Perspectives in Sociology-II

UNIT 6 SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM*

Structure
6.0 Objectives
6.1 Introduction
6.2 George Herbert Mead: Basic Concepts
6.3 The Emergence of Symbolic Interactionism
6.4 Other Schools of Thought
6.5 Erving Goffman and the Dramaturgical Approach
6.6 Recent Studies
6.7 Let Us Sum Up
6.8 References

6.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to understand:
In this Unit the student will be introduced to the school of Symbolic
Interactionism that dates back to the early 20th Century but has its relevance
even in the Post Modern Era;
The classical base of the theory and the early thinkers;
The Various Schools of Thought within this school;
Its more recent applications; and
Its relevance for future research.

6.1 INTRODUCTION
Sociology developed as a discipline in the early 20 th Century with the
predominance of the Structural School in which social behaviour was viewed as
emanating from the rules and norms set by the overall social structure. Sociology,
with its evolutionary and functional framework was thus a discipline with a
macro perspective. Symbolic Interactionism with its roots in Behavioural
Psychology of the late nineteenth century ushered in a micro perspective in
contrast. Instead of viewing individuals as constrained and moulded by society
and its norms, it preferred to examine how individual behaviour creates
relationships and to view the individual and society relationship in reciprocal
fashion. Individuals were importantly seen as both subjects and agents and not
merely as objects.

The concept of social roles and statuses was supplemented by the concepts of
self and consciousness. Social personhood was seen as a process and not simply
as a given. Thus with symbolic interactionism, a dynamic and processual
methodology was introduced into sociology as well as a notion of social
psychology. Unlike Durkheim who wished to explain social facts only by social
facts, the Symbolic Interactionists allowed psychological considerations to enter

70 * Contributed by Prof. (Retd.) Subhdra Channa, Dept. of Anthropology, DU, Delhi

into their concepts of individual, self and society. Instead of just discussing Symbolic Interactionism
about how society affects individual behaviour, symbolic interactionists worked
up from below trying to find out how individuals make sense of the society and
find meanings in what they do.

George Herbert Mead, an early twentieth century thinker, a social psychologist

and philosopher, is regarded as the founder of this school of thought even though
he never coined the term symbolic interaction.

6.2 GEORGE HERBERT MEAD: BASIC

CONCEPTS
George Herbert Mead (b.1863) was a major American thinker and philosopher.
He taught philosophy and social psychology at the University of Michigan, and
never published anything in his lifetime. His book, Mind, Self, and Society:
From the standpoint of a Social Behaviorist was compiled and published
posthumously by his students in 1934. This book laid the foundations of the
school of symbolic interactionism. His theory about the development of self
and of consciousness is the bedrock on which other theories were built. The
basic premises of his theory are that the self emerges, not by itself but through
interaction with others. We learn to see ourselves through the eyes of others. Or,
how we perceive who we are is largely influenced by what feedback we get
about ourselves from those around us. Social communication thus comprises of
making gestures to others that we first understand ourselves and then
communicate through commonly understood symbols to others. In other words,
a gesture, in the form of language or otherwise must be similarly understood by
both the person making it and the person receiving it; and this shared
understanding is its meaning. We thus live in a world of shared meanings. Our
understanding of our own self, will also be conditioned by the response and
communications about one’s self as received from others.

The most consistent of these gestures are the symbols of significance that are
made significant by the important role they play in the society to which a person
belongs. Significant symbols are both often repeated and universally understood.
The community of actors also communicates with each other to form shared
complexes of meaning. Thus a group of individuals who participate in the same
society take on the combined attitudes of the others towards himself or herself
and the community thus become for the person, what Mead has referred to as
‘Generalized others’. Thus even when a person is by herself, she will behave as
if others were present and the behaviour will be conditioned by the universal
presupposed presence of the generalised others. Like if we are sitting alone in a
park or walking on the road, we will still behave according to how we are
supposed to behave in response to the combined expectation of the society at
large. Thus when we are addressing a person whom we even do not know, our
expectations will be shaped according to this generalised other, one that is
reflected within ourselves, that is in accordance with what we expect ourselves
to do. In other words, most of the time, we expect others to do what we would
do under that same or similar conditions.
Thus growing up the sense of self develops in two stages. In the first, the infant
absorbs the responses of those close to itself. Thus its sense of self is formed by
the organisation of the particular attitudes of the specific persons towards it. But 71
Perspectives in Sociology-II with maturity the specifics combine to form the generalised others, that is the
community as a whole. However this does not mean that there is only a one way
interaction of formative experience. The interaction of self and society is never
completely one sided or static. If this were so then society would comprise of
robots and not humans.

