Sociology / Unit 1 Soc 0039 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Symbolic Interactionism
Captions available
The idea
Symbolic interactionism, developed by George Herbert Mead and named by Herbert Blumer, studies how people build social reality through everyday interaction and shared meanings attached to symbols.
In practice
A ring means marriage only because a society agrees it does; the metal carries none of the meaning.
Where people slip
Its native scale is interaction; comparing whole structures requires supplementing it, the macro frameworks' job.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
Unlocks
- 0044"The Three Perspectives Are All of Sociology"
- 0046Reading One Case Through Three Lenses
- 0052The Sociological Perspective, Applied
- 0335Culture Through Three Lenses
- 0465The Social Construction of Reality
- 0530Society and Self Through Three Lenses
- 0665Labeling Theory
- 0862Symbolic Interactionism on Stratification
- 1926A Contested Election: Authority, Power, and Participation
- 1941A Case Moves Through Court: Labeling, Bureaucracy, and Disadvantage
- 1946Three Generations: A Family Across the Whole Course
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