symbolic interactionism and inequality
White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Womens Studies. Pp. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. 
. The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Human Feeling. And the Kennedy example, which of course is well known, shows how promotion can even lead to the Presidency of the United States. 1996. Mead, George Herbert. 1989. Department of Sociology, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA, 94132, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, East Tennessee State University, Johnson City, TN, 37614, Department of Sociology, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, You can also search for this author in Our identities are formed by dozens of factors, sometimes represented in intersection wheels. 1999-2023, Rice University. 1996. https://www.thoughtco.com/symbolic-interaction-theory-application-to-race-and-gender-3026636 (accessed April 6, 2023). . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Closer relationships like kin and close friends are more often in a generalized exchange relationship with a high degree of bonding in long-term relationships. London: Routledge. Lorde, Audre. While they may have their differences, they show a lot of similarities when comparing certain traits within a certain theory including the economic inequality, deviance and gender as discussed above. In row 6 (items 16, 17 and 18) lower status persons with perhaps certain abilities and talents that they themselves recognize view their low status as being due to discrimination and bias coming from higher status persons. 
Their internalizations are highly manipulative and can often be violent because they are located closest to the boundary between high and low status, and they know it. WebSymbolic interactionism is the most prominent social psychological theory in sociology, but explicit theories of social psychology have only sporadically been applied to political sociology. Medical doctors rising above homeopaths with the Flexner Report are a good example, but the process also applies to nurses seeking bachelors degrees to promote the status of RNs (Larson 1977; Abbott 1988). 2005. In the end, I conclude that both Athens and Mead are right but both are also incomplete. Symbolic interaction theory looks at how we engage in meaning-making when we interact with the world around us. In every day go along with the flow and follow established norms of proper conduct, citizens pursue a form of generalized exchange whereby the good of the community is pursued. 
When people engage in sociation often with generalized exchange they are interacting according to the process of sociation. But when people engage in strategic interaction they are following interaction through power, which may be conscious by tough negotiators or may have been socialized into them through violentization. And further, there are processes in between. Symbolic interactionist research and theory thus contribute to a more complex understanding of social stratification than that provided by perspectives focused exclusively on macroscopic structural factors. Meaning-making and understanding is an ongoing interpretive process, during which the initial meaning might remain the same, evolve slightly, or change radically. 1975.
Or if the exchange is to take place over a long period of time, perhaps for loans and bond purchases, the arrangement is firmly structured with a contract that covers many different aspects of the exchange. Social Organization and Social Structure in Symbolic Interactionist. In a sense, they are saying I want my social mobility back or I dont want others to be rising above me with their own social mobility. On the other hand, those on the bottom may make the claim that upward mobility has no effect on others at the top, but relationally, this is not the case. All too often, the processes of the generalized other are portrayed as supportive othering such as mothers and fathers interacting with their children in the socialization process. Richardson, Laurel.
Nash (1964) focused his argument on the way racism is functional for the dominant group, for example, suggesting that racism morally justifies a racially unequal society. . One could make a similar comment about the Bush family as a political dynasty (Baker 2008). Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States. She informally entertains family and friends in a manner that reflects her idea of prevailing respectable social norms of her communitynothing more and nothing less. Further examples can be seen in the development of trade unions. Symbolic interaction theory is one of the most important contributions to the sociological perspective. The individualistic view attributes poverty to individual failings of poor people themselves, while the structural view attributes poverty to problems in the larger society. Generalized exchange is more community and group interested rather than self-interested. Drawing on a spectrum of symbolic interactionist theory and research, we examine the range of sym- 1997. It is a further question of whether these negotiations or social bargains are involved with restricted or generalized exchange. ThoughtCo. Its roots lie in the work of early 1900s American sociologists, social psychologists, and philosophers who were Kleinman, Sherryl, and Martha A. Copp. 1989b. 233244 in Qualitative Inquiry in Education: The Continuing Debate, edited by E. W. Eisner and A. Peshkin. One important type of restricted exchange involves an important time dimension (see 2 in Table 5.1). 1984. 2006. . . 1995. White Women, Race Matters. For example, Vivien Thomas (19101985), the Black surgical technician who helped develop the groundbreaking surgical technique that saves the lives of blue babies was classified as a janitor for many years, and paid as such, despite the fact that he was conducting complicated surgical experiments. For symbolic interactionists, race and ethnicity provide strong symbols as sources of identity. Stamford, CT: JAI Press. It is possible that his interpretation of Asian people might shift overallbecause social interaction is a learning experience that has the power to alter how we understand others and the world around us. The two types are when the groups overlap or they do not. The exchange is usually short (money paid for material objects, knowledge or personal services) and both parties are self-interested. Berkeley, University of California Press. For Your Review However, I want to move Schwalbe et al.s view of inequality further in the direction of social mobility. Albany: State University of New York Press. This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. However, theories of political sociology cannot assume unrelenting social mobility for everyone since most social mobility is relational.
