Making meaning
4.2 Symbolic interactionism as a methodological tool and theoretical orientation
Herbert Blumer is considered the founder of symbolic interactionism. He coined the term symbolic interactionism even though Mead (1934) wrote about symbolic interactionism much earlier. Meaning, language and thought are three key elements of Blumer’s concept of symbolic interactionism. Human behaviour is determined by the meanings people make of objects, things,
Symbolic interactionism
People act towards things based on the meaning those things have for them(Blumer 1969)
Selves are social products
Mead (1934); Goffman (1959)
Subjectivity
The influence of context and agency on
subjectivity
The effect of power relations on subjectivity
The effect of ideology and space in the formation of subjectivity The effect of discourses
on subjectivity
The effect of subjectivity and discourse on identity
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individuals or events they find themselves in. Blumer (1969) stated that when in conversation with others, an individual will identify meaning. This meaning is negotiated through language in the form of words, symbols, thoughts and actions. The process of cognition modifies the individual ‘s interpretation of symbols, actions, and words. He elaborates that when humans communicate, it is not just based on the interaction-reaction between the individuals engaged in the communicative process but also the meanings each individual brings to and assigns to the exchange and may result in modification of these meanings.
George Herbert Mead’s (1934) work took as a point of departure that the individual self is a product of social interaction. Mead’s contribution to the debate on human communicative action was that the self (object of a person’s reflective consciousness) is significant in how meaning is communicated. In Smith and Fritz’s (2008) study, symbolic interactionism was used to examine how individuals interact, focusing on the creation of personal identity through interaction with others. Although action is not the original intention of the self (Goffman, 1989), the interactional event does shape the creation of personal identity.
Recognising Mead’s contribution of the reflexive self, Blumer (1969) argues that an individual’s meaning is derived from their interaction with symbols rather than them reacting with pre-defined meanings. In a similar vein of thought, Goffman (1959, p. 21) argues that there are “defined areas of presentation where one adjusts ‘self’ as signals of what is appropriate are given to the actor by the audience”. In essence, Goffman (1959) was able to demonstrate that the social self is created as a representation of the society or audience to whom one must perform. Therefore, Goffman’s (1959) contribution to the sociological discourse on symbolic interactionism is in how he was able to outline a framework in which individual behaviours can be viewed outside the self (individual frameworks) and in the context of sociological frameworks. Action can now be seen as a result of society and not the internal workings of the individual, which means that society, can affect an individual in a manner that creates behaviours that are disharmonious to the inner self of the actor.
Society could now be responsible for actions that were once only the responsibility of the actor (Goffman, 1959). This perspective, used in this study, implies that the actions of leaders must be viewed against the backdrop of sociological frameworks (politics, micro politics, environment, and context). This emphasises the aims of symbolic interactionism- namely to do away with the
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conception of social structures as existing outside of interactional practices that characterise society.
Symbolic interactionism also defines how group action takes place. Marko (2004, p. 26) explains, using the work of Mead:
Fundamentally, group action takes the form of a fitting together of individual lines of action. Each individual aligns his action to the action of others by ascertaining what they are doing or what they intend to do - that is by getting a meaning of their acts. For Mead (1934), this is done by the individual taking the role of others. According to Mead (1934, p. 23), “in assuming such roles the individual seeks to ascertain the intention or direction of the acts of others. This is the fundamental way in which group action takes place in human society.”
This happens frequently in staff/SMT meetings when a position on an issue is caucused before/during a meeting. Symbolic interactionism is not only a theoretical perspective but also a methodological approach. Madison (2005, p. 46) summarises symbolic interactionism as a method of analysis:
…that describes human beings as products and producers of symbols. These symbols are constructed and reconstructed, whereby meanings (and meanings of those meanings) form social processes that guide human behaviour and experiences, and whereby the complex interlinkages of acts that comprise organisations, institutions, division of labour, and networks of interdependence are moving and not static affairs. Although there are larger structures or system principles that govern social life (i.e., capitalism, sexual norms, ethnic hierarchies, ecological determinates, etc.) the symbolic interactionist places primary emphasis on the explanations and interpretations of these systems by social actors and the respective points expressed that describe the situation.
Symbolic interactionism is also a branch of ethnography. As such it interprets behaviour as a product of community life and other sociological frameworks. Symbolic interactionism does not focus on meta-narratives but explores the meanings actors assign to actions and objects and how these meanings construct our social realities. As such, symbolic interactionism has been criticized for not being able to deal with social structure and macro-sociological issues such as the dynamics of power (Fine, 1994), the nature of conceptual knowledge and the theory being too broad.
Symbolic interactionism has also been criticised from a psychological stand-point (Nelson, 1998) which disputes the assertion that meanings arises out of the interaction between people, rather, meaning is already established in a person’s psychological make-up. The approach taken in this study is to consider both the standpoints when studying the interaction.
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This study has factored relations of power into the interaction process. The theory of symbolic interactionism has particular value for this study in that it provides a firm foundation to make sense of meaning, language and action during interactional events in school. The study sought to explore how leaders come to each encounter, how past interactions influence present interactions, how leaders adapt themselves to fit the topic discussed and the people they are interacting with and how leaders change according to what happens in an interactional event. Leaders’ interaction within a reference group, for example the SMT, helped to understand how the culture of the school is defined by the consequences of the actions of individuals on the larger school group.
Through various interactions one forms relations. Chapter 9 shows how these relations play out in four relations of power. Therefore, the concepts of subjectivity and discourse are useful additions to symbolic interactionism. Since I am employing multiple constructs to look for meanings in the interactional events, the concern for the dynamics of power is sufficiently addressed. Symbolic interactionism uses a bottom up approach. The theory of subjectivity is useful in moving beyond symbolic interactionism to also look at the self. In addition, the theory of subjectivity looks at the macro issues.