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Unlock This CourseInteractionism is one of the main theoretical perspectives in sociology. Unlike structural approaches that focus on big social systems, Interactionists are interested in how people create meaning through everyday interactions and conversations. They believe society is built from the bottom up, through countless small interactions between individuals.
Key Definitions:
Interactionism helps us understand how our everyday conversations and actions create the social world around us. It explains why the same action can mean different things in different contexts. For example, raising your hand means something different in a classroom (I want to answer) compared to on a busy street (I'm hailing a taxi).
While Functionalists and Marxists look at big social structures and how they shape people, Interactionists flip this around. They look at how people create society through their interactions. They're less interested in power or social order and more interested in how we make sense of the world together.
Herbert Blumer (1900-1987) coined the term "symbolic interactionism" and developed it into a major sociological perspective. He was heavily influenced by George Herbert Mead but made the theory more accessible and applicable.
Blumer outlined three simple but powerful ideas that form the foundation of symbolic interactionism:
People act toward things based on the meanings those things have for them. We don't just respond to the world - we interpret it first.
These meanings come from our social interactions with others. We learn what things mean by talking and interacting with other people.
We constantly modify these meanings through an interpretive process as we encounter new situations. Meanings aren't fixed - they change.
Think about school uniforms. For some students, a uniform represents oppression and lack of individuality. For others, it represents belonging and equality. Teachers might see it as promoting discipline. Parents might see it as cost-effective. The physical uniform is the same, but the meaning varies based on social interactions and personal interpretations.
Erving Goffman (1922-1982) compared social life to a theatrical performance. His "dramaturgical approach" suggests we're all like actors on a stage, playing different roles depending on our audience and setting.
Front stage is where we perform for others, following social rules and expectations. Think of how you behave in class or at a job interview.
Back stage is where we can relax and be ourselves, away from the audience. This might be at home with family or with close friends.
This is how we try to control how others see us. We use our clothes, speech, gestures and setting to create the impression we want to give.
For example, a teacher acts professionally in the classroom (front stage) but might relax and speak differently in the staff room (back stage).
Social media is a perfect example of Goffman's ideas in the modern world. On platforms like Instagram or TikTok, people carefully manage their "front stage" by selecting the best photos, editing them and crafting the perfect captions. The "back stage" (deleting failed attempts, planning posts, feeling anxious about likes) remains hidden from the audience. This performance creates an identity that may be quite different from how they behave offline.
Howard Becker (born 1928) developed labelling theory, which explores how people come to be defined as "deviant" through social interactions rather than because of their actual behaviour.
According to Becker, deviance isn't about the act itself but about how society responds to it. His famous statement was: "The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied."
The initial rule-breaking behaviour, which might be minor or even accidental.
When powerful groups or individuals identify and label someone as "deviant" or a "troublemaker".
When the labelled person starts to see themselves through that label and acts accordingly, creating a "deviant career".
Imagine a student who occasionally misbehaves in class (primary deviance). Teachers begin to label them as a "troublemaker" and watch them more closely, noticing and punishing minor infractions they might ignore in other students. The student starts to think, "If they're going to treat me like a troublemaker anyway, I might as well act like one" (secondary deviance). Other students avoid them, further pushing them toward a deviant identity. This self-fulfilling prophecy shows how labels can create the very behaviour they describe.
Interactionist perspectives help us understand many aspects of everyday life that other theories might miss:
Interactionists look at classroom interactions, teacher expectations and how labels like "bright" or "struggling" affect student performance. They might study how teacher expectations create self-fulfilling prophecies (the Pygmalion Effect).
Rather than seeing family as a fixed institution, interactionists examine how family members negotiate roles and create shared meanings. They might study how families decide what counts as "quality time" or how parents and children interpret the same rules differently.
Interactionism offers a unique window into how society works by focusing on everyday interactions:
While Functionalists might see society as a body with organs working together and Marxists might see it as a battlefield of class conflict, Interactionists see society as a conversation constantly being created, interpreted and changed through our everyday interactions with each other.
Next time you're in a social situation, try looking at it through an Interactionist lens. Notice how people create shared meanings, manage impressions and respond to labels. You might be surprised by how much these theories explain about your everyday life!