Abstract
The conventional wisdom among many sociologists is (1) that it is their prerogative to define, document, and explain the inequalities that exist in society and (2) that there are two general theoretical perspectives useful for studying inequality: functionalism and conflict theory. Some scholars have recently challenged the latter portion of this view by advocating the development of more interpretive, interactionist approaches. However, these scholars' agendas often tend to perpetuate the first half of the conventional wisdom. While interactionists (and other constructionist scholars) can choose to study inequality in any number of ways, I argue that the most distinctive contribution they can make is to focus on the meanings that inequalities have for people in everyday life, as well as how those meanings are achieved.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson, L. (2001). Editor's Introduction. Symbolic Interaction 24: 391–394.
Anderson, L. and Snow, D.A. (2001). Inequality and the Self: Exploring Connections from an Interactionist Perspective. Symbolic Interaction 24: 395–406.
Anderson, M.L. and Taylor, H.F. (2001). Sociology: The Essentials. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Atkinson, P. and Silverman, D. (1997). Kundera's Immortality: The Interview Society and the Invention of the Self. Qualitative Inquiry 3: 304–325.
Becker, H.S. (1963/1973). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: The Free Press.
Best, J. (1993). But Seriously Folks: The Limitations of the Strict Constructionist Interpretation of Social Problems. In J.A. Holstein and G. Miller (Eds.), Reconsidering Social Constructionism: Debates in Social Problems Theory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Best, J. (1999). Random Violence: How We Talk About New Crimes and New Victims. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Best, J. (1971). Social Problems as Collective Behavior. Social Problems 18: 298–306.
Cancian, F.M. (1995). Truth and Goodness: Does the Sociology of Inequality Promote Social Betterment? Sociological Perspectives 38: 339–356.
Chang, J.H-Y. (2000). Symbolic Interaction and Transformation of Class Structure: The Case of China. Symbolic Interaction 23: 223–251.
Collins, P.H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, 2nd edition. New York: Routledge.
Collins, R. (1981). On the Micro-Foundations of Macro-Sociology. American Journal of Sociology 86: 964–1014.
Collins, R. (1983). Micromethods as a Basis for Macrosociology. Urban Life 12: 84–202.
Collins, R. (1988). Theoretical Sociology. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Collins, R. (1994). Four Sociological Traditions. New York: Oxford University Press.
Collins, R. (2000). Situational Stratification: A Micro-Macro Theory of Inequality. Sociological Theory 18: 17–43.
Davis, K. and Moore, W. (1945). Some Principles of Stratification. American Sociological Review 10: 242–249.
Denzin, N.K. (1989). Interpretive Interactionism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Deutsch, F.M. (1999). Halving It All: How Equally Shared Parenting Works. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Fine, M. (1994). Working the Hyphens: Reinventing Self and Other in Qualitative Research. In N.K. Denzin and Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction Ritual. New York: Doubleday.
Gubrium, J.F. (1988). Analyzing Field Reality. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Gubrium, J.F. and Holstein, J.A. (1995). Biographical Work and New Ethnography. In R. Josselson and A. Lieblich (Eds.), The Narrative Study of Lives, Vol. 3. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gubrium, J.F. and Holstein, J.A. (1997). The New Language of Qualitative Method. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gubrium, J.F. and Holstein, J.A. (1999). At the Border of Narrative and Ethnography. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 28: 561–573.
Gubrium, J.F. and Holstein, J.A. (2000). The Self in a World of Going Concerns. Symbolic Interaction 23: 95–115.
Harris, S.R. (2000a). Meanings and Measurements of Equality in Marriage: A Study of the Social Construction of Equality. In J.A. Holstein and G. Miller (Eds.), Perspectives on Social Problems, Vol. 12. Stamford, CT: JAI.
Harris, S.R. (2000b). The Social Construction of Equality in Everyday Life. Human Studies 23: 371–393.
Harris, S.R. (2001). What Can Interactionism Contribute to the Study of Inequality? The Case of Marriage and Beyond. Symbolic Interaction 24: 455–480.
Harris, S.R. (2003). Studying Equality/Inequality: Naturalist and Constructionist Approaches to Equality in Marriage. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 32: 200–232.
Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Hochschild, A.R. (1983). The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Holstein, J.A. and Gubrium, J.F. (1995). The Active Interview. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Holstein, J.A. and Miller, G. (1990). Rethinking Victimization: An Interactional Approach to Victimology. Symbolic Interaction 13: 103–122.
Hopper, J. (1993). The Rhetoric of Motives in Divorce. Journal of Marriage and the Family 55: 801–813.
