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.     

Goodness of fit for the inverse Gaussian distribution

For testing the fit of the inverse Gaussian distribution with unknown parameters, the empirical distribution-function statistic A² is studied. Two procedures are followed in constructing the test statistic; they yield the same asymptotic distribution. In the first procedure the parameters in the distribution function are directly estimated, and in the second the distribution function is estimated by its Rao-Blackwell distribution estimator. A table is given for the asymptotic critical points of A². These are shown to depend only on the ratio of the unknown parameters. An analysis is provided of the effect of estimating the ratio to enter the table for A². This analysis enables the proposal of the complete operating procedure, which is sustained by a Monte Carlo study.     

Campus attitudes toward alcohol and drugs in a deep southern university.

In our zeal to deal with alcohol and drug abuse, we may have a distorted picture of what the majority of college students actually think about alcohol and drug use. Students in this study done at a public university located in the Deep South report being generally intolerant of substance abuse.     

The discovery of participatory research as a new scientific paradigm: Personal and intellectual accounts

The article presents considerations for the placing of participatory research in the practice of sociology. The changing conditions in contemporary society have compelled social scientists to rethink the way social theory has been conceptualized and has been practiced in relation to social change. Modernist social theory, of which sociology is a prime example, has been imbued with the biases of the Enlightenment that privilege the essentialized male rational actor set above the ordinary people. As a consequence it has produced narratives and practices that are not in the interest of the people, especially those who have been dominated and oppressed. In order to live up to the potential of sociology as a vehicle for the improvement of social conditions, it must include the interest and the wisdom of the people in its researching and theorizing activities. It is argued that participatory research provides an opportunity to follow this course in sociology. Participatory research, it is contended, will lead to a paradigm shift in the social sciences because it is based on an expanded conception of knowledge and because it changes the relationship between the researcher and the researched and between theory and practice. Arguments are drawn from the history of science, critical theory, and postmodernist and feminist critiques. Peter Park is currently on the faculty of the Fielding Institute.     

Screening for patients with alcohol problems: severity of patients identified by the CAGE.

Primary care physicians are well situated to identify patients with substance abuse problems and motivate them to seek appropriate assistance, but active programs are the exception. A study in a community setting was undertaken to assess the CAGE (the first letters of key words in a series of four questions about drinking: cut down; annoyed; guilty; and eye-opener), instrument in the routine screening for alcohol problems in both new and established patients. The screening process identified subjects for a pilot evaluation of a motivational interview designed to encourage problem-solving behavior. This article focuses on the screening results and the use of the CAGE instrument. During June and July of 1990, 687 patients of two primary care physicians belonging to a large group practice were asked to complete a health questionnaire that included the CAGE. Those who responded affirmatively to at least two of the four CAGE questions were requested to participate in follow-up assessment of problems associated with alcohol and health. The type and severity of alcohol problems experienced by patients who scored positive on the CAGE are described. Prevalence of a positive score on the CAGE was 8.6 percent with males, smokers, and blue collar and unemployed persons being more likely to score positive. The positive predictive value was .68. Primarily, persons with moderate alcohol problems were identified. Results show that the CAGE instrument is a useful screening device for identifying those with mild to moderate substance abuse problems, increasing the opportunity for intervention prior to serious medical complications. The instrument is easily administered, and has demonstrated relatively high levels of sensitivity and specificity. When combined with assessment and motivational interviews, the CAGE shows promise in the secondary prevention of substance abuse and related health problems.     

Negotiating Role Definitions and the Working Consensus in Self-Work*

Definitions of social roles and the maintenance of a working consensus are two kinds of background expectations which are important for actors’accomplishment of self-work. Interactionists have traditionally assumed that these background expectations are unambiguously available to social actors as they negotiate situated meanings of selves and situations. Using data from dyadic role-play conversations, this study examines instances where interactants reference these expectations as ambiguous or problematic. The findings show that the situated meanings of role definitions and the working consensus are continually subject to potential negotiation. The implications of these findings for future research and theory on self-work in social interaction are discussed.     

Codependency and Recovery: Gender,Self, and Emotions in Popular Self-Help

Popular contemporary rhetoric of the self advocates knowing the needs of the self and reaching a balance between self and other. As a consequence of economic dependence on men, women have emotional obligations that make meeting these goals unlikely. The recently identified condition called codependency addresses the tensions underlying this situation. Recovering from codependency serves as an aligning action that accounts for past behavior using the quasi-medical rhetoric of addiction. The sick role then allows for small amounts of deviance from female gender role norms in that it permits women to exercise some self-determination in the allocation of their time and emotions. Although critics have ignored the possibility, codependency can provide a tool of resistance for those who have few resources to challenge the status quo.