1 Keynote 2 “Developing a critical sociological imagination: challenging the ‘taken-for-granted’” Jan Fook I have a lot of sympathy for the sociological imagination. After all, in the mid-1970’s I almost forsook studying social work and opted for a sociology degree. I didn’t particularly understand or enjoy the social work program. However in my second year I read C. Wright Mill’s Sociological Imagination and for the first time I actually felt inspired in my university studies. Incidentally I stopped regretting my choice of social work study when I undertook my masters degree research and discovered the challenge and satisfaction of applying, and effectively trying to work out, how to practise critical sociology in casework with individual people. My experience was only marred by the young male social theorists who attempted to give us social workers “the good oil” with their lectures on various theorists such as Althusser and Miliband. If I’d known then that Miliband was Ed’s dad it would have made it more interesting and perhaps help me make more connection with his theories. Such was the state of my thinking at the time (and probably now as well!). We social work students (mostly women and mostly practitioners) listened politely but