Social Interactionism Theory Paper
Gregory Wilson
11/13/2012
George Mead originated social interactionism in 1934 through his belief that
studying interactions between people can be used to solve complex problems.
Herbert Blumer, a former student of Mead, later coined the phrase “social
interactionism” (citation) itself. Social interactionism focuses on the self and its
relationship to objects and other people. Every human is capable of making meaning
and all events and objects have to be understood and interpreted.
All humans are engaging in actions. Blumer defines these actions as the many
activities that we carry out in our lives during interactions with peers and the
resulted situations. Blumer describes three tenets of social interactionism. As
humans, our interactions with our environment are determined by our perceived
meaning from it. This meaning is developed from our social interactions with others.
We then use an interpretative process to determine how to proceed with our
environment. (Here would be a good place for a citation)
Blumer and Mead differed slightly in their approach to social interaction in
that Blumer focused on aspects of daily life and experiences while Mead focused on
social forces and laws with broader effects. Mead believed that in order for effective
social actions to be successful, the acts by the participants in the joint action must be
understood by seeing the other’s point of view. He proposes that there are two
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forms of social interactions – the conversation of gestures and the use of significant
symbols. Mead defined gestures, as being found in any part of a current action that
exemplifies the larger act it is apart of. An example of these forms of interactions can
be found in a classroom. When a teacher makes a point or gesture in class, they first
have to see the need for the use of the action and anticipate possible reactions from
the students. Once the gesture is made, the students internally process this action
and construct patterns through this collaborative action.
Face to face social encounters are considered important as they form human
conduct and behavior. Snyder and Spretizer describes the idea of our behaviors
being a result of thoughtful and reflective actions instead of external stimuli as one
of the most important points in symbolic interactionism (citation). Gusfield (year)
described meaning and situations as being transmitted through language using what
he calls “verbal symbols” (citation)
A symbolic interactionist’s research methods favors direct observation of an
empirical social world over creating a lab based simulation. When conducting
research through the viewpoint of social interactionism, human subjects are though
of as agentive actors in the creation and interpretation of meaning. Symbolic
interactionists also seek to discover how these meanings are recreated, changed, or
adjusted. They emphasize the construction and understanding of meaning through
constant social interactions in diverse settings. Any method that involves collecting
the subject’s thoughts and reactions to social situations would be useful for a
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symbolic interaction study. The researcher cannot assume the meaning of events,
objects, and situations but must take the perspective of the participants by studying
human behavior. Gusfield (year) warns that the observer must have prior
knowledge about the intended subjects before relevant research problems and
appropriate methods of studies can be created.
An example use of symbolic interactionism in research can be found in Teo
and Osborne’s study on a STEM high school teacher’s experience in curriculum
reform. Specifically, the instructor wanted to add more inquiry based learning to his
science courses. In this study, the researchers wanted to understand an instructor’s
process with attempting change the science curriculum. They specifically studied
the sociopolitical and sociocultural context of this process. The researchers sought
to understand what the instructor wanted to achieve, how he went about
constructing, interpreting, and applying meanings, and how these meanings
changed as he brought his theories into the curriculum enactment through
interactions with different people and contexts. One research question that fueled
the study is what does it mean to do inquiry curriculum reform through
interactions. Data from this study was collected from transcribed interviews,
descriptive narratives of the lesson activities, interactions, curriculum materials,
and school website information. Through this information, the researchers were
able to understand the instructor’s intended curriculum changes, his definition of
inquiry, curriculum work process in the summer, and reflections on curriculum
change plans of the following year.
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Hund and Knaus looked at Looking-Glass Self, which is a sub theory of
symbolic interactionism. Charles Cooley, another originator of social interactionism,
created this sub theory in 1902. It involves self-awareness and reflexivity and the
idea that a person constructs an opinion of one’s self based on how others view him.
The researchers describe the classroom as a place for shared expectations built on
the participants’ interactions with each other, which shape behavior and expected
roles. They hypothesize that the instructor and students need to be aware of their
Looking Glass Selves so that successful classroom collaboration and learning can
occur. More importantly, students need to believe that the instructor understands
their educational goals and needs. This type of expectation promotes a democratic
classroom equipped with diverse viewpoints and experiences.
Kathy Charmaz (year) envisioned the future of symbolic interactionism as
getting back to the basic principles. She views future research as advancing the
theoretical views of symbolic interactionism. She argues that symbolic
interactionism should be explored in new empirical areas while being open to new
theoretical possibilities. She views the construction of sophisticated and useful
interpretations of social life as the primary future potential of symbolic
interactionism.
I can see the benefits in adding social interactionism to my constructionism
theoretical framework. I want to conduct my research with the viewpoint that
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learning is a social activity and knowledge can be socially constructed. Chapman and
Resnick propose that people learn through their interactions and their knowledge is
constantly constructed and renegotiated. Students should have many opportunities
to construct and share knowledge with their peers.
My current research interests are centered on students participating in
design teams. Participating in design requires effective interactions and negotiation
within the team for the experience to be successful. While there are many tools that
promote collaborating aboard, face-to-face talk is still very much needed in the
practice of design. Oak (year) talks about the discussion that happens during the
design process. He proposes that creativity and constraints of the design process are
constantly managed and performed by the design team. Thinking about the other
participants and figuring out their point of view during interactions are an
important part of participating in design. As Oak highlights in his research, symbolic
interactionism can be used to better understand how the verbal interactions of
designers expresses the reflections, assessments, and beliefs that help shape the
objects they design. The theory can highlight the problem solving process of a
designer and how it impacts the team.
Many research studies comment on the difficulty students have with working
together on a project. Vaajakallio and Lee found that children aged 7 to 8 year olds
had challenges in participating equally in the group work and seemed to follow
quite openly their personalities and roles: the active ones seemed to dominate the
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team activity while the shy ones remained more passive. Kwon and Cifuentes found
that students in their study were not motivated to collaborate with each other and
were distracted by each other and the technology. I believe there needs to be more
research done on how students work together in groups especially when a problem
has to be solved or an artifact has to be created. I have not seen many studies that
interview students who are apart of a design team and discuss the process of design.
I think potential research questions with a social interactionist approach would
include:

