Action Theories
Social action theory
Verhesten = empathy
Features
Types of action
Evaluation
Micro approach
Behaviours are driven by meanings
Favour voluntarism, free will and choice
Interpretivist methodology
Social structures are a social construction
Value rational = desirable goal
Traditional = habitual or routine
Instrumental rational = efficent
Affectual = emotion
Schutz - does not explain shared nature of meanings
Meanings can be mis/reinterpreted
Never possible to put yourself in someones shoes
Symbolic interactionism
Structuraction theory
Phenomenology
Labelling theory
Goffman dramaturgical model
Blumer
Evaluation
Mead - role of the other
Putting oneself in place of another through process of social interaction - e.g imitative play
Actions based on meanings
Meanings based on interactions
Meanings = result of interpretive procedures
Cooley - self concept
Becker and Lemert - process of labelling = career
Thomas - people label things = real world consequences
Front stage self = an act put on for others
Back stage self = be ourselves in private
Impression management = tools that help us pass for front stage self e.g props, gestures
Fails to explain the origin of labels
Loose group of descriptive concepts
Not all action has a meaning
Interactions are often unrehersed
Fails to explain why actors create meanings
Roles are loosely scripted by society
Ethnomethodology
Action reproduces structure
Structures change society
Elements of structure = rules and resources
Evaluation
Duality of structure = structure and action cannot exist without one another
Ensure status quo
Rules contain common knowledge
Reflexive monitoring = constant reflection on own actions and their consequences
Unintended consequences = may not always change the world in the way intended
Archer - underestimates the power of structure to resist change
Craib - fails to apply to large scale structures e.g state
Reflexicality - use of common sense knowledge to interpret situations
Breaching experiments
Indexicality - nothing has a fixed meaning
Social order created from applying common sense knowledge
Garfinkel - how social order is maintained and process of creating meanings
Typifications = shared categories
Life world = common sense knowledge
Schutz - categories are shared across society
Recipe knowledge = ability to interpret a situation without thinking
Natural attitude = society is an objective thing that exists outside of use
Husserl - we impose meaning and order to make sense of the world and we use mental categories to classify info
Aimed to disrupt peoples sense of order
Concluded that the orderliness of everyday situations is not fixed it is an accomplishment
Evaluation
Carib - denies existence of wider society
Marxists - shared common sense knowledge = ruling class ideology
Evaluation
Once shared meanings are created, society becomes an external reality that reflects back on us