The Classic American Pragmatists As Forerunners To Symbolic Interactionism*

Although it is generally known that symbolic interactionism is historically and philosophically linked to American pragmatism, relatively little attention has been given to assessing the separate influences of Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead upon its development. This paper contends that there were two opposing branches of American pragmatism: (1) the social realism of Peirce's pragmatism, and (2) the social nominalism of James's pragmatism. The writings of Dewey and Mead reflect the influences of both of these branches. Dewey, however, was more closely aligned with James while Mead's work is more consistent with Peirce's principles. Blumerian symbolic interactionism is essentially a continuation of the nominalistic James/Dewey branch of American pragmatism, notwithstanding the popular notion that, among the classic American pragmatists, Mead was the principal precursor of symbolic interactionism.     

An Underestimated Alternative: America and the Limits of “Critical Theory”

The main goal of this paper is to examine the intellectual and biographical reasons why the theorists of the Frankfurt school did not embrace pragmatism. This goal is pursued in four areas: (1) the epistemological area of the debate about subjective and objective “reason”—here the misleading character of Horkheimer's and Mar-cuse's writings on pragmatism is demonstrated; (2) the area of political theory—here the tension between the American democratic tradition and a quasi-Marxist functionalism is exposed; (3) the area of social psychology—here the inability of the Frankfurt school to incorporate symbolic interactionism becomes evident; (4) the elitist relationship to American mass culture. The paper ends with brief remarks on Habermas' ambivalent position between pragmatism and “Critical Theory” and with a perspective of transcending this ambivalence.     

Charles Tilly and American Pragmatism

Charles Tilly’s work on repertoires of contention and social mechanisms was pathbreaking. In this article, I argue that his understanding of both concepts overlaps with social-theoretical work informed by the philosophical tradition of classical American pragmatism. There is no evidence that Tilly was influenced by pragmatism, but I argue that the overlap is substantial enough that large portions of his oeuvre can serve as illustrations of the explanatory power of pragmatist social science—and that Tilly’s theorization of mechanisms in particular would have been even stronger had he engaged pragmatism directly.     

Adult–Adolescent Interaction and Adolescents' Brain Development: Integrating Pragmatism/Interactionism and Neuroscience to Develop a Platform for Research on Adolescents' Life Regulation

The aim of this paper is to outline a platform for research on adolescents' life regulation. Adolescents' brain development is described with the help of neuroscience and integrated with pragmatist and symbolic interactionist insights about how adolescents can learn to control their impulses and act thoughtfully. The foundation for the analysis is found in American pragmatism, where a biopsychosocial perspective is built on the understanding that the developed human brain is the essential precondition of a complex and civilized society. Today's interactionists, and in general, the majority of sociologists, show little interest in brain development and function. However, there is an opportunity for sociologists and neuroscientists to collaborate in order to better understand how the brain develops in relation to biological development and social experience.     

Social Exclusion,Social Identity and Social Work: Analysing Social Exclusion from a Material Discursive Perspective

Within this article I explore the concept of social exclusion, considering how it has been defined and the implications of this for social exclusion policy. It is suggested that the current use of the concept focuses on material definitions of exclusion, obscures the discursive origins of exclusion and tends to individualise the problem. I argue that we need to adopt a broader approach to defining and analysing social exclusion which understands social exclusion as a process which is influenced by both material and discursive factors. The connections between discourse, identity and marginalisation are discussed and these arguments are illustrated using examples related to different aspects of social identity. Finally the article presents a framework for analysing social exclusion from a material discursive perspective and suggests that adopting this perspective clarifies the role of social work in working with people who experience exclusionary processes.     

Social Skill and the Theory of Fields

The problem of the relationship between actors and the social structures in which they are embedded is central to sociological theory. This paper suggests that the "new institutionalist" focus on fields, domains, or games provides an alternative view of how to think about this problem by focusing on the construction of local orders. This paper criticizes the conception of actors in both rational choice and sociological versions of these theories. A more sociological view of action, what is called "social skill," is developed. The idea of social skill originates in symbolic interactionism and is defined as the ability to induce cooperation in others. This idea is elaborated to suggest how actors are important to the construction and reproduction of local orders. I show how its elements already inform existing work. Finally, I show how the idea can sensitize scholars to the role of actors in empirical work.     

