Whither Symbolic Interaction? Reflections on a Personal Odyssey

This essay reflects my experiences over fifty‐five years in the world of sociology and sociologists. It assumes these experiences hold more general meaning and so can illuminate the present and anticipate the future of symbolic interactionism. My views of interactionist theory and methods developed in opposition to widely accepted views stemming from Herbert Blumer's writings, creating a cycle of antagonism that impeded communication and learning across the divide. Recently, antagonism apparently has decreased, and respect and trust have increased commensurately If true, the future of symbolic interactionism is brighter, as respect and trust allow the communication and learning from one another that was missing previously.     

Sociology as a vocation: Reputations and group cultures in graduate school

Graduate training in sociology involves more than meeting organizationally imposed demands such as satisfying departmental requirements, taking exams, and completing a dissertation. More central is the development of identity through institutional and interactional forces. We examine the experience of graduate students as tied to the social psychological processes associated with professional training. We consider the faculty-student relationship, identifying how student identities as future sociologists are negotiated and constructed within a reputation market linked to status politics. Through this process, graduate students construct frames of interpretation that make sense of a status system in which criteria for evaluation are often variable, uncertain, or undisclosed. To recognize how graduate students fit into their occupational routines, we build upon three core disciplinary constructs: identity, reputation, and group culture. This perspective permits graduate education to be grounded in sociological understandings, underlining the role of a sociological imagination. We propose strategies that sociology departments might follow to facilitate the professional socialization of graduate students, emphasizing the establishment of group culture and presentational norms. In the absence of these changes, we offer advice to graduate students on navigating their current programs.     

MYTHIC FACTS AND HERBERT BLUMER'S WORK ON RACE RELATIONS: A Comment on Esposito and Murphy's Article

Luigi Esposito and John Murphy (1999) have argued that research using Blumer's group position theory of race relations using statistical analysis of survey data research actually undermines Blumer's theory of race relations by ignoring its definitional and dynamic emphases, as well as its emphasis on human agency. Furthermore, they argue that surveys and other quantitative data are directly antithetical to Blumer's perspective and symbolic interaction in general, which instead supposedly espouse nongeneralizing, idiographic, interpretive methods, such as "sympathetic introspection.' This commentary focuses on these latter points of their argument. I think Esposito and Murphy present questionable interpretations of Blumer's view of scientific concepts, of his methodological position, and symbolic interactionism. I first discuss Esposito and Murphy's depiction of Blumer's perspective as being "non-generalizing' with a focus on the sensitizing-definitive continuum of concepts. Second, I address the question of whether Blumer, and symbolic interactionism in general, is antiquantitative. I conclude by noting the importance of this debate for understanding race relations as well as the present and future place of symbolic interactionism in sociology.     

Interaction Theory in the Federal Republic of Germany: Development,Current Position,Themes, and Problems

After the end of World War II in West Germany, action and interaction theories and phenomenological sociology occupied only fringe positions. At the end of the 1960s, criticism of the prevalent neopositivistic research methodology, systems theory, and the rapidly spreading critical theory increased. This, coupled with the positive reception given symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology from the United States, caused interaction theories to flourish. Today they are among the four or five main schools of thought in West German sociology. In methodological work, the “interpretative” or “communicative” social research of the time developed the narrative interview and life history method. Group discussion and participant observation were also used for interactionist social research. A survey of the subjects interactionists have covered in their research shows how widely interaction theory has been applied. The main themes of current interaction theory are: (1) conceptualizing the difference between unpremeditated behavior and meaningful action, (2) formulating a theory that covers both “structure” and “action”, and (3) developing an interactionist macro theory. The future of interaction theory is analyzed and assessed optimistically.     

David R. Maines: Embedding Symbolic Interactionism at the Heart of Sociology

David R. Maines was a key founder of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and a champion of symbolic interactionist sociology. Maines fought against characterizations of symbolic interactionism as astructural and “subjectivist.” He was adamant that symbolic interactionism offered vital perspectives on the study of social structure and organization, and that it was compatible with a variety of research methods. He played a vital role in developing narrative sociology and bringing narrative scholarship from communication studies to sociological audiences. In this retrospective on his life and career, I detail what Maines saw as the five central features of symbolic interactionism: (1) interpretation and meaning, (2) communication, (3) temporality and process, (4) agency, and (5) dialectical thinking. I then examine four interrelated themes of Maines' sociological contributions: (1) temporality, (2) debunking myths about interactionism, (3) mesostructure, and (4) narrative sociology. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/YodjvXbo51Q .     

