Introducing to Symbolic Interactionism

1. Introducing to Symbolic Interactionism ERSH 7400 Kathy Roulston The University of Georgia

2. Disciplinary roots • American pragmatism • Social psychology Symbolic interactionism: explores the understandings abroad in culture as the meaningful matrix that guides our lives (Crotty, 1998, p.71)

3. Symbolic interactionism • A distinctive style of sociological reasoning and methodology that has evolved in and about the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago in the 1920s & 1930s Research: • Tentative • Empirical • Responsive to meaning

4. Howard Becker: “it’s not an easy position to understand…partly, I think, because (like Zen) it’s so simple.” Herbert Blumer: “The symbolic interactionist approach rests upon the premise that human action takes place always in a situation that confronts the actor and that the actor acts on the basis of defining this situation that confronts him.”

5. Scholars • Herbert Mead (1863-1931) social psychologist • Herbert Blumer (1900-1986) (Mead student) • Erving Goffman • Chicago School • Howard Becker • Glaser & Strauss

6. Central premises (Blumer) • Humans act toward things on the basis of meanings these things have for them • Meaning of such things is derived from social interactions of one with others • Meanings are handled/ modified through an interpretive process used by one in dealing with things he/she encounters

7. Assumptions • People are unique creatures because of their ability to use symbols • People become distinctively human through their interaction • People are conscious and self-reflexive beings who actively shape their own behavior • People are purposive creatures who act in and toward situations.

8. Assumptions • Human society consists of people engaging in symbolic interaction • To understand peoples’ social acts, we need to use methods that enable us to discern the meanings they attribute to these acts (Sandstrom, Martin, Fine, 2001)

9. A person is a personality because he belongs to a community, because he takes over the institution of that community into his own conduct The whole (society) is prior to the part (the individual). (George Herbert Mead)

10. Focus • Study the functional relationship between how we see ourselves (self-definition), how we see others (interpersonal perceptions); and how we think others see us. • To understand social reality and society from the perspective of the actors who interpret their world through and in social interaction. • To explain the set of understandings & symbols that give meaning to people’s interactions.

11. What was new? • Broke away from traditional efforts to construct mock-scientific theory and method to “observe social life as it occurs, observe people as they go about their affairs.” • Aimed to provide fuller depictions of actual conducts in real circumstances. • Critique of quantitative methods as inappropriate to capture the nature of social life.

12. Methodologies Ethnography Grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss)

13. Methods • Participant and non participant observation • Interviews

14. Field work • Not to be reduced to a strict method or recipe • Role of field researcher loosely defined and open ended • Research as exploratory • View sympathetic to those under study • Tradition of “urban anthropologies” • Occupational studies

15. Central questions • What common set of symbols and understandings have emerged to give meaning to peoples’ interactions? • Contributions: • Self & identity theory • Emotions • Social coordination • Social construction (e.g. Deviance & social problems) • Culture & art • Organizations & collective action

16. Future directions • Incorporation of perspectives from • Feminist theory • Critical theory • Postmodern theory

17. Critiques • We can’t see through others’ eyes. • “Actors” put forward what they wish (e.g. tell you what you want to hear) • Has neglected topics such as social structures, institutions, power & ideology