What does it mean to design or solve problems through interactions?

What are the students’ opinions of their design partners and how do they
think others view them?

What does it mean to ideate and share ideas with others?
These questions can be essential in creating more positive collaborative experiences
for students.
References:
1.) Blumer, H. (1986). Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective And Method
2.) Chapman, R. N., & Resnick, M. (2006). Pearls of Wisdom: Technology for
Intentional Reflection and Learning in Constructionist Cooperatives.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
3.) Charmaz, K. (2008). A Future For Symbolic Interactionism. Studies in
Symbolic Interaction, 32 51-59.
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4.) Gusfield, J. R. (2012). A Journey with Symbolic Interaction. Symbolic
Interaction, 26(1), 119–139.
5.) Hund, A., & Knaus, K. (2011). Re ( Imagining ) Teacher Preparation Through
Symbolic Interactionism and the Looking-Glass. Complicity: An International
Journal of Complexity and Education, 8(1), 51–57.
6.) Kwon, S. Y., & Cifuentes, L. (2007). Using Computers to Individually-generate
vs. Collaboratively-generate Concept Maps. Educational Technology &
Society, 10(4), 269–280.
7.) Oak, A. (2011). What can talk tell us about design?: Analyzing conversation to
understand practice. Design Studies, 32(3), 211–234.
8.) Snyder, E. E., & Spreitzer, E. (1984). Identity and commitment to the teacher
role. Teaching Sociology, 11, 151–166.
9.) Vaajakallio, K., & Lee, J. (2009). “ It has to be a group work !” - Co-design with
Children. Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Interaction
Design and Children - IDC ’09 (pp. 3–6).
10.)
Wee, T., & Margery, T. (2012). Using symbolic interactionism to
analyze a specialized STEM high school teacher’s experience in curriculum
reform, 541–567.
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