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Assess the usefulness of interactionist approaches to the study of society
(33marks)
Interactionism is an action, micro level approach, which focuses primarily on the individual and
their actions and interactions
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Interactionists
argue that individuals construct society through their interactions and meanings as every individual
possess agency and free will in which they are able to shape their own destiny and society through
their meanings and choices
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Interactionist approaches to the study of society have been split into three main action theories
which are symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology and phenomenology
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Mead and Blumer are both symbolic interactionists
who argue the usefulness of the interactionist approach to the study of society
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We do this by attaching
symbols to the world
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Mead also argues the view of taking the role of the other in which we manage other
people's meaning by putting ourselves in the place of the other person and seeing ourselves as
they see us
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Blumer, another symbolic interactionist,
developed Mead's views further and outlined three key principles behind symbolic interactionism
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Like Mead, Blumer
used the example of the animals to illustrate that our actions are not based on automatic
responses to stimuli
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Lastly, the meanings we give to situations are the result of the interpretive procedures we use such
as taking on the role of the other
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Blumer argues that the meanings we give to situations are the result of us, interpreting and
analysing the given situation before responding
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Blumer's views contrasts with functionalism who criticise the usefulness of interactionist
approaches to the study of society
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They argue that socialisation and social control ensure that
individuals conform to society's norms and perform their roles in a fixed and predictable way and
as a result roles are fixed, biological and non-negotiable
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Parsons argues that there is a clear division of labour roles between husbands wives
which continue to occur naturally as women are more suited to the nurturing role and men to that
of the provider and as a result roles are fixed and are not negotiable like Blumer argues
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Labelling theorist Thomas argues that during social interaction, if a person
defines a situation as real, then it will have real consequences
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Another labelling theorist, Cooley, argues that we as individuals develop a self-concept based on
our ability to take on the role of the other
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An illustration of the selffulfilling prophecy is illustrated in the research of Jacobson and Rosenthal
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The study consisted of telling teachers that a selected amount of students were high achievers
based on a previous assessment
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However, one year later when Jacobson and Rosenthal reviewed the achievements of
the selected students they found that they were achieving higher scores than other students
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This in turn showed that when a student is given a direct label
from their teacher, positive or negative, a self-fulfilling prophecy will occur
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Becker
talks primarily about the concept of 'career' which he used to identify how individuals take on a
status based on a given label and this in turn becomes their master status which shapes their
interactions with others
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An illustration of this is the concept of the 'ideal pupil' that Becker
puts forward
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However, the usefulness of labelling and interactionist approaches to the study of society have
been criticised as it fails to explain were labels have actually originated from
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Even though
labelling theorists can explain the patterns of inequality of groups, for example the negative
labelling of working class boys in education, it does not explain and explore the wider social
structures such as class inequality
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They argue that interactionism has not usefully contributed to the
study of society as they fail to recognise the inequality that the social structure of Capitalism has
brought about as capitalism is the type of society in which the Bourgeoisie own the means of
production and exploit the working class by using them as wage slaves
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This is extremely
contradictory as interactionists argue that we have free will and choice to choose what shapes us
and that everything is negotiable and changeable
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Labelling theory discuses how the self is
shaped through social interaction whereas interactionist Goffman describes how we actively
construct our 'self' by manipulating other people's impression of us
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As a result, Goffman argues that as individuals we see to present ourselves in a
favourable light so we must control the impression our performance gives
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Interactionist Goffman also rejects functionalism's view on roles being
tightly scripted by society and something which is the result of socialisation, instead Goffman
argues that there is a clear gap between our real self and our roles
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Radical feminists agree with Marxists that wider
social structures have shaped our behaviour, however they believe that the social structure which
has done this is not Capitalism but patriarchy which is a society based on male dominance
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They
argue that females controlled by patriarchy which oppresses them and keeps them in a
subordinated and unequal place compared to males
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Schutz argues that we make
sense of the world through shared concepts and categories known as typifications
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As a result, meanings are potentially
unclear and unstable especially if others classify the action in a different way than oneself
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Schutz refers to this as a shared, common sense knowledge
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Cicourel argues that officers' have typifications of what a delinquent of
deviant should look like which leads them to primarily concentrate on certain groups or people
more than others
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Cicourel refers to this study as the
negotiation of justice which is the idea that justice is not a fixed concept but negotiated as for
example a white middle class youth committed a crime, they may get a shorter sentence than a
black working class youth
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Garfinkle rejects
the idea that society is a real objective structure
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Garfinkle sees ethnomethodology as a
useful approach to the study of society as ethnomethodology is the attempt to discover how order
and meaning is established by studying people's methods of making sense of the world
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Garfinkle argues the concepts of indexicality, which is that nothing has
a fixed meaning and everything depends on context, and reflexivity, which enables us to behave as
if meanings are clear and obvious
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Atkinson argues that we can never know the real rate of suicide,
even when using qualitative methods, since we can never know the meanings that the deceased
had and as a result, meanings of suicide are inherently unclear or unstable
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Giddens argues that both structure and action are two sides of the same coin and neither can exist
without the other
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This is what Giddens refers to as structuration
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He also states that we also reproduce existing structures
through our action because we hold a deep-seated need for ontological security in which we hold a
need to feel that the world is really as it appears to be and especially that it is orderly, stable and
predictable
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However, postmodernists would argue that as we have entered a post-modern world, metanarratives such as action perspectives has become outdated and is now unneeded in a postmodern world as they no longer tell us how society works

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