Talk:Symbolic interactionism
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[edit] Need to rewrite
There is my attempt to make a basis for the rewrite of this article at User:Ceplm/Symbolic_Interactionism What do you think?
Ceplm (talk) 21:56, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Previous comments
what is the easier way to understand symbolic interactionism?
- I must say I am puzzled, as sociologisy, I only knew symbolic interaction. Where the interactionism came from? Dorit 18:29, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
The statement that interactionism ignores material reality outside of interaction is completely absurd. Is this from some introductory textbook or just a snap judgment from this author?
Frankly, what would any of us know about the world we live in if we didn't interact with other people? For sure, the world is something, but exactly what it is, is something we agree on with other people. After I finished reading this page it is much more clear as to what symbolic interactionism is. I was confused at first but I put it into simpilest terms. We learn and undestand the worls and society by how we interact with others and how others state their opinions on certain things. Thus, society is something to agree upon.
This article is questionable. Not only does the content seem dubious, but I'm not sure that I can even find it (the content). Here's a reproduction of the first paragraph:
"Symbolic interactionism is a sociological and criminology perspective (paradigm) which examines how individuals and groups interact, focusing on the creation of personal identity through interaction with others. Of particular interest is the relationship between individual action and group pressures."
I'm no sociologist, but the entire paragraph seems to be a no-op. What does it accomplish?
- doesn't the entire field of sociology examine how individuals and groups interact?
- what does it mean to focus on the creation of personal identity through interaction with others? isn't it pretty well accepted that a significant proportion of personality traits are learned via social interaction? in fact, isn't that once again, almost (not quite, but almost) the basic premise on which the entire field of sociology is founded?
- 'of particular interest' to whom? the author? critics? proponents of the theory?
- and what is the relationship between individual action and group pressures? (according to the theory, of course)
Reading further, the whole article is ripe with red flags that it was written from a very narrow perspective. How about two examples:
"Researchers investigate how people create meaning during face-to-face interaction, how they present and construct the self (or "identity"), and how they define situations of co-presence with others."
- people cannot create meaning. to suggest this is like suggesting that Isaac Newton created gravity.
- 'meaning' is a by-product of observation (incidentally, it is a by-product that only exists in the context of observation). it is not directly created by anything.
- similarly, people cannot construct 'self.' to suggest it implies that 'self' is manually and intentionally built. which then implies that people don't have self until they are able to manually build one.
- similarly: what does it even mean to 'define situations of co-presence with others?' the word situation is unavoidably linked to coincidence--which renders the whole sentence as nonsense... leaving the reader irate and unwilling to consider investigating possible meaning of 'co-presence.'
"Symbolic interactionism allows researchers to understand how individuals negotiate, manipulate, and change the structure and reality to a certain extent."
- Unless I missed something huge, symbolic interactionism must be a theory (as opposed to a law). Ambiguity in what would be necessary to definitively prove or disprove it guarantees that it will never become a scientific law.
- Given my previous point, its presumptuous to assert that symbolic interactionism 'allows researchers to understand'
- Researchers ought to be (and most likely are) explicitly acknowledging the set of assumptions they are taking on (in this case, the assumption would be that symbolic interactionism is a correct theory and that it is relevant to some hypothesis they're testing).
- There is a basic logical fallacy in the idea that one can use an unproven assumption to conclude anything real. Conclusions are not equivalent to hypotheses. Maybe the sentence would be self-consistent if it read "Symbolic interactionism allows researchers to speculate further about ..." or "Research suggests that, given <insert some specific tenet of the theory>, <insert some relevant conclusion or insight>."
- The structure and reality(?) of what?
- Woah, hold on--change... reality? Are they going Back to the Future?
Kierah 03:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Putting the cleanup tag on this. I think the initial part of this article could be broken up into sections a bit better.
"people cannot create meaning." you're implying that when people stop at a red light it is because red inherently and by observation means 'stop' not because people have attributed the meaning to it? In effect, people have created a meaning for something that previously just meant 'red'. The whole point of Symbolic Interactionism is that it's not the material object, it's the meaning we bring to it that matters.
"the word situation is unavoidably linked to coincidence" what? Just...what? and the word what here is unavoidably linked to 'wtf?' how in ANY WAY is 'situation' related to or linked to 'coincidence' ? THAT is nonsensical. Situations could be linked to 'events' or something like that, but coincidence has nothing to do with it. sorry. But no, I have no idea what 'co-presence' is, but I DID get far enough to ask the question of 'what the heck is co-presence?'.
Aside from these two silly comments, I agree with most of the rest of what you said. - Elin
I changed he/she to a single gender-neutral pronoun. - Osaria no mames —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.37.68.78 (talk) 23:52, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Theres no proper definition here. This article needs a lot of work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.157.1.180 (talk) 17:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Anarchism
Why is Anarchism in the "See Also" section? How is it in anyway related to symbolic interactionism? Davedim (talk) 11:43, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I came to the talk page looking for an answer to this very question! Anyone? 9emini (talk) 00:09, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