Lively, Kathryn J. 2001. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Group to group generalized exchange can occur also through mutually exclusive groups (item 10) or overlapping groups (item 11). For example, an individual receiving unemployment insurance promises to be ready and able to work, and to search for work and fail in order to receive the benefit. Sex and Death in the Rational World of Defense Intellectuals. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 12: 687718. In their fearful position, they intensify their oppressive othering through discrimination with high intensity and emotion. Communicationthe exchange of meaning through language and symbolsis believed to be the way in which people make sense of their social worlds. Battered Women and Shelters: The Social Construction of Wife Abuse. 1989. The assumption that Asian Americans are immigrants is socially constructed through a combination of different kinds of social interactions. Not all interaction is bargaining, and if someone in our personal lives is constantly keeping score and pursuing the maximum goods and services in our relationships, we most often regard this person as a taker who is too instrumentally interested in outcomes in a friendship relationship. Those families who engage in bridging capital to go outside their kinship groups are even more successful in bringing their families more advancement in social mobility. 1934. Symbolic Interactionism, Inequality, and Emotions. For Your Review Hearts and Minds: The Controversy over Laboratory Animals. Copp, Martha. Emotions and Fieldwork. As people who have learned the meaning of masculine and feminine gender roles and behaviors, we transmit those to the young through social interaction. Cole, Nicki Lisa, Ph.D. "Studying Race and Gender with Symbolic Interaction Theory." 
This is certainly relevant to the discussion of masculinity and femininity, because the characteristics and practices of both are socially constructed, reproduced, and reinforced through daily interactions. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. They engage in counter-othering which is the angry rejection of the imposed reflected appraisals of high-status people that intend to demean and reject them. 2001. Problems arise when one or more racial or ethnic groups experience inequalities and discriminations. While this more or less goes back to Thomas Hobbes and the war of all against all, we do not have to flip flop on the basic motivations of humans and see that we all are motivated by both love and hate, cooperation or conflict, or caring and violence. 1989. Groves, Julian McAllister. 1995. society is defined by social inequality and conflict due to the fact that various groups compete with one another for access to resources such as money, power, and prestige. The merit-based high-status persons and the low-skilled degraded low-status persons will most likely stay where they are in the social structureone feeling superior and the other deferential. Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure. American Journal of Sociology 85: 551575. Smith-Lovin, Lynn. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1963. We do not have to trade caring for power, and for the most part, we can see these two forces as being consubstantial in society. Social interaction contributes to gender-role socialization, and teachers expectations may affect their students performance. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. According to symbolic interactionists, our social interactions are shaped by the assumptions we make about others. Sympathy Biography and Sympathy Margin. American Journal of Sociology 93: 290321. WebThe symbolic interactionist perspective focuses on social interaction in the classroom, on school playgrounds, and at other school-related venues. Similarly, Josh Pacewicz (2016) shows how the old rich partisans made philanthropic gifts to keep town members in their debt, but these donations are small fractions of their total wealth. Identity Work as Group Process. Advances in Group Processes 13: 113147. 1994. Not all interactionist research, including interactionist studies of emotion, focuses on inequality. 1993. London: Sage. Emerson, Joan P. 1970. They must struggle to keep their high status. 1979. Barbalet, J. M. 1992. Social exchange theory and symbolic interactionism are often thought of polar opposites, and in some ways they are. WebIn the view of functionalism, racial and ethnic inequalities must have served an important function in order to exist as long as they have. Ellis, Carolyn. 