scholarly journals Analytical Sociology and Symbolic Interactionism: Bridging the Intra-disciplinary Divide

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reza Azarian
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Empirical Validation ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Definition Of The Situation ◽  
Classical Notion ◽  
Interactionist Perspective ◽  
Analytical Sociology ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThe aim of the present article is to contribute to the development of the Desire-Belief-Opportunity-model from a symbolic interactionist perspective. The main argument is that this model needs to incorporate the classical notion of definition of the situation to be able to account for the formative impact of interaction on the formation of actor’s beliefs, as well as the complex interdependency between two of its key components, namely the beliefs and the action opportunities of the actor. It is argued that the theoretical advancement of the DBO-model in this particular direction is not only feasible but also brings it considerably closer to the analytical refinement and the empirical validation it currently lacks.

scholarly journals Resurrecting an Abandoned “Standpoint”: An Exploratory Application of W. I. Thomas’ Abandoned “Four Wishes” and the “Definition of the Situation” to Adolescent Shoplifters’ Cases

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 16
Author(s):  
J Forbes Farmer
Keyword(s):  
Action Theory ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Human Motivation ◽  
Definition Of The Situation ◽  
Interactionist Perspective ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Thomas Theorem

This is a novel, qualitative application of W. I. Thomas’ (1863-1948) historically significant ideas about human motivation to the study of shoplifters. Nineteen short cases of self-reported adolescent shoplifting are presented here under the organization of Thomas’ (1923) “Four Wishes” and discussed from Thomas’s symbolic interactionist perspective, the “Definition of the Situation.” While the “Thomas Theorem” (Merton, 1948) has long been abandoned as an action theory and is rarely used by sociologists, this researcher found Thomas’ “standpoints” useful in gaining an understanding of what was going on in the mind of the adolescents as they shoplifted and in explicating the meaning shoplifting had to them.

scholarly journals Body and Social Interaction—The Case of Dance. Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 164-179
Author(s):  
Dominika Byczkowska-Owczarek
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Role Identity ◽  
The Body ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Interactionist Perspective ◽  
Human Flesh

The article aims at presenting the symbolic interactionism as a useful and flexible theoretical perspective in research on the human body. It shows the assumptions of symbolic interactionism in their relation to the human body, as well as explains how basic notions of this theoretical perspective are embodied—the self, social role, identity, acting, interacting. I depict the unobvious presence of the body in the classical works of George H. Mead, Anselm Strauss, Howard Becker, Erving Goffman, and in more recent ones, such as Bryan Turner, Ken Plummer, and Loïc Wacquant. I also describe the Polish contribution to the field, including research on disability, hand transplant, the identity of a disabled person, together with the influence of sport, prostitution as work, yoga, climbing, relationships between animals and humans based on gestures and bodily conduct, the socialization of young actors and actresses, non-heteronormative motherhood, and the socialization of children in sport and dance. In a case study based on the research on ballroom dancers, I show how to relate the theoretical requirements of symbolic interactionism with real human “flesh and bones.” I depict three ways of perceiving own bodies by dancers: a material, a tool, a partner; and, two processes their bodies are subjected to: sharpening and polishing a tool. I draw the link between the processual character of the body, of the symbolic interactionist theoretical perspective, and process-focused grounded theory methodology.

scholarly journals La etnometodología de Harold Garfinkel en el aula

2021 ◽  
pp. 541
Author(s):  
Pablo Hermida Lazcano
Keyword(s):  
High School ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Social World ◽  
Harold Garfinkel ◽  
Definition Of The Situation ◽  
The Social ◽  
School Classroom ◽  
Alfred Schütz ◽  
High School Classroom ◽  
Definition Of

Este ensayo parte de una experiencia disruptiva en un aula de bachillerato de un instituto español. En el transcurso de una clase ordinaria de filosofía, un incidente inesperado rompe la definición de la situación, haciendo añicos el consenso de trabajo entre los alumnos y el profesor. Para reconstruir su trasfondo de expectativas, los alumnos se ven forzados a emplear estrategias de acomodación y normalización. En el análisis de esta experiencia disruptiva convergen la fenomenología del mundo social de Alfred Schütz, la etnometodología de Harold Garfinkel y el interaccionismo simbólico de Erving Goffman.This essay starts from a disruptive experience in a Spanish high school classroom. In the course of an ordinary philosophy lesson, an unexpected incident breaks the definition of the situation, smashing the working consensus among students and teacher to smithereens. In order to rebuild their background expectancies, the pupils are forced to resort to accommodation and normalization strategies. The analysis of this disruptive experience is based upon the convergence of Alfred Schütz’s phenomenology of the social world, Harold Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, and Erving Goffman’s symbolic interactionism. 

scholarly journals Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Biggs
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Social Theory ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Social Reality ◽  
Explicit Definition ◽  
Definition Of The Situation ◽  
Analytical Sociology ◽  
Definition Of

This article examines self-fulfilling prophecies and the conditions under which they are most likely to arise. The term ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’ (SFP) was coined in 1948 by Robert K. Merton to describe ‘a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the originally false conception come true’. SFP is a particular type of dynamic process and is also known as ‘Oedipus effect’, ‘bootstrapped induction’ and ‘Barnesian performativity’. It has been discerned in a variety of processes; for example, between social theory and social reality. This article begins by proposing an explicit definition of SFP, followed by the argument that analytical sociology must be both empirical and theoretical. A summary of methods for investigating SFP is followed by a review of systematic empirical evidence for selected phenomena. Finally, explanations are given for why self-fulfilling prophecies occur: why false or arbitrary beliefs are formed and why they are subsequently fulfilled.

