gender, and language-related issues, while also addressing the impact of these perceptions on affected individuals. The conclusion emphasizes the mental stress faced by unemployed youth due to these social perceptions, resulting in further employment barriers. The essay references key sociological literature to support its arguments.

Running head: SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
Introduction
The essay is focused towards understanding the concepts of social construction and
sociological imagination and applying them towards understanding the conception of
unemployment in society as a social problem. The study is to be made on the context of the
Australian society.
Social construction and sociological imaginations
Both the aspects of social construction and sociological imagination are sociological
ideas. Social constructionism is a theory that considers that groups or individuals jointly
participate in creating a perception about an event (Dannefer, Kelley-Moore and Huang 2016).
Subsequently this perception of event becomes the generally accepted idea of the event by the
society. Hence, the society develops a general understanding of an event based on the combined
perspectives of the
Sociological imagination refers to the outlook of groups and individuals in a society that
considers outcomes as a result of what individuals do in society (Burr 2018). In essence, it is the
imagination of the society by individuals or groups that are part of the society about the
outcomes of events (Henslin et al. 2015).
Aim
The aim of the study is to find out how people tend to suffer from inequality in society
due to the widely accepted views about certain events. The focus is towards finding the socially
constructed barriers that affect people preventing them from gaining and sustaining employment.

2SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
The aspect of sociological imagination would be used in the context of unemployment in
Australia to understand the implications.
Key Points
Social perspectives on unemployment
The social perspectives of people in Australia regarding unemployment is generally
negative. Through time unemployment in the society of the country have been increasingly
attributed to the unemployed people themselves (Carvalho 2015). This causes an anxiety factor
among the youth of the country that contributes to a large number of them failing to get jobs. The
fact that the people are many times criticized for using their social benefits as a measure to avoid
jobs creates stress on the minds of a large number of unemployed people.
Barriers and inequalities
The major barriers are social, economic, racial, gender and language. However, there is a
common conception of people or a social imagination that people do not go for employment as
they are lazy. The real problem however rests in the fact that people are not really comfortable
with finding jobs. A large number of immigrants have difficulty in finding jobs due to language
(Carvalho 2015). Moreover, there is a significant gender gap. The crucial barriers to finding
employment are overshadowed due to the perceptions of the society.
Impact on the affected people
Essentially, two kinds of social forces are employed on the person seeking employment.
One is concerning the language, gender, racial or economic barriers that are present. The other
barrier is the pressure that is created due to the social perception that the unemployed people are

3SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
lazy. Hence, these factors combines become crucial barriers to the employment of a person.
Employment becomes important but at the same time there are the various barriers that tend to
affect employment of people.
Conclusion
The implications derived point to the fact that the unemployed youth in the country are
affected by the social perceptions that consider unemployed people to be lazy. The unemployed
hence face mental stress that causes them to suffer from various complexes that create further
barriers for their employment.

4SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION AND SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION
References
Burr, V., 2018. Social constructionism (pp. 1-16). Springer Singapore.
Carvalho, P., 2015. Youth unemployment in Australia. Policy: A Journal of Public Policy and
Ideas, 31(4), p.36.
Dannefer, D., Kelley-Moore, J., and Huang, W., 2016. Opening the social: Sociological
imagination in life course studies. In Handbook of the life course (pp. 87-110). Springer, Cham.
Henslin, J.M., Possamai, A.M., Possamai-Inesedy, A.L., Marjoribanks, T. and Elder, K.,
2015. Sociology: A down to earth approach. Pearson Higher Education AU.