The Give and Take of Mental Health and Romantic Relationships

This paper examines the impact of mental health on romantic relationships using a symbolic interactionist approach. Specifically, this paper will focus on the dimensions of anxiety/attachment, depression, and mastery/self-esteem and how they impact romantic relationships. The impact of these dimensions is not always negative; some of the aspects can have a positive impact on relationships.

Religion, Platonist Dialectics, and Pragmatist Analysis: Marcus Tullius Cicero’s Contributions to the Philosophy and Sociology of Divine and Human Knowing

Whereas Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Augustine are probably the best known of the early Western philosophers of religion, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE) also played a particularly consequential role in the development and continuity of Greco-Latin-European social thought. Cicero may be best known for his work on rhetoric and his involvements in the political intrigues of Rome, but Cicero’s comparative examinations of the Greco-Roman philosophies of his day merit much more attention than they have received from contemporary scholars. Cicero’s considerations of philosophy encompass much more than the theological issues considered in this statement, but, in the process of engaging Epicurean and Stoic thought from an Academician (Platonist) perspective, Cicero significantly extends the remarkable insights provided by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Although especially central to the present analysis, Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods (1972) is only one of several texts that Cicero directs to a comparative (multiparadigmatic and transhistorical) analysis of divine and human knowing. Much of Cicero’s treatment of the philosophy of religion revolves around variants of the Socratic standpoints (i.e., dialectics, theology, moralism) that characterized the philosophies of Cicero’s era (i.e., Stoicism, Epicureanism, Academician dialectics), but Cicero also engages the matters of human knowing and acting in what may be envisioned as more distinctively pragmatist sociological terms. As well, although Cicero’s materials reflect the socio-historical context in which he worked, his detailed analysis of religion represents a valuable source of comparison with present day viewpoints and practices. Likewise, a closer examination of Cicero’s texts indicates that many of the issues of divine and human knowing, with which he explicitly grapples, have maintained an enduring conceptual currency. This paper concludes with a consideration of the relevance of Cicero’s works for a contemporary pragmatist sociological (symbolic interactionist) approach to the more generic study of human knowing and acting.

The Jack-Roller and the Life History Method: Notes on the Chicago School’s Clifford Shaw and Howard Becker’s Humanistic Narrative of Young Male and Female Delinquents in Different Ages

Clifford Shaw’s (1930) The Jack-Roller is a landmark study of naturalism, ethnography and crime. It is the ‘own story’ of Stanley—a young delinquent in Chicago. Shaw’s series of ethnographic studies on delinquency sought to humanize deviance in opposition to pathological understandings of delinquency. The article looks on the representation of crimes committed and punishment received by young male and female delinquents. Shaw’s argument focuses on structural inequalities and poverty as the cause of deviance; as a result, female delinquency was not explained by sexual promiscuity, although he failed to recognize young women’s vulnerabilities. The second edition of The Jack-Roller introduced by Howard Becker (1966, Introduction. The Jack-Roller: A delinquent boy’s own story, pp. v–xviii) redefined Shaw’s study within the symbolic interactionist tradition. From the 1950s, Shaw and Becker disagreed over the writing of the deviant’s ‘own story,’ the control of the narrative and the authorial voice. The article adds to the literature on narrative, female deviance and youth delinquency.

“I STARTED THE DAY JUST CRYING FOR 2 HOURS STRAIGHT.” ECHO-LOCATING THE VULNERABLE SELF ON INSTAGRAM.

Building on previous online-ethnographic fieldwork on the #strokesurvivor-community on Instagram, this contribution dives deeper into practices of echo-locating (Markham 2020) the vulnerable self on Instagram. This paper aims to reconstruct practices of adapting to a new body, identity and self through communicating on Instagram from a symbolic-interactionist perspective. I build on Goffman’s concept of stigma, Charmaz’ studies on adapting to illness and impairment and use the lens of Markham’s (2020) concept of echo-locating the self through online connection, Based on close readings and interpretations of postings, including pictures, captions and comments, as well as interviews with active community members, two critical antipodes of sense- and self-making in the #strokesurvivor-community emerged: First, mourning the loss of the familiar body, self, and identity and related identity goals. Users seek permission to mourn and also validation for their grief through their postings and comments. Second, and probably oppositional, perseverance, or in its extreme form, toxic positivity - this concept refers to a (more or less forced) attitude of optimism while ignoring valid reasons to actually not be positive, a mindset that seems to be embedded in a “contemporary cult of happiness” (Wright 2014) and cruel optimism (Berlant 2010). In the #strokesurvivor-community, a positive mindset and belief in the possibility of regaining physical and mental functions is a recurring theme and strong imperative. The contribution focuses on the reconstruction of patterns and practices of mourning and perseverance and their relevance to the echo-location of the vulnerable self.