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATION OF INTEGRATING SOCIAL STRUCTURE INTO SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM: SELECTED METHODOLOGICAL INSIGHTS

1988 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-108
Author(s):  
Arthur F. Clagetit
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Symbolic Interactionism ◽  
Theoretical Consideration ◽  
Basic Problem ◽  
Social Process ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Interactionist Perspective ◽  
Phenomenal States

The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the process-social structure controversy, concerning the relations of self to symbolic interactionism. Increasingly, knowledgeable scholars of self theory are gaining methodological insights, which support the fact that our conceptions of process and social structure are each incomplete, supplementary dimensions articulating the same phenomenal states of being and development.Just as self and society are “twin born’; structure and process are analytically separable dimensions of self that, however, are not mutually reducible. Hence, the basic problem, attempted herein, is to expound dimensions of the symbolic interactionist perspective required for logically specifying and analyzing those psychological, social and situational conditions under which social structure and social process each exert their differential – as well as their combined, simultaneous influences in determining consequences that self has for social behavior.

The meaning of stigma: identity construction in two old-age institutions

2006 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 355-371 ◽  
Author(s):  
TOVA GAMLIEL ◽  
HAIM HAZAN
Keyword(s):  
Older People ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Old Age ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Self ◽  
Sheltered Housing ◽  
Housing Project ◽  
Symbolic Interactionist ◽  
Interactionist Perspective ◽  
Definition Of

People in advanced old age with frailties and those who are resident in old-age institutions manage their identities within the constraints of stigmatised settings. This paper compares the processes of identity construction in an old-age home and in a sheltered housing project for older people in Israel. Applying a symbolic-interactionist perspective that sees old-age institutions as social arenas for the reconstruction of identity, the paper first distinguishes the residents' constructions of stigma and deviance. While the old-age home residents collectively turned their stigma into a source of positive labelling, the sheltered housing residents drew advantages from their previous roles and statuses. Gossip is shown to play a critical role in reproducing stigma, particularly in the old-age home. These findings are used to demonstrate the variability and potential for adaptation among the residents – who are often stereotyped as homogeneous and passive. The paper concludes with a discussion of the literal and metaphorical languages used by older people, and of stigma as a positive instrument that can introduce content into the definition of the self.

scholarly journals Composing Arugat ha-Bosem: How Piyyut Commentary Became Associated with Ḥasidei Ashkenaz

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Hollender
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Open Book ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
New Research ◽  
Hasidei Ashkenaz

AbstractBased on Ivan Marcus’s concept of “open book” and considerations on medieval Ashkenazic concepts of authorship, the present article inquires into the circumstances surrounding the production of SeferArugat ha-Bosem, a collection of piyyut commentaries written or compiled by the thirteenth-century scholar Abraham b. Azriel. Unlike all other piyyut commentators, Abraham ben Azriel inscribed his name into his commentary and claims to supersede previous commentaries, asserting authorship and authority. Based on the two different versions preserved in MS Vatican 301 and MS Merzbacher 95 (Frankfurt fol. 16), already in 1939 Ephraim E. Urbach suggested that Abraham b. Azriel might have written more than one edition of his piyyut commentaries. The present reevaluation considers recent scholarship on concepts of authorship and “open genre” as well as new research into piyyut commentary. To facilitate a comparison with Marcus’s definition of “open book,” this article also explores the arrangement and rearrangement of small blocks of texts within a work.

Erkundungen Von Gegenwelten: Zur Orientierungsleistung «mythischer» Reisen Am Beispiel Zweier Mesopotamischer Texte Erkundungen Von Gegenwelten: Zur Orientierungsleistung «mythischer» Reisen Am Beispiel Zweier Mesopotamischer Texte

Numen ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-254
Author(s):  
Daria Pezzoli-Olgiati
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Religious Orientation ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Religious Symbol ◽  
Symbol Systems ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Gilgamesh Epic ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThe present article focuses on the function of mythic journeys with regard to the problem of death and the transience of human life in two selected Mesopotamian literary sources: the Gilgamesh-Epic IX–XI and the Descent of Ishtar to the Underworld. The selected texts are analysed and compared from the perspective of a functionalist definition of religious symbol systems, with particular attention to the transformation involved in travelling through different cosmic regions. The structure of the journey, the characterisation of the different regions visited by the protagonist, and the changes provoked by the mythic travel evince similarities and differences in the strategies employed to produce a religious orientation dealing with the ineluctable limits of life.

scholarly journals How should we model property? Thinking with my critics

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 815-827 ◽  
Author(s):  
BENITO ARRUÑADA
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Transaction Costs ◽  
Main Argument ◽  
Model Property ◽  
Private Ordering ◽  
Single Exchange ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Physical Dimensions

AbstractInspired by comments made by Allen (2017), Lueck (2017), Ménard (2017) and Smith (2017), this response clarifies and deepens the analysis in Arruñada (2017a). Its main argument is that to deal with the complexity of property we must abstract secondary elements, such as the physical dimensions of some types of assets, and focus on the interaction between transactions. This sequential-exchange framework captures the main problem of property in the current environment of impersonal markets. It also provides criteria to compare private and public ordering, as well as to organize public solutions that enable new forms of private ordering. The analysis applies the lessons in Coase (1960) to property by not only comparing realities but also maintaining his separate definition of property rights and transaction costs. However, it replaces his contractual, single-exchange, framework for one in which contracts interact, causing exchange externalities.

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