Thus Mead brings on the difference between ‘I’ and ‘Me’. ‘I’ is the ego, the self
that is consciously self, the one we perceive as being our self as an individual.
‘Me’ is the self that is reflected by society. In our actions if we act as ‘Me’ then
we are doing what society expects from us. But at one instance of time, we can
also act as ‘I’. There is an ongoing conversation between the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’,
when we negotiate what it is we want to do and how we do it. At times we
comply, at times we manipulate and at times we rebel. When the rebellion takes
the collective form of the generalised others, then society transforms itself and
a different kind of conversation ensues.

6.3 THE EMERGENCE OF SYMBOLIC

INTERACTIONISM
The name was coined by Herbert Blumer of the Chicago school, following the
lead given by Mead. In essence, Blumer (1969) identified four basic tenets of
symbolic interactionism. These are:

1) Individual actions take place in response to the meanings that gestures or

objects have for them. For example, if the sign of red means danger in any
particular setting, then individuals will act accordingly.
2) All interactions take place within already defined and categorized social
contexts. In other words, all social situations are already provided with
meaning in terms of a shared classification that is well understood by all
who share that common social setting. Like if something is sacred in a
society, then all members would be already aware of it and will act
accordingly.
3) These meanings emerge from the continued interactions that persons in a
society have with each other and with society at large. For example a child
may learn that the temple is sacred from his parents, but this particular
meaning will be confirmed for him by other members of the society so that
later it will become a part of the generalised system of meanings that he or
she holds.
4) Meanings are not static, and new meanings may be imparted and old ones
discarded as a part of social interaction with others. Like if a new object
emerges that is considered sacred by some, then over time the meaning
can be accepted or even rejected by more members, and a change can
occur or be nipped in the bud, depending upon the circumstances.

Thus following Mead, Blumer considered individuals and society as enmeshed

and not separate from each other, a point of view that was not prevalent in the
Fifties. Blumer considered symbolic interaction as the particular form of
interaction that can only take place between human beings as they interact
according to the meanings that they impart to objects and gestures (including
72 language). Although Mead had neither put anything in writing nor discussed
any particular methodology, Blumer was of the opinion that meanings can only Symbolic Interactionism
be elicited through a qualitative methodology. He was particularly critical of the
efficacy of positivist scientific methods for the study of social behavior. Instead
he advocated for a more subjectively oriented technique for understanding what
goes on inside the heads of persons and how they regulate their actions with
respect to others. Thus an investigator of human behaviour must get to an in
depth understanding of that behaviour and that can only be achieved by qualitative
methods, what Blumer has referred to as , ‘sympathetic introspection’, which
requires an analyst to put himself or herself in the place of the other person to
understand his or her behaviour. Since such methods require a close relationship
between scholars and the subjects of study, the findings may not always tally as
they are supposed to do in a scientific study. The three basic premises of symbolic
interactionism as summarized by Blumer are:
1) All humans act towards other things (objects or symbols) in accordance
with the meaning these objects have to them. These meanings vary according
to context, both individual and collective.
2) These meanings arise out of the social interactions that one has had with
other members of the society.
3) These meanings arise in an interpretative way that is they are not inherent
to the object but are an outcome of the mental process by which they assume
significance. For example a particular tree, stone or building may assume
significance beyond their basic structure, which may be due to the historical
or sacred meaning assigned to them by members of a community.

Thus interactive determinism plays a key role in this theory but the notions of
human agency cannot be overlooked. For example something may be sacred to
most members of a community but one person may still rebel and refuse to
accept the significance. Also, since it is an interpretative process, all such
significance is largely symbolic in nature.

However there were other interpretations of Mead’s work and they comprise
different schools of thought than the Chicago school that Blumer established.

