Chapter 1 (Part 2 of 2) Key Terms: Symbolic Interactionism and New Theoretical Approaches

The Chicago School and Symbolic Interactionism

• Early 20th century Chicago as a laboratory for a sociology focused on micro-level, face-to-face processes.

• Emphasis on fieldwork: interviews, observation over macro historical/comparative methods.

• Key figures associated with the Chicago School: Albion Small (department head), Robert Park, W. I. Thomas, Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Herbert Blumer.

• Influenced by Max Weber’s idea of proper field attitude; aims to link everyday interactions to larger social structure.

• Focus on urban, diverse settings (race, class, neighborhood dynamics) as building blocks of social life.

Symbolic Interactionism: Founders and Core Ideas

• George Herbert Mead 1863-1931: mind and self arise in social process; language as central; there is no mind without language; meanings come from social interaction.

• Blumer (Herbert Blumer) 1900-1987: named symbolic interactionism and articulated its core principles.

• Meade’s line leads to Blumer’s development of the theory that emphasizes meaning-making through interaction.

Core Tenets of Symbolic Interactionism

• Three basic tenets (Blumer, 1969):
  1) We act toward things on the basis of their meanings.
  2) Meanings are not inherent; they are negotiated through interaction.
  3) Meanings can change through interaction.

• Social facts and social reality are produced and reproduced via everyday interactions and interpretations.

• The theory provides broad explanatory power across issues from race and gender to family and workplace dynamics.

Key Figures Beyond the Chicago School

• W. E. B. Du Bois 1868-1963: race relations, sociology of race, first African American PhD from Harvard; NAACP cofounder; civil rights activism.

• Jane Addams 1860-1935: Hull House founder; applied sociology and social work; activist and organizer; helped establish ACLU and Nobel Peace Prize recognition.

• Note on representation: the Chicago School had few women or people of color within its core circle.

Goffman, Garfinkel, and Related Methodologies

• Erving Goffman 1922-1982: dramaturgy — life as a theater; self-presentation and strategic behavior in everyday life.

• Harold Garfinkel 1917-2011: ethnomethodology — study of everyday knowledge and practical reasoning used to produce social order.

• Ethnomethodology emphasizes that much of social life is tacit knowledge (background assumptions) that people continually reproduce.

• Conversation Analysis (CA): close analysis of naturally occurring talk to reveal how social meaning is produced turn by turn in interaction; linked to ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism.

From Micro to Macro: Debates and Integration

• Symbolic interactionism highlighted the micro-foundations of social life, often contrasted with macro-level theories.

• Critics (e.g., Gary Fine, 1993) argued limitations: apolitical, unscientific, overly focused on face-to-face interaction, potentially narrow in scope.

• Some theorists argued for a middle ground or detente between micro and macro analyses to capture the full picture of social life.

Postmodernism: A Contemporary Approach

• Postmodernism questions certainty, universal truths, and grand narratives; favors plurality, fragmentation, and mini-narratives.

• Key figures associated with postmodern thought: Jacques Derrida 1930-2004, Jean Baudrillard 1929-2004.

• Core ideas: no absolute truths; reality is constructed, contingent, and multiple; deconstruction of established stories.

• Examples in culture: hip hop as a hybrid genre; mashups (e.g., The Gray Album) illustrating cultural mixing.

• Critiques: often viewed as dismissing scientific method and stable knowledge; debated usefulness for empirical sociology.

Midrange Theory: Bridging Micro and Macro

• Midrange theory (Robert Merton’s concept) aims to balance micro and macro scales without demanding a single grand theory.

• It emphasizes small- to mid-scale theories grounded in empirical data that progressively inform larger theoretical frameworks.

• Examples of midrange research since the 1990s:

  • Netlero study on how parental social class shapes children’s outcomes 2011

  • Dalton Conley on racial identity and leisure in the digital age 2009

  • Peter Bearman (Berman) on public health issues like vaccine refusals 2010

• Goal: build cumulative knowledge that strengthens sociology as a science rather than only a way of thinking.

Methods and Data in Symbolic Interactionist and Contemporary Thought

• Ethnography and ethnomethodology as data-rich, empirically grounded methods.

• Conversation analysis as a tool to scrutinize how meaning is produced in everyday talk.

• These methods reinforce the emphasis on micro-level processes while offering routes to connect to larger social patterns.

Media, Pop Culture, and Sociological Application

• Celebrity gossip sites as a contemporary case study to apply macro-, micro-, and interactionist perspectives.

• Questions to apply: functions of gossip, forms of inequality, and meanings of gossip at individual and societal levels.

• Demonstrates the continued relevance and adaptability of sociological theories to new cultural phenomena.

Closing Reflections: Sociology’s Evolution and “Family Tree”

• There is no single universal theory; new theories emerge as society changes.

• Sociology’s strength: a living, evolving dialogue among classical theories and newer approaches.

• The field remains diverse in methods and perspectives, with ongoing debates about scope, emancipation, and scientific grounding.

Cautions and Context

• Many theorists discussed historically were white and Western; today’s sociology emphasizes broader inclusion and critique of these histories.

• The discipline continues to expand beyond traditional boundaries, incorporating new data, methods, and global perspectives.

Quick Reference Concepts

• Symbolic Interactionism: meanings, language, social construction through interaction.

• Blumer’s three tenets: meaning, negotiation, and change through interaction.

• Mead’s linkage of thought, language, and sociality.

• Chicago School: micro-level, field-based urban sociology.

• dramaturgy: self-presentation as performance (Goffman).

• ethnomethodology and CA: everyday knowledge and conversation as the essence of social order.

• postmodernism: distrust of grand narratives; plurality of meanings; deconstruction.

• midrange theory: empirical middle-range theories linking data to larger theory.