Horowitz, R. (1997). Barriers and Bridges to Class Mobility and Formation: Ethnographies of Stratification. Sociological Methods and Research 25: 495–538.
Kerbo, H.R. (1991). Social Stratification and Inequality: Class Conflict in Historical and Comparative Perspective, 2nd edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Kitsuse, J.I. and Cicourel, A.V. (1963). A Note on the Uses of Official Statistics. Social Problems 11: 131–139.
Lamont, M. and Fournier, M. 1992. Introduction. In M. Lamont and M. Fournier (Eds.), Cultivating Differences: Symbolic Boundaries and the Making of Inequality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Loseke, D. (1993). Constructing Conditions, People, Morality, and Emotion: Expanding the Agenda of Constructionism. In G. Miller and J.A. Holstein (Eds.), Constructionist Controversies: Issues in Social Problems Theory. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
Loseke, D. (1999). Thinking About Social Problems: An Introduction to Constructionist Perspectives. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Loseke, D. (2001). Lived Realities and Formula Stories of 'Battered Women.' In J.F. Gubrium and J.A. Holstein (Eds.), Institutional Selves: Troubled Identities in a Postmodern World. New York: Oxford University Press.
Maines, D.R. (1993). Narrative's Moment and Sociology's Phenomena: Toward a Narrative Sociology. Sociological Quarterly 34: 17–38.
Maines, D.R. (2000). Some Thoughts on the Interactionist Analysis of Class Stratification: A Commentary. Symbolic Interaction 23: 253–258.
Maines, D.R. and McCallion, M.J. (2000). Urban Inequality and the Possibilities of Church-Based Intervention. In N.K. Denzin (Ed.), Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 3. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Marger, M.N. (1999). Social Inequality: Patterns and Processes. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co.
Miller, G. and Holstein J.A. (1989). On the Sociology of Social Problems. In J.A. Holstein and G. Miller (Eds.), Perspectives on Social Problems, Vol. 1. Greenwich, CT: JAI.
Mills, C.W. (1940). Situated Actions and Vocabularies of Motive. American Sociological Review 6: 904–913.
Pollner, M. (1987). Mundane Reason: Reality in Everyday and Sociological Discourse. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Potter, J. and Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and Social Psychology: Beyond Attitudes and Behaviour. London: Sage.
Prus, R. (1996). Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research: Intersubjectivity and the Study of Human Lived Experience. Albany: SUNY.
Prus, R. (1999). Beyond the Power Mystique: Power as Intersubjective Accomplishment. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Psathas, G. (1980). Approaches to the Study of the World of Everyday Life. Human Studies 3: 3–17.
Reynolds, L.T. (1993). Interactionism: Exposition and Critique. Dix Hills, NY: General Hall.
Riessman, C. (1993). Narrative Analysis. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Schutz, A. (1964). Equality and the Meaning Structure of the Social World. In Collected Papers, Vol. 2. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Schwalbe, M., Godwin, S., Holden, D., Schrock, D., Thompson, S. and Wolkomir, M. (2000). Generic Processes in the Reproduction of Inequality: An Interactionist Analysis. Social Forces 79: 419–452.
Scott, M.B. and Lyman, S.M. (1968). Accounts. American Sociological Review 33: 46–62.
Shapiro, T.M. (1998). Great Divides: Readings in Social Inequality in the United States. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Publishing Co.
Shibutani, T. (1961). Society and Personality. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Shibutani, T. and Kwan, K.M. (1965). Ethnic Stratification: A Comparative Approach. New York: Macmillan.
Spector, M. and Kitsuse, J.I. 1977. Constructing Social Problems. Menlo Park, CA: Cummings.
Watson, G. and Goulet, J.G. (1998). What Can Ethnomethodology Say About Power? Qualitative Inquiry 4: 96–113.
Weinberg, D. (2001). Self-Empowerment in Two Therapeutic Communities. In J.F. Gubrium and J.A. Holstein (Eds.), Institutional Selves: Troubled Identities in a Postmodern World. New York: Oxford University Press.
Whyte, W.F. (1943). Street Corner Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Zelizer, V. (1994). The Social Meaning of Money. New York: Basic Books.
Zimmerman, D.H. and Pollner, M. (1970). The Everyday World as a Phenomenon. In J.D. Douglas (Ed.), Understanding Everyday Life. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Harris, S.R. Challenging the Conventional Wisdom: Recent Proposals for the Interpretive Study of Inequality. Human Studies 27, 113–136 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:HUMA.0000022537.63478.66
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/B:HUMA.0000022537.63478.66