theories Flashcards
symbolic interactionism
a perspective that analyses communication. people communicate and react to each other with the use of symbols such as words, facial expressions, and objects
mead -
- our behaviour is more than instinct, because of the meaning we give things. after you decide your interpretation, then you will be able to respond
taking the role of others
- we gain this meaning through taking the role of the other. as children we do this through seeing oyrselves through the eyes of those close to us, like our parents. significant others.
- as we get older, we begin to see ourselves from anybody and everybody else- the generalised other
- through shared symbols, especially shared language, we learn the ways of acting that others require of us
cooley - the looking glass self
- we use the way other people interpret our behaviour as evidence of who and what we are- develops self concept
- self concept arises from our ability to take the role of the other
- we use the behaviour of others towards us as a kind of mirror in which is reflected an image of the person we are. through this process, a SFP is creates
significant others
some people are more significant to us and their views carry more weight with us
impression management
we try to manipulate the impression that other people have of us
interactionism is often called a voluntaristic theory …
- emphasise on free will and choice in how we act
- however, can be accused of determinism - seeing our actions and identities as shaped by the way others label us
goffman - dramaturgical model
the roles we play in society are loosely scripted and we have freedom and choice in when and how we play them
goffman - roles
- functionalists see roles as tightly scripted by society, but goffman argues that there is a ‘distance; between ourselves and our roles
- we are actors playing a role - sometimes cynically to manipulate our audience into believing our impression and concealing our true motives and self
positive evaluations of symbolic interactionism
- avoids the determinism of structural theories by recognising that people create society through their understanding of situations
- it led to the development of important concepts such as labelling, deviant career, subculture and sfp. these have been employed to great effect in study of education, deviance and health
negative evaluations of symbolic interactionism
- a weakness of taking a micro view is it ignores the role of structural factors and doesn’t examine which groups in society have power or where inequality comes from
- does not look at how socialisation leads to inequalities and conflict in society
- doesn’t look at how socialisation leads to inequalities and conflict in society. primary socialisation teaches children patriarchy - feminism
- for a whole society to share meanings, they must be the product of society as a whole rather than learnt individually. e.g functionalists say people share value consensus
key difference between ethnomethodologists and interactionists
- interactionists: interested in the effecrs of meanings e.g the effect of a label on someone
EM: interested in the methods or rules that people use to produce those meanings in the first place
phenomenology - schutz
an approach which states that things and events have no meanings
atkinson
- used phenomenology in his studies of coroners and their social construction of suicide
- argues suicide is simply a meaning given to an event
- no such thing as a ‘real’ or ‘objective’ suicide death waiting to be discovered
garfinkel
- social order is created from the bottom up
- social order is constructed and ‘accomplished’ by members of society every day using their commonsense knowledge
evals of EM
+ shows how we actively construct order and meaning in everyday situations, not just puppets of society
- craib : argues findings from EM are trivial- they uncover taken for granted assumptions that are not really that surprising
- EM denies existence of wider society, yet by analysing how members apply general commonsnese knowledge to particular contexts, like suicide, they are accepting that a structure of norms exists beyond these contexts
- EM ignores how wider structures of power and inequality affect the meanings that individuals construct. marxists would argue that commonsense knowledge is actually ruling class ideology, creating a social order that benefits and maintains capitalism
key features of social action theories
- social structures are created by individuals
- voluntarism; free will and choice
- micro approach
- behaviour driven by beliefs, meanings and feelings people give to a situation they are in or the way they see things
- the use of interpretivist methodology in order to uncover meanings and definitions of individuals
different types of social action
- rational action
- value-oriented action
- affective or emotional action
- traditional action
weber: modern society
- characterised by its shift in the motivation of behaviour. today more and more behaviour is based on rational action
- saw the increase in rational action as having created an iron cage that enslaves us : individuality, compassion and human interaction are being removed from society
e.g work is done to earn money rather than to fulfill ourselves and be creative
positive evaluation of weber
- weber provides a valuable point about the over-emphasis of social structure seen in functionalism and most marxism
- reinforced the view that we must understand a persons subjective meanings if we want to explain their actions adequately
negative evaluation of weber
- schultz: argues weber does not explain the shared nature of meanings- too individualistic
- webers types of actions may be difficult to apply. some actions can be seen as traditional or rational. what about actions that are taken for no specific outcomes
- postmodernists argue that individualism is increasing as well as increased choice for consumption
- marxists would argue that base (economics) still the most important aspect of society, not other areas of the superstructure (religion)
giddens: duality of structure
— we create social structures but we can change the structures
- social action creates and reproduces structures e.g language,banking,patriarchy. once these structures are created they can constrain our actions
- however, these structures are changed through peoples actions .eg new words are introduced to language
social structures are made up of rules and resources
rules: the norms customs and laws that govern action
resources: both economic (raw materials, technology) and power over others
- both rules and resources are reproduced or changed through human interaction (agency)
agency and transformation- structuration theory
change can happen when human agents ‘reflexively monitor’ our own actions, means constantly checking our actions and their results and deliberately changing to a new course of action
- increasingly likely as tradition plays less part in how people behave
—– actions also have uninetended consequences e.g weber’s argument that calvisnism led to the creation of modern capitalism