6.4 OTHER SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT

Two other important schools of thought are those of the ‘Iowa school’ and the
‘Indiana School’, represented by Manford Kuhn and Sheldon Stryker
respectively. Both of them gave alternative methodologies to what had been
proposed by Blumer. They were more inclined to go for positivist, quantitative
methods. Kuhn attempted to use rigorous scientific testing for symbolic
interactionism. From the point of view of the Iowa school, behavior is to be
understood as purposive, and while it is projected to the future, it is guided by
past experiences. Behaviour follows a pattern that makes it intentional,
contextualized within a time frame, and open to self-correction. Methodologically
the scholars who study behaviour should focus on small groups like dyads and
triads that can be subjected to more strict observations. They also advocated for
laboratory settings to compare controlled behaviour with that occurring in the
natural setting. To facilitate scientific rigour it was also postulated that a more
precise scientific vocabulary should be developed to describe the factual situation
that is being studied. The development of such a terminology would help usher
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Perspectives in Sociology-II in scientific comparability and result in more uniformity of results. They were
in favour of more systematic testing of the principles proposed by Mead.

Kuhn developed the ‘Twenty Statements Test’. Mead had proposed that the self
emerges through social interaction. This test has twenty questions for the
informant to answer, pertaining to the core query of ‘Who am I’. The answers to
these questions can then be coded and a systematic analysis can reveal the manner
in which an individual is assessing his or her self- conceptualisation and identities.
Since the responses are given by the informant in person, they stem from a self-
assessment that is in tune with the basic precincts of the symbolic interactionist
school as it retains the subjectivity inherent in the theory. The personal agency
will also show up as one comes across idiosyncratic responses as well as more
uniform and structured ones. The researchers of this school also utilized data
generated from laboratory based research to produce a considerable body of
work. The major criticism directed against them was with respect to the
constraints put on the responses that were structured artificially rather than being
free flowing. Also the methodology was found to be reductionist and contrived.

A student of Kuhn, Carl Couch, improved upon Kuhn’s methodology, adding

dynamism and time depth to the interactive data, and also extending it across
space. Thus instead of the static environment of the laboratory, the data was
collected from extended observations of interactions that were spread across
both time and space. Some people refer to the Couch era as the New School of
Iowa.

Another scholar from Indiana University, Sheldon Stryker followed Kuhn in

applying a positivist methodology to symbolic interactionist analysis. He believed
that social interactions crystallized into stable patterns over time to form a social
structure, to the analysis of which both qualitative and quantitative methods can
be applied. According to him, George Herbert Mead’s theory should only be
treated as a framework for building up, what he considered a concrete theory of
symbolic interactionism. He tested the propositions put forward by Mead as
testable hypotheses and treated his assumptions as operationalizing variables.

Stryker’s major contribution was in his development of the concept of social

roles as Structural Role Theory. This was based upon Mead’s proposal of role
taking or the assumption of roles in a social interactive situation. According to
Stryker, persons assume roles in social interactions by using symbolic cues as
emanating from other actors that regulates their actions towards them. Thus,
while interacting with another person, an individual has some expectations of
reciprocal action that take into account the attitudes of others. These are built up
from past experiences as well as socially provided norms that are attached to the
particular statuses that are held by the actors. Thus from the roles that are attached
to particular statuses , future actions can be predicted, although in a situation of
social change, these will transform giving rise to new expectations and attitudes.
Thus even if the norms may not change completely the nature of role performance
may be different. The process of socialisation is the basis of most role expectations
that are both informed by and which help to keep social norms in place, leading
to structural continuity. Thus individuals understand how they must interact and
reciprocate by their own understanding of the social status they occupy in that
particular situation. A commonly understood normative pattern gives rise to
shared expectations that both guide the actors as well as make them recreate the
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roles that they are expected to play. This is the relationship that individuals have Symbolic Interactionism
with society. Individuals thus act according to the expectations of others without
having to make conscious decisions all the time. These actions become reflexive
as far as they apply to known and familiar role playing situations like that between
teacher and pupil, mother and child and so on. These become internalized over
time as social persons develop into mature adults and ultimately become their
identity, for example identities of gender, class, occupation, family etc. Thus
Stryker combined the bottoms up, or micro sociological approach provided by
symbolic interactionists with the macro sociological perspective of the Social
Structuralist. By emphasizing the importance of social norms that are attached
to social statuses that form the social structure, he demonstrated how the
behaviour of the individual is conditioned by the social structure even as
collectively they help to reproduce it.

6.5 ERVING GOFFMAN AND THE

DRAMATURGICAL APPROACH
Erving Goffman’s contribution to symbolic interactionism in the form of the
dramaturgical approach, where he views social life as a drama and social
interactions as a performance by social actors, each playing a role; has been
immensely popular. His books have been influential in bringing about a new
perspective in the analysis of society especially in the form of social organisation
and the internal working of social groups.