1997. Third, the eldest son of a middle-class family, George Wilson, becomes a personal injury lawyer and is quite successful. Generic Processes in the Reproduction of Inequality: An Interactionist Analysis. Social Forces 79: 419452. When Emotion Work Is Doomed to Fail: Ideological and Structural Constraints on Emotion Management. Symbolic Interaction 21: 299328. When you visit the site, Dotdash Meredith and its partners may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. WebIn particular, it may contribute for several reasons to social inequality, and it may subject its members to violence, arguments, and other forms of conflict. First, Helen Hilton marries a musician who then becomes a factory worker. Third, there are individual to societal exchanges whereby an individual agrees to various terms with a larger societal group. Zurcher, Lou A. For Your Review There is a bond but it is contingent on tit-for-tat exchange. This awkward conversation, in which a white man questions an Asian woman, is commonly experienced by Asian Americansand many other Americans of color who are presumed by white people (thoughnot exclusively) to be immigrants from foreign lands. Cahill, Spencer E. 1995. Symbolic interaction has a particular weakness concerning a concept critical to political sociology and that is the concept of power. Lively, Kathryn J., and David R. Heise. An example of this might be an individual whose beliefs about a particular group are based on images conveyed in popular media, and those are unquestionably believed because the individual has never personally met a member of that group. Sandstrom, Kent, and Sherryl Kleinman. Consequently, it is also important to focus on the higher status persons who are subject to downward mobility because they will also be highly defensive, resistant and even violent. Multiple layers of disadvantage intersect to create the way we experience race. In a formula this might be: Your Power = 1 / Others dependencies on you, The others power = 1 / Your dependencies on the other, Relative power in = (Your power) (Others power). Consider the casually racist imagery on grocery store shelves or the stereotypes that fill popular movies and advertisements. Rubin, Lillian. 2001b. Dancing on the Mbius Strip: Challenging the Sex War Paradigm. Gender and Society 16: 585602. Generalized exchange was promoted by Malinowskis Kula Exchange in The Argonauts of the Western Pacific, and by studies of gift exchange with specified shells as the gift. 1983. In the late nineteenth century, the rising power of Black Americans after the Civil War resulted in draconian Jim Crow laws that severely limited Black political and social power. Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press. [3] In the professions literature, a particular profession often engages in a professional project to raise the status of the group as a whole. Generalizing from Case Studies. Pp. The socially produced meaning of gender shapes things like the kinds of toys and styles and colors of clothes we give to themand even affects the way we speak to babies and what we tell them about themselves. Final Negotiations: A Story of Love, Loss, and Chronic Illness. WebSymbolic interactionism provides a major contribution to understanding inequality by illuminating the various manifestations and contexts of ine-quality at the micro, everyday level of social life. 1989. 2005. . The middle category of high and low status persons could move up or down depending on the circumstances. We argue that symbolic interaction's unique contribution to understanding inequality results from two of the perspective's central features. Given these points, there are clear differences between the structural functionalist, social conflict and symbolic interaction theories. citation tool such as, Authors: Tonja R. Conerly, Kathleen Holmes, Asha Lal Tamang. Thus, social mobility is not just achieving skills by merit, but it is also about self-work or personhood about countering and converting elite processes of oppressive othering with generalized others. Courting Disaster: Intimate Stalking, Culture, and Criminal Justice. This concept, of course, is problematic. Thought. Annual Review of Sociology 3: 235259. Symbolic interactionism aims to understand human behavior by analyzing the critical role of symbols in human interaction.
