SOC387H5 Study Guide - Final Guide: Ethnography
Document Summary
Symbolic interactionist perspective: assumptions of symbolic interactionists, humans are unique animals, human behaviour is learned, humans communicate through symbols (language, humans make meaning through interactions, the core task of symbolic interactionism is the capture the meaning making process, causality, social structure, and social institutions, social structure: larger patterns and relationships in large societies and stratification between those groups, social institutions: social positions accompanied by related norms and expectations, symbolic interactionists argue that social structure and social institutions do not determine or cause human behaviours. Theory construction is weak: ethnography and interviewing is hard how do you generalize for a general population of only 3 or 4 people, response of qualitative researchers, highly developed field note techniques, advanced data collection techniques: do they capture reality (post modern theory, not everything goes in the book but people are selective as to what they include in a book or textbook, the person who does reach may or may not capture reality.