According to him, no social interaction is completely spontaneous, as they all

evoke a prior understanding of the situation by the persons engaging in it and
who bring to the situation of interaction a prejudgment of how they visualize the
situation and their part in it, as well as a conception of how they expect the
others to behave. Each person in this context also has a self-identity or self-
perception. In other words, individuals interacting in a social situation have a
‘working consensus’ where they present that aspect of their self that works best
under the circumstance. Thus it is presupposed that there are many aspects of
the same social person, each fitting into the multiple roles that people usually
play in society. Through our experience of living in a particular society, we are
able to judge the kind of role we are expected to play in any situation along with
the expectation of how others will play their roles in the same situation. Thus
the initial information that a person has, by socialisation, life experience and
any other means about the fellow participants, plays a crucial part in setting up
of a successful interaction.

Each one of us as members of a society is familiar with the concepts of familiarity

and the unknown. We are always comfortable with the known and the predictable
situation and nervous about the unknown, like going to a strange place for the
first time or meeting a new set of people about whom we know little.

In any situation, there is always the role of the self- conception and each one
expects to be treated in congruence with what they feel they are entitled to
because of whatever may be their self- perceived character like age, gender,
class, academic qualification or any other. Any wrong interpretation of the
situation in terms of any of the criteria as discussed may lead to a breakdown of
the interaction. For example one may be wrong about how they had expected
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Perspectives in Sociology-II the others to behave or wrong in terms of the role play they had set up for
themselves or they may feel disappointed or hurt by the way they have been
treated by others. Any break down in expectations from any side may lead to a
disjointed or failed interaction.

To safeguard against potential breakdowns in social interactions, two kinds of

mechanisms are put in place. These are the defensive practices and the protective
practices or tact. Together they are employed to manage the impression created
by a person in front of others. For example in many social gatherings stories,
myths or narratives are told about untoward incidences that may have happened
or could happen, to create a sense of catharsis. Individuals caught in embarrassing
situations may get a reassurance that they are not alone in facing such a situation.
Tact is often the qualification of being a successful hostess or a diplomat, when
one has the quick sense to cover up for an embarrassing slip or faux pas.

Goffman (1956) has defined some terms that he uses in his description of social
life as a drama. He defines an interaction or encounter as all interactions which
occur throughout any one occasion when a given set of individuals are in one
another’s continuous presence. A ‘performance’ may be defined as all the activity
of a given participant on a given occasion which serves to influence in any way
any of the other participants. In a group, if we take one person as our locus, then
the others become audience, observers or co-participants. For example if we are
focusing on a teacher giving a lecture in a class room, then the students can be
viewed as an audience. If we focus on a particular surgeon performing an
operation then the other doctors, nurses and helpers become co-participants.

When a performance repeatedly follows a pre-established pattern may be called

a routine or when referring to a person’s actions may be called a part. Like a
policeman on duty follows a routine and a politician addressing a rally plays a
part. Since most people play many roles, they play different parts on different
occasions. A politician also plays the part of a husband and father when he is
with his family or the part of the friend when he is with a friend.

A social role also has a series of rights and duties attached to it. However even
while playing a role or discharging duties, a person may vary in the degree to
which he or she may be fully convinced ideologically or rationally about the
part they are playing. When a person plays a part without at all being convinced
about it, like a politician may talk about peace without meaning it, the person is
called a cynic. When a person is totally convinced about his or her role playing,
like a mother taking care of her child, the person is sincere. Many other role
playing parts may fall somewhere in between.

Most social persons put up expressive equipment suitable for the occasion that
is called a ‘front’. This also means that most people tend to hide some of their
real feelings or opinions or states of mind while performing a role. For example
while attending an important meeting, an executive may hide the fact that she is
sad at having lost a friend or a diplomat while discharging an important
assignment may suppress feelings of being ill. All social interactions take place
and are supposed to take place within some appropriately defined setting. For
example is a mourning is to take place then the setting will be quite different
from that suitable for a birthday party. Similarly there is a personal front too,
like dress, appearance, facial expression, manners and other aspects of the
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physical effect that is produced by a person’s presence in a social encounter. Symbolic Interactionism
One puts up a very different appearance or personal front for a job interview
than while dating a friend. For any successful social interaction, there must be
coherence between setting, appearance and manner. In any society, there are
always pre-existing ‘fronts’ available for given statuses. For example if one is to
get married, there are already existing role play available, or of one is going to
attend office, there are standard ‘fronts’ available according to one’s job
description.