Google Scholar. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1984. Our chapter explores the contributions of symbolic interactionism as a theoretical perspective in sociological studies of emotions. For example, if we want to understand prejudice, we must understand that the prejudice focused on a White woman because of her gender is very different from the layered prejudice focused on an Asian woman in poverty, who is affected by stereotypes related to being poor, being a woman, and her ethnic status. For example, consider the following: In Chapel Hill in the early 2000s, an African-American nurse promises to buy her daughter a dress for the prom, but her choice at a reasonable price at the department store is deemed mundane by her daughter. 7497 in Recent Sociology Number 2, edited by H. P. Dreitzel. . Sattel, Jack. 2003. Social exchange is more generalized exchange as one might pursue in ones family or friend network. Embarrassability and Public Civility: Another View of a Much Maligned Emotion. Pp. Managing the Emotions of Others. Symbolic Interaction 19: 85109. 
Because we are all exposed to these images and thoughts, it is impossible to know to what extent they have influenced our thought processes. The assumption that an Asian American is an immigrant is the product of these social forces and interactions. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. 2000. This generalized exchange does not demand immediate payback and helping one may lead to them helping another so that the initiator of the exchange does not expect immediate payback. .
Their chances of positive mobility are greater. Misery and Company: Sympathy in Everyday Life. 1998. According to a study mentioned, Blumer started with the premise that Through this, our interpretation of what gender means may shift. Sandstrom, Kent, Dan Martin, and Gary Alan Fine. Identity Stakes, Manhood Acts, and the Dynamics of Accountability. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 28: 6581. The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Conflict theories are often applied to inequalities of gender, social class, education, race, and ethnicity. However, in this book, I find that they can be profitably put together or synthesized. There are also many examples of people gaining great wealth or political influence through more restricted exchange. Lorber, Judith. Reverse Racism, or How the Pot Got to Call the Kettle Black. Pp. A conflict theory perspective of U.S. history would examine the numerous past and current struggles between the White ruling class and racial and ethnic minorities, noting specific conflicts that have arisen when the dominant group perceived a threat from the minority group. Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression. All of the families used internal generalized exchange which can be referred to as bonding capital (Putnam 2000, 2020). are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written Stets, Jan E., and Teresa Tsushima. We focus on how an interactionist analysis of emotions has added immeasurably to our understanding of social interaction and, in particular, of social inequality. They motivate behavior, shape agency, contribute to self-control and social control, and bear the traces of systemic disadvantage. Communicationthe exchange of meaning through language and symbolsis believed to be the way in which people make sense of their social worlds. 
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. Paradigms provide a starting place to help understand what is being witnessed in day-to-day life and in experiments. WebIt integrates a bargaining theory of power into symbolic interactionism, and alters the symbolic interactionist discussion of power by putting it into a context of social exchange and types of social mobility. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. New York: Columbia University Press. This does not mean that all social mobility in families is tied to generalized exchange. The mother reluctantly buys the dress for the ecstatic daughter, but angrily tells her mother (the daughters grandmother) that the scion has underpaid you for years, and that this is exactly what keeps us in our place.. Scully, Diana, and Joseph Marolla. Once the pronouncement has been made, those in the know immediately begin to shape their interaction with that child based on the interpretations of gender that are attached to these words. Hence, we can observe people from various racial and ethnic backgrounds interacting harmoniously in a state of social balance. 1993. However, when groups are involved in strategic action then these calculations, in as much as they can be made, become quite important. 1997. 1969. In conclusion, the way people view the controversial topic of BLM is based on their sociological perspective. In row 1 (items 1, 2 and 3) high status persons who feel that their status is based on ability engage in self-justified othering where they are validated, and they develop powerful virtual selves. Below, well review how symbolic interaction theory can help to explain our everyday interactions with others. Another way to apply the interactionist perspective is to look at how people define their races and the race of others. Fraternal Bonding in the Locker Room: A Profeminist Analysis of Talk about Competition and Women. Sociology of Sport Journal 8: 521. 1992. A Second Chicago School? [1] I use exchange theory since it is better suited to my purposes than Collins rather short discussion of power and status rituals (2002: 111-114; 348-349). Extending and Broadening Blumers Conceptualization of Symbolic Interactionism. Symbolic Interaction 24: 367377. Studying Race and Gender with Symbolic Interaction Theory. Reskin, Barbara F. 1988. Wolkomir, Michelle. Stets, Jan E. 2005. 1997. While her husbands father dies soon after they are married, she entertains guests with the purpose of advancing her husbands sales career in business machines. . The powerful force that gender exerts on us is especially visible when one considers interactions between adults and infants. Symbolic Interactionism is how we interact with others based off of language, gestures and that how we view and interpret the world and ourselves is by communication. First, Blumer observes that we act toward people and things based on the meaning we interpret from them. Another way to apply the functionalist perspective to race and ethnicity is to discuss the way racism can contribute positively to the functioning of society by strengthening bonds between in-group members through the ostracism of out-group members. New York: Routledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. To restore the societys pre-disturbed state or to seek a new equilibrium, the police department and various parts of the system require changes and compensatory adjustments. 
