SOC 2070 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Experience Point, Symbolic Interactionism, Labeling Theory

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Sociology
• Course: SOC 2070
• Professor: Patrick Parnaby

Document Summary

Origins: symbolic interactionism (mead & blumer: born into the social system. In other words, from the moment you star to exist, you start in social context. This is cruel because if you are born into a social system it means that social norms and values that make up the system has predated before you, they existed before you, you are born into that. Norms and value pre-exist you learn to interact via symbolic communication (esp. language). Babies communicate through hand gestures: (cid:373)ea(cid:374)i(cid:374)g & se(cid:374)se of (cid:862)self(cid:863) a(cid:396)e a p(cid:396)odu(cid:272)t of s(cid:455)(cid:373)(cid:271)oli(cid:272) (cid:272)o(cid:373)(cid:373)u(cid:374)i(cid:272)atio(cid:374)/ e(cid:454)(cid:272)ha(cid:374)ge. You sense of self is very much dependent on the kinds of interactions with the people you have around you. A lot of /you/ is not hardwired: reality becomes meaningful through symbolic communication, eg. raising a child, reading a book, watching a movie etc. sense of self is defined through symbolic communication example: student/professor interaction.