Idealised performances are usually undertaken by those who wish to climb up

the social ladder. For example, in a hierarchical society, the mannerisms and
fronts of the upper strata may be emulated by the lower strata to gain in hierarchy,
and they make extra effort to do things well. An industrialist at the top of the
ladder may dress casually to office but a subordinate wishing to get a raise will
take pains to dress impressively.

When a team effort is involved, there is a tendency to project the finished product,
and hide the efforts that have gone in. For example while watching a television
show, the audience never comes to know what mishaps occurred during its
making. A hostess pulling off a perfect party hides all the bungling that had
happened in its organisation.

Goffman had studied many organisations and social situations to come up with
all the strategies and ‘front stage’ and ‘back stage’ performances that go into
everyday life social encounters. He had also spread his research cross culturally
to show that performances may vary according to local norms and values but
the essential aspect of social life, that most of us at all times are putting up a
performance and that there is a crucial discrepancy between our ‘all- too- human
-selves’ and our socialised selves, holds true for all societies. Impression
management remains a key aspect of all social encounters, whether it be a shaman
in a tribal society or a high performing business magnate in an urban society or
a wife in a family or a student in a class room.

Thus Goffman’s theory brings into the one framework the concepts and findings
derived from three different areas of social research; the individual personality,
social interaction and society. Thus the failure of a social interaction affects all
three dimensions.

Symbolic Interactionism has found relevance in a wide area of research and in

the next section we shall read about some of them.

Important Research done with Symbolic Interactionism Methods

A classical study is that of Becker (1953) on Marijuana users, where he shows
that the feelings of ‘getting high’ by the users of the drugs is dependent not on
the physiological effects of the drug but the interaction of the drug user with
others. The drug users feel high only if they are in the presence of others who
expect that kind of reaction in them. Thus the symptoms are more of a symbolic
construction than objectively real. In a more generalised context, Becker’s study
shows that role behaviours are acquired and conditioned by interaction with
others. Other classical studies in symbolic interactionism that are recognised
even today are those by Glaser and Strauss (1964) which indicated how awareness
or lack of awareness conditions social interaction. Persons who are unaware or
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Perspectives in Sociology-II lacking information will interact in a different manner than those aware. They
have given the example that terminally ill patients in a hospital were kept
uninformed about their condition by the medical professionals to keep up their
spirits and give them a chance to better pass the last days of their lives. Styker
(1957) had used symbolic interaction to study family role performances.
Rosengren (1961) studied changing self- images as how one understands one’s
self is conditioned by how others perceive and interact with you. This was a
seminal observation made George Herbert Mead, and Rosenberg, in his study
of young boys who had been institutionalised showed how this hypothesis could
be tested in a situation that approximated a laboratory but was at the same time
a social institution in a natural setting. This study was also an indicator of the
kind of research methods that could be used to study symbolic interaction in a
controlled and therefore testable setting.

Inspired by these classical works, this theory has been applied by post-modern
scholars as well, in recent times.

6.6 RECENT STUDIES

Important contributions have been made in the field of identity studies with the
use of symbolic interactionism, where the study or roles and role performance
has been linked to notions of identity. In other words how people perform is
related to how they perceive themselves. Roles are thus conditioned by the
perception of others towards whom the perception is directed. For example is a
high expectation is put upon a person by peers, then that person will try to live
up to that expectation. As demonstrated by Turner (1962), role expectations are
also embedded in the social structure through the norms and expectations attached
to a social status. Thus a mother will take very good care of her child, not only
because she wants to but also because society expects her to.

Another area in which large numbers of works keep appearing is in the field of
Affect Control. These studies show the link between emotions, identity and
behaviour. When a person is emotionally aware, through disappointment or
discredit, that his or her role performance has not fulfilled the cultural expectations
or that they feel through similar emotions that others have not fulfilled what was
expected of them. In both such conditions a realignment of self and others takes
place. When things do not go according to expectations, then an effort is made
towards restoration, by bringing about changes in one’s identity and also in the
role performances and expectations towards others. Studies of such reorientations,
of creating of social worlds are ongoing. A lot of work still connects identity and
self-perceptions to motivations, emotions and performance in social situations.
Thus a salient identity, whether of religion, philanthropy or political, affects the
way a person will behave, in areas not even directly connected to these
dimensions. Thus the fact that one is Right wing or Left wing will affect
interpersonal relationships, one’s behaviour towards the environment and towards
society in general.

