Criticisms of Symbolic Interactionism

This chapter establishes a list of some representative criticisms, most of them recent, both of symbolic interactionism and of certain symbolic interactionists. It deals almost exclusively with present-day inter-actionists. The chapter examines these critical commentaries in an attempt to assess whether they tend to be of specific ‘types’ such that many of them can meaningfully be grouped together. The only classification is that distinguishing between those which originate with thinkers within the paradigm and those whose origins lie outside the framework. The criticisms are largely of a negative nature. The major ‘inside’ criticisms is the most frequently voiced of all the ‘in-house’ questionings. Evidently, the criticism that modern symbolic interactionism’s microsociological concerns blind it to macrosociological matters has a measure of validity.

Epistemology · Interactionism · Social science · Sociology · Symbolic interactionism · Philosophy · Psychology · Social and Cultural Dynamics