SOFT SKILLS FOR TEACHERS: ACCEPTING STANDARD GURU MALAYSIA 2.0 (SGM) AND SSB4K THEORY IN FUTURE TEACHING PRACTICES

This paper discusses how Kemahiran Insaniah (KI) (softs kills) for teachers are constructed by accepting the combination of the Standard Guru Malaysia (SGM) 2.0 and Sistem Sahsiah Bersepadu 4K (SSB4K) or Integrated Personality System Theory. The main objective of the study was to highlight the contents of the SGM2.0 and SSB4K in order to propose teachers with relevant soft skills for transition into various education landscapes. The realisation of this objective can be met if most of the qualities of the features drawn from the SGM 2.0 together with SSB4K offer relevant and responsive curricula in line with current teaching practices. In this article, the researchers address the concern of experts’ views on the way experts see themselves as professionals teaching and how they compose their identities. Three data themes, expert authority, commitment to the profession, and multitasking are theorised from a symbolic interactionist (SI) framework, using constructs such as situational, social, and personal identity. This study is part of a larger research project involving the development of the understanding of the soft skills of teachers and broader teacher standards issues within Malaysian context. This study aimed to outline the current soft skills of teachers. The data were analyzed by qualitative content analysis. Two kinds of perspectives are described: the media perspective by illustrating what kind of descriptions, evaluations, and requirements of SGM2.0 and SSB4K is established in framing soft skills for teachers and the experts’ perspective by reporting the experiences and evaluations of themselves. These two perspectives are described and interpreted. The findings show that soft skills are a crucial part of the competence of teachers. Four main categories of soft skill competencies were oral communication skills, media digital skills, thinking skills, and leadership skills.

The belts are set out: The batizado as a symbolic welcome to capoeira culture

In contemporary capoeira groups, newcomers are symbolically ‘baptised’ into the community at a public ceremony called their Batizado (literally baptism) held during a festival. Novices play a game with a guest expert, get their first belt and thereafter they are members of their teacher’s group. Drawing on a long term, two-handed ethnography of diasporic capoeira contemporanea in the UK, including observation of 53 such festivals, their ceremonial features are analysed. At all the stages of the ‘welcome’, before, during and after the batizado, the topic of gender in capoeira contemporanea is explored. In the last 40 years, women have become enthusiastic participants and are core members of the groups we have studied. The article compares the sociological (symbolic interactionist) and anthropological approaches to ceremonies and rituals such as the capoeira batizado, drawing on Glaser, Strauss and Katz compared to van Gennep, Turner and MacAloon.

Sociology of Mass and New Media through an Interactionist Lens

This chapter explores symbolic interactionist insights and perspectives on both mass media and new media, with a concentration on the ways in which different forms of media influence meaning-making through social interaction while also being influenced by those interpretive processes. It also examines the relations between various media and the construction and interpretation of social reality, the ways that media shape the development and presentation of self, and the uses and interpretations of media within and between communities. Although it clearly distinguishes between mass media and new media, the chapter also discusses the variety of ways in which they intersect throughout social life.

Deviant Selves, Transgressive Acts, and Moral Narratives

This chapter on crime, transgression, and justice focuses on interactional meaning-making processes that shape the moral narratives of a range of actors such as perpetrators, police, and judges. These narratives include processes such as labeling, stigmatization, and criminalization. These processes are about (1) degrading, dominating, and excluding, and (2) their narrative counterparts, which focus on resisting the othering claims of moral narratives. This chapter focuses on two fundamental contributions of symbolic interaction to this field: the labeling perspective, and the ethnographic approach studying the social construction of moral meanings in everyday interactions. I will also describe two themes: (1) violence, the perspective of the “badass,” and (2) the criminal-justice system as a labeling machine. This chapter shows that because of its theoretical and methodological tools, symbolic-interactionist studies are well equipped to listen to voices of marginalized groups and show their agency in their fight for justice.

Disasters

The chapter’s objective is to summarize various theoretical and substantive contributions that researchers working in the tradition of Symbolic Interactionism have brought to disaster studies. We begin by discussing the advantages of conceptualizing disasters from a social constructionist perspective in public and political discourse. Next, we continue our review by turning to constructionist and interactionist thinking (or lack thereof) with regard to disaster perception at the micro level. In a third step, we consider the importance of examining culture, a traditional stronghold of interpretive social research, when studying disasters. Lastly, we conclude our review by assessing constructionist framings of vulnerability and resilience, two current key concepts in the field of disaster studies. Overall, we strive to show that the symbolic-interactionist perspective can help disaster scholars formulate and answer important research questions, as well as solve problems in the real world.