Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

Charity Shepherd

University of Grantham

Abstract

Society is very judgmental, prejudice, and discriminatory towards one another, and it all leads to have been taught these things throughout life. What people perceive and understand in life is the social interactions amongst groups and individuals. We learn from even the strangers on the side of the rode, not just from parents and teachers. We see how others act or even react to something and think we to should act just like that. Things are taught to us and brought down from generation to generation. This is where symbolic interaction comes into play.

Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

Of the four perspectives, conflict, functionalist, feminist, and the symbolic interactionist perspective, I find the symbolic interactionist to be my favorite of them all. I chose the symbolic interactionism perspective due to the fact this perspective looks at individual’s behavior through the communication, beliefs, attitudes, and even their ideas. Society is socially constructed, we all interpret symbols and meanings differently. The symbolic interaction perspective also applies symbols and tries to attach meaning to these symbols, such as words, gestures, pictures, and so forth. We as individuals learn from what goes on around us in society. We will learn attitudes and values throughout our lifetime. Symbolic interactionism plays a big part in association with race. I say this because we learn things from society. We will learn about an individual’s attitude toward many different races and ethnic groups. We will learn about their attitudes towards dominant and minority groups. We will label groups and all of this will increase discrimination. We all perceive people differently, no one looks at someone the same as someone else. Everyone is judgmental, it is what we learned growing up. As for symbolic interaction and social class people shape social stratification. We learn our...