Pragmatism and the study of large-scale social phenomena

Pragmatism has recently gained ground as a theoretical perspective in sociology. The approach is not without its critics, however. One common charge is that pragmatism is oriented toward the micro and not well suited for the explanation of meso- or macro-level events, processes, or outcomes. In this paper—a review essay—I consider whether the charge has merit. I examine four studies that draw heavily on pragmatism and give some indication of its explanatory potential. Taken together, these studies suggest that pragmatism has much to offer analysts of large-scale social phenomena. At the same time, key issues remain to be worked out.     

Small Worlds and the New ‘Social Physics’

Abstract In this article I explore the increasing overlaps between ‘sociology’ and ‘physics’ through analysing recent contributions to the social network literature concerned with exploring and explaining the so‐called ‘small world’ phenomenon. I show that this new social network literature, while very provocative, is insufficiently sociological and insufficiently complex. With regard to the former it is demonstrated that a key issue is that of meetingness and hence of travel in order to effect meetingness. Networks have, in other words, to be performed, and they have to come together from time to time, especially to talk. I further show that the small worlds literature is insufficiently complex. Social networks often involve combinations of mobilities and highly structured material immobilities. I conclude the article with an analysis of how a new ‘social physics’ based around the notion of ‘network’ might be established in an era in which time and space seem increasingly warped, bent and twisted into strikingly new topologies.     

Caroline Bartlett Crane and the history of sociology: Salvation, sanitation, and the social gospel

This article investigates the relationship between Progressive era (1890–1920) social reform and the origins of American sociology with a view of the vital contributions of women in these endeavors. I observe the efforts of the first generation of sociologists to legitimate and delineate the field in the “social construction” of the discipline of sociology, as they attempted to combine Christianity, the social gospel, and socialism into a new and unique ideology. In this article I examine the archival material of Progressive era reformer, Caroline Bartlett Crane (1858–1935), a Unitarian minister and student in the sociology department of the University of Chicago in 1896, to address the relationship between theology, sociology, and social reform from a woman’s perspective.     

HERBERT BLUMER: A PILGRIMAGE WITH PRAGMATISM

This article is an examination of Herbert Blumer's lifelong effort to perpetuate pragmatism raises serious questions about the future of the social sciences. He tried, through critical analyses, to tell social scientists how to make their fields scientific. Opposition to this effort was overwhelming and eventually weakened his own perspective and thus his influence in the discipline. The story of Blumer provides several lessons for future social scientists. It is intended that these lessons to be useful to those who still believe in a scientific social science.     

SYMBOLS AND CONTEXTS: An Interactionist Approach to the Study of Social Status

This article proposes an interactionist framework for the study of status stratification. This framework returns the focus of status research to how status works, especially emphasizing the symbolic and contextual aspects integral to the concept. By closely examining how status is indicated, how it is employed, and how it is maintained or changed over time, an interactionist approach provides an explanation on how status affects both individual and organizational behavior—an explanation that is currently lacking in status research. In addition, the development of this framework provides an argument against critics of interactionism who question whether this perspective can contribute to the study of social stratification. This article makes evident that status stratification, with its intimate ties to the symbols and contexts, proves to be an area of study ideally suited to the interactionist perspective.     