Academic odyssey: The training of an African sociologist

This article describes my experience of graduate training in sociology at an elite American university. As an African, I faced cultural and intellectual pressures to adopt white middle class cultural norms and a Eurocentric worldview. The article critiques American sociology, including symbolic interactionism, the sociology of the Third World and the study of race and ethnic relations. I describe my personal encounter with American racism and the process that led me to conduct research on black immigrants. I argue that my exposure to American sociology and experience of American society transformed me into a black marginal sociologist, specializing in teaching and research on the African-American experience in the New World. His forthcoming book,Becoming Black American, is being published by AMS Press.     

Symbolic Interactionism in Canada: Shared Meaning and the Perpetuation of Ideas

In this paper I critically discuss Helmes‐Hayes and Milne's institutional perspective, as well as Neil McLaughlin's emphasis on scientific intellectual movements and Coserian intellectual sects, in explaining the emergence and potential future of symbolic interactionist theory in Canada. I contest claims that the interactionism is on the verge of disappearing and instead offer an explanation grounded in insights about shared meaning. I conclude that it is ironic that debates over the presumed demise of symbolic interaction may well contribute to its continued existence within the canon of Canadian sociology.     

Evaluating Ph.D. sociology programs: Theoretical,methodological and policy implications

Reputational surveys frequently are used in evaluating doctoral programs. A sample of faculty-rated graduate programs and the resulting data are used to rank the programs in the academic discipline being considered. As an alternative, we present a new and auspicious assessment methodology by analyzing sixty doctoral programs in sociology for 1975/80 on six measures of research productivity and graduate education. We calculate two proximity matrices and reduce each with ALSCAL. Two solutions are generated: (1) per capita and (2) gross productivity of departments. These analyses show that conventional ranks contain a number of deficiencies and more comprehensive measures of departmental performance add important dimensions. We empirically document a tendency for conflict between faculty productivity and graduate education. Finally, our analyses suggest that omission of several assessment variables may have penalized departments emphasizing qualitative research. Recommendations for improving the next national assessment are advanced. Address correspondence to Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, 61761-6901.     

Interactionism,Social Organization,and Social Processes: Looking Back and Moving Ahead

With its roots in American pragmatism, symbolic interactionism has created a distinctive perspective and produced numerous important contributions and now offers significant prospects for the future. In this article, I review my intellectual journey with this perspective over forty years. This journey was initiated within the American society, sociology, and symbolic interaction of circa 1960. I note many of the contributions made by interactionists since that time, with particular focus on those who have contributed to the study of social organization and social process. I offer an agenda for the future based on currently underdeveloped areas that have potential. These are inequality orders, institutional analysis, collective action across space and time, and the integration of temporal and spatial orders. The article concludes with calls for further efforts at cross‐perspective dialogues, more attention to feminist scholars, and an elaborated critical pragmatism.     

Networks and Complexity: Directions for Interactionist Research?

In this article I consider the potential importance of social networks for symbolic interactionism. Specifically, I argue that symbolic interactionism operates with an underdeveloped and often tacit conception of networks; that network analysis offers us various tools for further developing and operationalizing this conception, empirically; and that doing so would be to our considerable advantage. In addition, I argue that a stronger focus on networks would give interactionism an inroad into important contemporary debates on “complexity,” building on an obvious but again underdeveloped affinity between these two academic domains. Moreover, tackling complexity raises important and central sociological concerns of structure/agency and micro/macro, with the additional payoff that interactionism can develop and demonstrate its strengths, as an approach, in addressing the problems often associated with these concerns.     

POSTMODERN THOUGHT IN SYMBOLIC INTERACTION:

Perspectives in sociology are currently being reassessed in light of postmodernism, which has been associated with the abandonment of faith in the social self and scientific inquiry. As an emergent problematic, postmodernism stands in sharp contrast to a modernist pragmatic (and innocent) conception of symbolic interactionism — which is centered in the Meadian conception of prosocial selves. However, this article identifies some "late-modern" interactionists — Goffman, Stone, Becker, Lemert, and Mills— who, in providing a corrective for an innocent pragmatic inquiry into the self, created a foundation for contemporary inquiry into the social. This corrective entailed a reconceptualization of the self as the focal point of the situated act and, specifically, its changing definition from cooperative and reflective to strategic and imaginary. While we suggest that their work represented a loss of innocence in interactionism, it did not create a loss of faith in scientific inquiry into the self and social action. Rather, the work of the late modernists has inspired a reconstruction of scientific inquiry into the social that encompasses, but is not encompassed by, postmodernism.     

