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This paper examines the community situation of shipyard workers on Tyneside, certain aspects of their orientations to work and general social perspectives, and the relationship of these to each other and to the structure of social relations at work. In terms of their community situation shipyard workers would seem to come close to Lockwood's traditional proletarian type of worker. There is evidence to suggest, however, that these workers' social perspectives are not at all clearly traditional proletarian. The explanation for this is found, at least m part, m the much greater complexity of social relations at work than are accounted for in the model of traditional proletarianism. The paper suggests that existing typologies of the orientations and social perspectives of workers need to be refined by more detailed studies of the structural and relational aspects of both work and community situations. The paper concludes with a brief examination of changes in both industry and community and the likely effect of these on the social perspectives of shipbuilding workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ordinarily an anniversary occasions the reification of an artificial period. In this case however, there is a certain juncture in the history of the point of view which makes of the past quarter-century something worthy of consideration for symbolic interactionism as well as for our celebration of the founding of the Midwest Sociological Society. The year 1937 lies virtually in the middle of a four-year period which saw the publication of Mind, Self, and Society, Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, and The Philosophy of the Act. It would represent the greatest naiveté to suggest that thus the year 1937 represented the introduction of symbolic interactionism. We are all aware of the long development: from James, Baldwin, and Cooley to Thomas, Faris, Dewey, Blumer, and Young. Even the Tardean imitation and suggestion which underlay Ross's Social Psychology contributed a good deal ordinarily not credited to him in the development of interaction theory. Nor is it the fact that Mead represents the fullest development of the orientation that makes so significant the posthumous publication of his works (for which we may conveniently take 1937 as an anchoring point). Mead's ideas had been known for a very long time. He had taught University of Chicago students from 1893 to 1931. His notions were bruited about in classes and seminars wherever there were professors conducting them who had studied at the University of Chicago—not least in the great heartland included in the Mid-west of our Society. Some of Mead's students had published their versions of his ideas or quotations from some of his philosophical papers—Kimbali Young's Source Book in Social Psychology of a decade earlier contained a paper by Mead, and his Social Psychology bore the strong imprint of Meadian interactionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Symbolic interaction theory as derived mainly from the work of George Herbert Mead views the self-concept as a structure of attitudes which arises in social experience and organizes the individual's perception of his social milieu. Recently, tests based upon this symbolic interaction orientation have been developed for the elicitation of self attitudes. One such test frequently used is the Twenty Statements Test (TST) constructed by Manford Kuhn and Thomas McPartland. The TST attempts to ascertain the specific statements respondents use to identify themselves to themselves. The applicability of the TST to problems of self theory is indicated by the rather wide use which has been made of the instrument. Investigations using the TST have focused upon the following: self-concept and social position; a self-concept and behavior; and the self-concept and attitudes toward other social objects. While TST results have been of substantive interest, little attention has been given to the methodological issues involved in the instrument and its use. For example, little is known concerning the validity and reliability of the test and its scoring procedures. If substantive assertions based upon TST results are to be considered as sound, judicious concern should be directed toward basic methodological issues. It is the purpose of this paper to consider empirically one methodological aspect of the TST. The focus is upon the test format itself. The question is posed: Do variations in the TST format produce variations in individuals' response patterns? Specifically, does the length of the test influence the number and the nature of statements made by respondents? This paper is directed toward answering this question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents Peter M. Hall's response to Rosabeth Moss Kanter's comments toward his article "A Symbolic Interactionist Analysis of Politics," published in the 1972 issue of "Sociological Inquiry." The author concludes that Kanter misunderstands his perspective by subsuming it under American liberalism. If there is anything that he is not, it is an American liberal, and if there is anything he is criticizing in American sociology, political sociology, and symbolic interaction, it is consensual, pluralistic, and liberal bias. Hall also does not deny the need to see the totality of the society, its interdependencies, feedbacks, and impacts, in short, society as a system. To settle misconceptions, Hall emphasized that his paper had a special focus and set limits as to its goals and coverage. It was not intended to be a complete analysis of politics nor a complete analysis of American politics.

The concept of ‘generalized symbolic media of social interaction’ was introduced by Parsons five years ago in his two articles on the concepts of power and influence. I believe that it represents a theoretical development of the first importance, which has received much less attention—particularly in my own field of social anthropology—than it deserves. The purpose of the present paper is to review and criticize the concept itself and to point out its relevance to certain problems in social anthropology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the nature of value-commitments, conceived as a generalized symbolic medium of interchange in the processes of social interaction, in this respect paralleling money, power, and influence. Commitments constitute moral obligations of units of a system of social interaction to maintain the integrity of a value-pattern and to strive toward its implementation in action through combination with non-value factors. Stability of commitments is a basic condition of the compatibility of wide moral freedom with the exigencies of social functioning. Like the other three media, commitments are not bound by a zero-sum condition, but can be expanded, especially through charismatic movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Theories of symbolic interaction and ethnomethodology, assume that everyone undertakes a complex process of construction of reality, including self-identity, in interaction with significant others. Utilizing insights into variations in identity reformulation in marriage obtained from a study of American metropolitan women, this paper concentrates on variations of identity reformulation among widows. The major hypothesis guiding the discussion is that the higher the education of the woman, as measured by formal schooling, the more she is likely to experience and undertake identity reformulation in marriage and in widowhood. The less education a woman has, the less she will be consciously affected in her identity formulation by these events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports an exploration of the relationship between members' role performance and the benefits they receive from their organizations. The general relationship is interpreted in the context of a "social exchange model" for voluntary associations. Data for the analysis pertain to members of four voluntary farm organizations: Farm Bureau, Farmers Union, National Farmers Organization, and Grange. The data were obtained in a state-wide survey of Wisconsin farm operators in 1965. In general, the data show a moderate relationship, in a positive direction, between benefits and role performance. The benefits tend to differ in the magnitude and, in some instances, in the direction of their relationships to such performance. The findings indicate the importance of taking into account magnitude and direction of relationship, as well as interaction among the benefits and among costs, in order to devise a viable social exchange model of cost benefit relations for voluntary associations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we attempt to do the following with respect to the symbolic interactionist approach to social psychological phenomena: (1) to add to its relatively meager empirical base; (2) to develop a neglected aspect of the position, namely, the time dimension; and (3) to contribute to both the replication and the extension of the limited systematic research which has used this particular framework to focus on the key concept of self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manford Kuhn in his review of twenty-five years of symbolic interaction theory noted that the "oral tradition" had sustained the theory during the years preceding the "age of inquiry." And, as Kuhn has accurately noted, this "age of inquiry" has utilized different subtheories and there was little consensus or "formalization" which preceded the empirical studies. This is true for Kuhn's own theory as well as for the other subtheories of the orientation. It is the purpose of this paper to correct this condition for Kuhn's theory. In doing this I have brought together, in a systematic manner, the ideas, definitions, assumptions, and propositions of the work of Kuhn and his students. With this foundation, I discuss several methodological problems of the theory which have not been previously investigated. It is hoped that this effort will contribute to the "age of inquiry" in Symbolic Interaction Theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]