Sociology 561

Fall 2016
W 1:15pm —  4:00pm
GH 143

"Interactionism insists on being a humble theory, not claiming too much and not dealing with major abstractions and false dualisms. Indeed the real task of an interactionist is simply to look at social life as people ‘do things together.’; its core interests lie in the doing of ethnographies and in the intimate familiarity with ongoing social… worlds. It is a hands-on ‘down-to-earth’ empirical approach… In general, the tradition is one steeped in the exploration and inspection of data." — Ken Plummer (2003)

"The symbolic interactionist point of view requires you to take into account more things than almost any other perspective. At least, it disposes you to do your research in such a way that if anything is obviously (or not so obviously) affecting the phenomenon you want to understand, you’ll be free to take advantage of finding that out. This distinguishes it from other kinds of research which, for either theoretical or technical reasons, limit your view of what’s relevant so that you just don’t see those other factors which might be important." — Howard S. Becker (1970)

"Few other social science approaches have made so deep and explicit a commitment to complex questions. Interactionists should not stop asking those questions. Quite the contrary, to remove that complexity—to simplify interactionism—would destroy its essence." — Kevin Mihata (2002)

Course Description

This is a graduate course designed to provide depth and breadth of understanding in the sociological perspective known as symbolic interactionism. Students will read original analyses concerning the philosophical foundations of the perspective, research methods and theory construction, application to various substantive domains, and variations in theoretical expression and combinations with related perspectives. Upon completion of this course, the competent student will increase their knowledge about the symbolic interactionist perspective and its substantive contributions; improve their skills of reading, analyzing, and evaluating sociological research; and stimulate their thinking about their own research.

Course Requirements

The fundamental requirements are as follows: 

1. Read and understand of all assigned materials for each class, 
2. be prepared each class to discuss those materials and explore ideas contained in them, 
3. annotate each article with a minimum of three comments, connections, questions, or insights. These will be randomly checked. Lastly, 
4. Write three short readings-focused papers, 5-8 pages long, typed, double-spaced. In them, students will focus on the question, "What do I know and understand now that I didn't know, or misunderstood, before these readings?" This strategy makes students do what good scholars must always do; constantly explore the boundaries of ignorance and knowledge.  

Grades will be determined based on performance in these areas.

Course Outline

The literature surrounding symbolic interaction is vast. There is no way we can cover it all in just a semester. So, below is my attempt to organize a tour of this area. In selecting the readings, I have attempted to give you examples of excellent interactionist research on many interesting topics. I also have attempted to introduce you to different groups of interactionists. The purpose is to give you a conceptual scheme around which to organize your own continuing reading and interpretation fo the literature.