Life-Spheres,Networks, and Sustained Participation in Social Movements: A Phenomenological Approach to Political Commitment

This article proposes an account of individual participation in social movements that combines structural and cultural factors. It aims to explain why certain activists continue to be involved in social movements while others withdraw. When activists remain embedded in social networks relevant for the protest issues and, above all, when they keep a symbolic linkage between their activism and their personal life-spheres, sustained participation is likely to occur. When these two factors become progressively separated from each other and the process of self-interaction by activists loses its strength, disengagement can be expected. The argument is illustrated with life-history interviews of activists who have kept their strong commitment to a major organization of the Swiss solidarity movement, and others that, in contrast, have abandoned their involvement. The findings support the argument that the interplay of the structural positions of actors and the symbolic meanings of mobilization has a strong impact on commitment to social movements and hence on sustained participation or disengagement. In particular, the interviews show the importance of a sense of coherence and of a holistic view of one's personal life for keeping commitment over time. This calls for a view of individual participation in social movements that draws from social phenomenology and symbolic interactionism in order to shed light on the symbolic (subjective) dimensions of participation, yet without neglecting the crucial role played by structural (objective) factors.     

Untangling Inequalities: Gender,Race, and Socioeconomic Differences in Depression1

In their important paper, Link and Phelan (1995) argue that socioeconomic status is a fundamental cause of variation in well‐being and that the social resources associated with socioeconomic status constitute the fundamental cause of variation in well‐being. In this article, I elaborate on the fundamental cause perspective in three respects: by suggesting an expansion of the definition of resources, by examining how race and gender influence variation in the relationship between resources and mental health, and by developing a model of the relationship between social class, race, and gender that takes account of the potential asymmetry in the influence of resources across race and gender. Using the 2003 National Health Interview Survey and ordinary least squares regression, I find that black and white men are significantly less depressed than black and white women. However, women accrue greater mental health advantage from marriage, home ownership, and education. African‐American men experience less depression as a result of being unmarried and non‐Hispanic white women experience less benefit from full‐time employment, relative to African‐American women and men. Results are discussed in terms of implications for future research on race, class, and gender differences in health.     

Social Survey Research1 in Japanese Sociology

Abstract: In this paper, we look at the history of social survey development in Japanese sociology. First, the history of social research in Japan before World War II is explored. Second, the introduction of survey research to Japan during the American occupation after World War II is examined, and third, the present state and roles of social survey research in Japanese sociology is discussed. Social research was introduced as an administrative tool for the government. Sociology and social research were developed under British empiricism and American pragmatism, but Japanese academia has been based on a metaphysical approach. Social research introduced as a practical tool long had difficulty in being accepted by Japanese academia. For this reason, most sociologists in universities did not use social survey research for practical purposes, but pursued qualitative methodologies for analyzing data to gain academic prestige even after Social Stratification and Mobility (SSM) and Sabro Yasuda's research projects spread social survey methods in the field of Japanese sociology. Such academics did not think that findings acquired through qualitative case studies had to be confirmed through quantitative data to serve a practical purpose, nor did they believe that quantitative data could be better understood when examined along side qualitative data. Social survey methods have been opposed by those who have favored case‐study analysis methods in Japanese sociology. Needless to say, this opposition is fruitless. I propose that professional sociologists in Japanese universities should use social survey research for practical problems more frequently. This is the best way to establish sociology and social research as a science in Japanese society.     

“I Stay by Myself”: Social Support,Distrust, and Selective Solidarity Among the Urban Poor

Significant debate exists about whether the black urban poor rely on each other for support. Currently, two perspectives dominate: the pervasive solidarity perspective, which asserts that support is widespread in poor, black communities, and the distrust‐individualism perspective, which claims that, in these communities, pervasive distrust undermines social cohesion and people use individualistic strategies for solving problems. Based on fieldwork in an African American public housing development, I present the concept of selective solidarity, which suggests that social life in these communities is neither as cohesive nor as individualistic as what past perspectives suggest. With selective solidarity, people rely on one another for support but selectively choose exchange partners, restricting exchange networks. Selective solidarity helps us understand how people manage sentiments of distrust while developing strategies for coping with material deprivation. Findings also have implications for the study of urban poverty. While my informants frequently stated that they “stay by themselves,” which implies individualism, they actually have meaningful exchange relationships. I argue that this contradiction suggests that they have multiple frames for approaching social life. We must consider such frames to avoid drawing misinformed conclusions, such as that the urban poor do not have supportive relationship when in fact they do.     

