Social Organization and Social Structure in Symbolic Interactionist Thought

Through communication processes, people transform themselves and their environments and then respond to those transformations (Stone & Farberman 1970:v). This paraphrase, for the most part, defines the central thrust of the perspective of symbolic interactionism. It easily subsumes those topics traditionally associated with the perspective, such as interaction processes, socialization, the establishment and maintenance of meaning, systematic symbolization, as well as social roles, identities, and the reflexive self, which are products of human association. For the purposes of this review, however, the important point is that it does not exclude or deny the existence of phenomena such as social class, bureaucracy, social institutions, power structures, international relations, or social stratification, which are usually included in considerations of social organization and social structure. Nor has the perspective ever completely ignored social structural considerations, although it is probably fair to say that symbolic interactionists have not devoted the attention to those matters that functionalists or conflict theorists have. It has been a relatively benign neglect, however, pertaining more to the selection of topics and research problems rather than to the explanatory power of the perspective itself. Even here, though, the perspective's critics have underemphasized symbolic interactionism's contributions to the analysis of social organization. In this review, I attempt to document some of those contributions, and argue that there is nothing inherent in the perspective that precludes the analysis of social organization and social structure. Since there is a considerable range in both theory and practice in symbolic interactionism (Petras & Meltzer 1973), I do not pretend to speak for all who adhere to the perspective. Rather, my objectives are limited to merely presenting evidence of a social organizational approach in symbolic interactionism that is much better developed than commonly believed by sociologists.