Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory that emerged in the United States in the 20s of the last century, in the so-called Chicago School. It takes as its object of study the different interactions between individuals and the interpretations they give to the symbols arising from these interactions.
This theory postulates that the human being is a creator of symbols and meanings with which he interacts socially. Interaction allows us to acquire knowledge, communicate ideas and strengthen our individual awareness.
Symbolic interactionism paid special attention to the role of public opinion and the media; to the so-called urban ecology and the role of social interaction in the formation of individual consciousness.
The term "symbolic interactionism" was coined by Herbert Blumer in 1937. This social theory emerged at the University of Chicago, at a time of urban expansion and the development of public opinion through the increasingly influential role of the media..
In the development of this theory, the recent European immigration to the United States, the evolution of the democratic system, the ideas of the founder of pragmatism, the American Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), and the German philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel (1858-1918).
Simmel's ideas on individual consciousness, action, and interaction would come to the Chicago School through one of its founders, Robert Park, who studied with Simmel in Europe..
This theory can be summarized in the following premises:
People interact with the world and with other people through the use of symbols, which allow them to go beyond their immediate surroundings, facilitate communication and allow the development of imagination.
Meanings are the product of social interaction, especially those that have to do with communication, which are fundamental for the development of individual consciousness, and of the social group..
Individuals generate meanings, organize and reproduce them according to their social experience. By sharing meanings, individuals create their social reality.
The individual develops his social self, his self-awareness, through social interaction. According to George H. Mead, "we must be others if we want to be ourselves." The individual recognizes himself from the reaction of others.
For symbolic interactionism, society is not constituted by classes, normative systems or positions that determine the behavior of its members, but by individuals with the capacity to act freely; although it does not rule out social pressure.
The Chicago School, like the Durkheimian school in Paris, or the Frankfurt School, was a collective undertaking that involved a group of brilliant philosophers and sociologists, among which the following stand out:
He studied at the University of Michigan and initially served as a journalist, which gave him first-hand knowledge of urban culture; later he studied at Harvard and Germany, where he studied with Georg Simmel.
He was a fighter for the rights of blacks in the Belgian Congo and in the United States, and in 1914 he joined the University of Chicago, and a year later the American Sociological Society, of which he would become president ten years later..
His experience with journalism and urban life would be decisive in the concept of urban ecology of the Chicago School, and together with Ernest W. Burguess he was the author of An Introduction to the Science of Sociology (1921), considered the first truly important manual of sociology.
Designated as the most important figure of symbolic interactionism, Mead curiously was not a sociologist but a philosopher and teacher of this discipline throughout his academic life at the University of Chicago (1898-1931), who published relatively little.
However his work, Mind, Self and Society (Mind, person and society, 1934), product of the notes taken by students in their social psychology courses, is considered the intellectual basis of symbolic interactionism.
Mead took elements of psychological behaviorism and took them further, proposing the study of individual consciousness from a scientific perspective, and postulating the intimate relationship between individual consciousness and social interaction..
Born in Alberta, Canada, Goffman studied Art at the University of Toronto and received his Ph.D. in Chicago. His thinking is heavily influenced by Émile Durkheim and George H. Mead. He is considered the creator of microsociology and dramaturgical theory.
Goffman asserted that there are many similarities between what happens on a theatrical stage and how we act in everyday life. We behave as actors from the moment we choose the “wardrobe”, to the selection of the mask for each situation in social life.
His most representative and widespread work is Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (The presentation of the person in life daily), published in 1959. With Herbert Blumer he founded in Berkeley, California, a center for symbolic interactionism.
A disciple of Simmel, Park and Mead, Blumer was the one who coined the term "symbolic interactionism" in 1937. He studied at the University of Chicago and was a prominent member, Secretary and later President, of the American Sociological Society.
Blumer, opposing other social theories of the moment, such as functionalism or behaviorism, affirmed that the basis of social analysis should be in the individual, and not in external situations, such as conflict between classes or normative impositions..
To understand the symbolic world in which people develop, he proposed a type of research based on close contact with people. His most important work is Symbolic Interactionism: perspective and method (1969).
Other important members in the development of this social theory and who were part of the Chicago School were Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) and Walter Lippman (1889-1974).
Cooley proposed the theory of the "mirror-self" (the subject constructing itself by imagining how others see it); Lippman, in addition to being an intellectual and journalist, studied the role of the media and the tension between capitalism and democracy.
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