Symbolic interactionism has also been found useful in understanding Gender

and Sexuality constructs. The now classic work, ‘Doing Gender’ by West and
Zimmerman (1987) shows how concepts of masculinity and femininity are
constructed out of the way a person is socialised and the manner in which others
in society interact with them. Thus a gendered self- image is largely a social
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construct, having very little base in biology. They also showed the importance Symbolic Interactionism
of a gendered identity in all types of social interactions, as people are almost
always judged on their gender in assessing performance or in terms of role
expectations. Societal resources and economic, political and organisational power
allocations are almost always conditioned by gender identities forming the basis
for patriarchy.

Applied research also uses symbolic interactionist methods to assess how people,
both implementing and at the receiving end of policies view and assess them
according to their own expectations and moral constructs about role play.

Check Your Progress

1) Define how you understand the concepts Social Encounter and Generalised
Others
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2) From whose works have the basic premises of symbolic interaction
developed? Discuss.
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3) Name at least two schools of Symbolic Interactionist theory and how they
differ from each other.
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4) What do you understand by dramaturgical approach. Who formulated it?
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5) Describe how gendered identities are constructed using the symbolic
interactionist approach.
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6) What do you understand by ‘Back stage’ and ‘Front stage’ performance in
social interactions.
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Perspectives in Sociology-II 7) Describe what you understand by a social role and how it is played.
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8) Can we study social change through symbolic interactionism? Discuss.
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9) How can symbolic interactionism be used in applied research?
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10) How is symbolic interactionism different from macro level social theories
like structuralism and functionalism? Can these perspectives be combined?
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6.7 LET US SUM UP

To sum up at the end, in this lesson you have learnt about an important and
widely used social theory and methodology. It is a theory that originated in
early twentieth century but holds forte even today and has given rise to significant
research both theoretical and applied. It basically connects individual to society
at both the micro level of interpersonal interaction and through the use of role
playing and norms providing legitimacy to social statuses, to the larger social
structure. It also links the psychological self to the social self, indicating how
concepts about one’s own self are conditioned by how others perceive you and
what expectations they have about you. Since all communications in human
society are through symbols, including language, the theory got its name as
symbolic interactions.

We have also learnt about various important theories and applications of symbolic
interactionism and about its relevance in contemporary social theory mainly in
identity studies and applied fields like policy research.

6.8 REFERENCES
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Mead, George Herbert. (1934). Mind, Self, and Society from the Standpoint of a
Social Behaviourist, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Stryker, Sheldon. (1980). Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version, Symbolic Interactionism
Menlo Park: Benjamin Cummings.
Becker, H.S. (1953). “Becoming a Marijuana User”, American Journal of
Sociology, 59(3)235-42.
Becker H.S and M M McCall. (1993). Symbolic Interactionism and Cultural
Studies, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Carter, Michael J and Celene Fuller. (2015). “Symbolic Interactionism”
Sociopedia. isa, 1-17.
Collins, Randall. (ed). (1994). Four Sociological Traditions, New York: Oxford
University Press.
Collins, Randall. (2004). Interaction Ritual Chains, Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Goffman, Erving. (1959). The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, New York:
Doubleday.
Goffman, Erving. (1967). Interaction Ritual, Chicago: Aldine.
Kuhn, Manford H. (1964). “Major Trends in symbolic Interaction theory in the
past twenty-five years”, The Sociological Quarterly 5(1): 61-84.
Rosengren WR. (1961). “The Self in the emotionally disturbed”, American
Journal of Sociology 6(5):454-62.
Stryker, Sheldon. (1980). Symbolic Interactionism: A Social Structural Version,
Menlo Park: Benjamin Cummings
Stryker, Sheldon. (2008). “From Mead to a Structural Symbolic Interactionism
and Beyond”, Annual Review of Sociology, 34:15-31.
Turner, R. H. (1990). “Role Change”, Annual Review of Sociology 16: 87-110.
White C and Zimmerman D H. (1987). Doing Gender: Doing Difference, New
York: Routledge.

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