Researching Race: Identifying a Social Construction through Qualitative Methods and an Interactionist Perspective

Although much of the sociological community now views race as a social construction, empirical research does not always identify it in this way. Many practices of designating a research participant's race approach this process uncritically, implicitly framing race as uncomplicated. Although this is more common in survey‐based work, in this article I explore the tendencies and difficulties of studying race using qualitative methods. I discuss two prevalent but potentially problematic ways of “operationalizing” race in qualitative methodology, and then elaborate on the difficulties of identifying race in practice, using examples from my own ethnographic research. I suggest that symbolic interactionism provides a unique perspective from which to express race as socially situated, as long as this process is approached reflectively.     

Extending and Broadening Blumer's Conceptualization of Fashion: Adding Notions of Generic Social Process and Semiotic Transformation

Abstract

Herbert Blumer's critics and followers have, for the most part, neglected the significance of his theory of fashion. In this paper I revisit Blumer's thesis on fashion by identifying the fashion process as an instance of the generic social process of semiotic transformation. The concept of semiotic transformation refers to the change in meanings of symbolic objects over time. By identifying six elements of the generic social process of semiotic transformation (systemic permeability, systemic freedom, logonomic fluidity, logonomic openness, indeterminacy, and logonomic hegemony) and by viewing semiotic transformation as a joint act grounded in emergence, I argue that the meaning of change over time is a process structuring both the definition of the situation and symbolic objects. I conclude the paper with a set of reflections on the significance of Blumer's work on fashion for the development of a research agenda of semiotic transformation and for the legacy and reception of Blumerian theory.     

Rethinking the Margins/Thinking from the Margins: Culture,Power, and Place on the Frontiers of the New World

In this article, I undertake a critical analysis of the writings that contributed to set up the foundation for eclipsing Amerindian social dynamics and their complexity. Starting from a presentation of Jesuit Jos de Acosta's classifications of the indigenous sociopolitical forms, I show that both the evolutionist and discontinuist perspective still in vogue among some Americanists and the positivist approach of some borderlands historians tend to perpetuate a conquest culture (the material and symbolic power relation of domination) while concealing indigenous social dynamics and adaptation strategies. I end the article by presenting some of the perspectives and concepts developed by a new historical anthropology that seek to re-politicize the production of social and cultural differences otherwise considered as natural.     

Body Dysmorphic Disorder and Its Significance to Social Work

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a relatively common and often severe psychiatric disorder in which an individual has an excessive preoccupation with an imagined or slight defect in his or her appearance (American Psychiatric Association in Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. American Psychiatric Association, Washington, 2000). Despite its prevalence in the United States and worldwide, many health care and mental health professionals, including social workers, are unfamiliar with BDD. In fact, BDD is virtually absent from the social work literature and no authors or researchers have considered BDD from a social work perspective. The purpose of this article is to inform social workers about the seriousness, prevalence and treatment challenges of BDD, and to highlight its significance to social work practice and research. A clinical case presentation illustrates an example of how BDD may present in practice and the value of addressing it from a biopsychosocial perspective.     

Multi-Organizational Fields and Social Movement Organization Frame Content: The Religious Fro-Choice Movement*

As an explanatory method in studies of social movements, analyses of collective action frames have generally focused on the variable efficacy of the frames of social movement organizations (SMOs)in the mobilization of potential participants. However, this work has for practical reasons used the acknowledged analytic simplification that SMOs only target potential participants–and not opponents, elite decision makers, or the media–when constructing their frames. To incorporate multiple targets into future studies of SMO frame construction, this paper expands on the idea of a multi-organizational field. I propose that the characteristics of the targets in the field and the social structural and cognitive boundaries between them determine SMO frames. This perspective is demonstrated by analyzing changes in the collective action frames of SMOs in the religious pro-choice movement from 1967 to 1992. I argue that this perspective may explain findings where a frame fails to “resonate” with potential participants–the frame may not have been created with them in mind.