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11 - Symbolic Interactionism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 December 2020

By
Lawrence T. Nichols
Edited by
Peter Kivisto
Peter Kivisto
Affiliation:
Augustana College, Illinois
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Summary

The chapter examines the influential perspective of symbolic interactionism with regard to its defining assumptions, its historical emergence, and its present status, both in the United States and internationally. The discussion covers debates among interactionists regarding theory and methodology, and it also considers intellectual movements strongly influenced by interactionism, especially identity theory, labeling theory, dramaturgy, and constructionism.

Lawrence T. Nichols is a former professor of sociology, recently retired from West Virginia University. He continues to do research and to publish on sociological theory, the construction of social problems, and the history and sociology of social science. Dr. Nichols also edits The American Sociologist, a quarterly journal with an international readership.

Keywords

Constructionism dramaturgyidentitylabelingpragmatismsymbolic interactionism
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory , pp. 205 - 225
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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