Social Identities in Black and White*

The theoretical usefulness of a convergence of symbolic interactionism and urban sociology is discussed. A method is proposed for the analysis of large numbers of social identities. Black racial identity, in particular, is considered. Racial identity is found to be far more salient for blacks than for whites, but even for blacks, a number of other identities are seen to be more frequently employed. The notion of a “standard package of identities” is developed, and the utility of such a model for understanding group differentiation and inter-group linkages is explored.     

The business of becoming a professional sociologist: Unpacking the informal training of graduate school

While one can be labeled a sociologist in name by fulfilling formal institutional requirements, that is only part of the necessary work involved in graduate training. What is also required is mastering the informal professional culture associated with academic sociology. In this paper, we offer practical advice about informal norms in graduate school—norms we know now that we wish we’d known then. Our reflections upon our own experiences in graduate school are guided by our common research and teaching interests in informal organizational culture. What is the potential salience of informal norms, such as particularistic relations with faculty and graduate students, ceremonial versus actual practices regarding research and teaching, and emotional labor around one’s work, for better understanding the professional socialization of graduate study in sociology? Our emphasis here is to offer advice on how to navigate the graduate school realities these norms present. We also believe that sociologists should turn a more focused eye on the profession, one in which the presence of such norms is readily acknowledged and more formally considered for the benefit of teaching graduate students.     

Teacher Careers and Inhabited Institutions: Sense‐Making and Arsenals of Teaching Practice in Educational Institutions

This article advances emerging scholarship that emphasizes the benefits to new institutional theories of organizational functioning offered by empirical research rooted in the tradition of symbolic interactionism. I present evidence from in‐depth interviews with teachers from three high schools to show how individuals' perspectives about pursuing institutional goals are filtered through their accumulated experience working within those institutions. Findings show teachers develop what I call “arsenals of teaching practice” as they accumulate work experience, and this process creates a key source of difference by career stage among teachers that shapes their instructional decisions. I discuss implications for understanding the relationship between policy and practice, and extend existing theory of inhabited institutions by identifying a key way that people's sense‐making through experience drives institutional functioning.     

WEBER AND INTERPRETIVE SOCIOLOGY IN AMERICA

This article examines the role of Weber's methodological writings on verstehende Soziologie in the construction of an American variant of interpretive sociology during the first half of the twentieth century. It thereby illustrates the connections between intellectual appropriation and the academic institutionalization of competing sociological schools. After reviewing Weber's general reception in American sociology, it focuses on the respective relevance of Weber for symbolic interaction, which developed out of the Chicago School; Parsonian action theory; and the phenomenological social theory of Alfred Schutz. Three conclusions emerge. First, the symbolic interactionists and their predecessors operated with the implicit assumption that they did not need Weber. Second, Weber was not only intellectually valuable to Parsons, but also useful in his quest for intellectual hegemony. Finally, Schutz, in offering a third, alternative and competing interpretation of Weber, served to complicate this struggle between the two American sociological schools.     

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.     

A Journey with Symbolic Interaction

In this cranky and arrogant chapter I consider several aspects of my use of symbolic interactionist perspectives on my research and thinking. The following are the elements of the chapter: (1) the historical context of my initial encounter with symbolic interactionism (SI); (2) my interpretation of key ideas of SI; (3) its relation to specific research of mine; (4) the relation of other perspectives to my research; and (5) some critiques of SI. I conclude with a truncated discussion of my dissatisfaction with the overtheorizing and overscientizing of sociology. Seeking balance, I end with predictions of a grand and glorious future.     

Two different worlds: The academic orientation of graduate education vs. the realities of one applied career

The current academic orientation of graduate education in sociology poses a number of barriers in preparing students for applied careers. As a case in point, a former housing analyst discusses problems with the emphases of graduate training versus the realities of a career in applied housing research. Issues discussed include the importance of an in-depth knowledge of the applied area, the need for broad sociological scope as opposed to substantive and theoretical specialization and statistical/methodological skills. To more closely mesh educational experience with the demands of the applied workplace, graduate programs might offer a variety of options within a broadly defined applied track, expand opportunities for students to gain applied experience and recruit faculty members from an applied background. specializing in social organization and demography. She currently is working on a dissertation that examines the implications of computer technology for workplace democracy.     

Social Work Students' Perceptions of Poverty

ABSTRACT

Over a period of 14 years (1991-2004), graduate social work students (n = 2,213) in ten California schools were surveyed about their perceptions of poverty as they entered and exited their graduate programs. Entering students expressed preferences for societal/institutional change methods to address poverty, as opposed to methods of individual adaptation and were even more inclined upon graduation. Implications for social work education and practice are identified.