Interactionism

Theoretical Perspectives: Interactionism

Key ideas:

• The Self ("I" and the "Me" - Self concept).
  
• Meanings and Interpretations
  
• Negotiated reality
  
• Symbolic universe of meaning
  
• Social context (relativity, Definition of a situation)
  
• Social construction of reality (Subjective sociology)
  
• Social Action approach (Micro, small-scale)
  
• Society actively constructed through Social Interaction
  
• Labelling theory (master labels, categorisation, stereotyping)
  
• Role Play (ascription and achievement)
  
• "Society" has no objective existence (society = "elaborate fiction")
• Interpretivist methodology
  

Key Names: Mead, Cooley, Becker, Berger and Luckmann, Goffman, Garfinkel.

Key Criticisms:

• Focus on small-scale, relatively trivial, aspects of social life
  
• Over-emphasis on "the individual" (little sense of social structure)
  
• Too much focus on individuals (and their "common sense", subjective, interpretations)
  
• Doesn't explain how or why societies change
  
• Questions of social order and social change not adequately explained
  
• Social Structures (doesn't explain why these may be important)
  
• How do structures affect individual perceptions, meanings and interpretations?
  
• Power relationships (where does power come from?).
• Are there objective features of society?
  
• Is all knowledge relative?
  
  

Key Critics: Gouldner, Structuralist sociologists (Marxists, Functionalists).