However, as babies grow into toddlers and then older, we may find through interacting with them that what we have come to expect on the basis of gender does not manifest in their behavior. 1999. These factors include the almost entirely white social circles and segregated neighborhoods that white people inhabit; the erasure of Asian American history from the mainstream teaching of American history; the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of Asian Americans in television and film; and the socio-economic circumstances that lead first-generation Asian American immigrants to work in shops and restaurants where they might be the only Asian Americans that the average white person interacts with. The lone t shape symbolizes a cross, spirituality, or religion. This is presented in table 5.2 along with material from Jonathan Turner and Jan Stets (2004). . The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism. Pp. This section interrogates the concept of power and its weak presence in symbolic interactionist theory, and then goes into the theorys conceptions of inequality. 
They see four factors as being important in the creation of inequality: oppressive othering, boundary maintenance, emotion management, and subordinate adaptations (Schwalbe et al. Children-Having-Children: Racism, Innocence, and Sexuality Education. Social Problems 52: 549571. The man then seems to infer meaning from her racethat she is an immigrantwhich leads him to ask the question, "Where are you from?". 
But it is the high ranking but protected people and the low-ranking discriminated people who are the most likely to engage in social mobility conflicts. Snow, David A., and Leon Anderson. Love and Knowledge: Emotion in Feminist Epistemology. Pp. 2005b. Smart. We recommend using a 2001 Wiley Smith, Allen, and Sherryl Kleinman. The Development of a Postwar American Sociology. For example, it is a useful tool for understanding how race and gender shape social interactions. 2002. 1996. PubMedGoogle Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of California, Riverside, CA, 92521, USA, 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, Fields, J., Copp, M., Kleinman, S. (2006). 
Philadelphia: Temple University Press. But Athens does point to a critical weakness of symbolic interactionism as he comes up with a contrary view of the good socialization process described by George Herbert Mead, which is the process of violentization thesis. Sociological Realms of Emotional Experience. American Journal of Sociology 109: 11091136. 2000. Emotions and Social Life: A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis. American Journal of Sociology 84: 13171334. The Social Shaping of Emotion: The Case of Grief. Symbolic Interaction 8: 171190. The two types of behavior have two different types of exchange. 1976. As we have seen with the Trump-base, many of these people state I want my country back and Make America Great again. While one might self-righteously declare them as unjustified, they do not agree, and they are a political force to be reckoned with. I Dont Have to Be Afraid of You: Rape Survivors Emotion Management in Court. Symbolic Interaction 22: 4577. One might say that this looks a bit like Robert Mertons theory of deviance (1938); however, the big difference is that Merton focused on blockages that exist but said little about the motivation and process by which they are accepted or overcome, and nothing about the emotions that they generate. On Fieldwork. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 18: 123132. It integrates a bargaining theory of power into symbolic interactionism, and alters the symbolic interactionist discussion of power by putting it into a context of social exchange and types of social mobility. The physical appearance of her face, hair, and skin color serves as a set of symbols that communicate this informationto us. 1993. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . Kleinman, Sherryl. The Social System. New York: Cambridge University Press. WebSymbolic interactionism views BLM as a movement formed because of many individuals collective experiences and would explain each individuals thoughts on BLM through their interactions with society and BLMs symbolism.
symbolic interactionism and inequality