The Edges of Interactionism

At all points of the faultline of consciousness we can find indications that scholars have struggled with sociology as a social constructionist enterprise. This struggle continues today, and in a variety of ways engages the edges of interactionism. If the unaware interactionist can be said to be reluctantly interpretive, the adherents of cultural studies are almost zealously interpretive. While interactionists arguably have sidestepped the direct study of "stratification systems", however, they have conducted considerable research on the elements of stratification. Questions of stratification, containing as they do issues regarding distributions of advantage and disadvantage as well as those of safety, fear, and misery, raise questions about applied sociology. Among the many questions under considerations in this broad and amorphous area is one concerning the conceptual grounding for models of intervention into problematic situations in order to make a difference.

Interactionism · Social science · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Psychology