Microsociology is one of the main levels of analysis (or focuses) of sociology, concerning the nature of everyday human social interactions and agency on a small scale: face to face.[1]: 5 Microsociology is based on subjective interpretative analysis rather than statistical or empirical observation,[2]: 18–21 and shares close association with the philosophy of phenomenology. Methods include symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology; ethnomethodology in particular has led to many academic sub-divisions and studies such as micro-linguistical research and other related aspects of human social behaviour. Macrosociology, by contrast, concerns the social structure and broader systems.
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My Sociology Mini Lecture 2.1 - Micro & Macro Sociology
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6 1 On Microsociology
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Voiceover: Macrosociology and microsociology are two different levels of analysis in sociology to study societies. You need a place to start when you're looking at a society, otherwise it can feel rather overwhelming. Because not only do you have the individual people making up the population you're studying, you also have the different groups that also make up your population and the communities and the cultures and the subcultures. And you have your population as a whole that you can look at. So if you can at least figure out what perspective you want to start with, it'll help you find a good foot hold to proceed. Okay, macrosociology is the large scale perspective. You're looking at big phenomena that affect your whole population, or a least a big portion of it. You're looking at social structures and institutions. You're looking at whole civilizations or societies or populations. And what are you looking for? Well, you're looking for patterns. You're trying to find the effects that the whole big picture have on the life of small groups and individuals. Your analyzing large collectives like cities for broad social trends. And you can get a lot of statistical data from these big populations. But be careful how you analyze it. Don't ask a question when you already have an answer in mind, because you might interpret the data to prove your point. But, that won't actually tell you anything about the population you're studying. Don't find the one statistical test that makes the data fit your story, let the data tell the story. Macrosociology deals with matters like war, or poverty, or the health care institution, or international stuff like the world economy. Functionalism is a social theory that comes from the macro perspective. Basically, functionalism looks at a society as a whole, and how the institutions that make up a society adapt to keep the society stable and functioning. Conflict theory is also a macroperspective. Real quick, conflict theory is the idea that societies are made up of institutions that benefit the powerful and create inequalities, and large groups of people are at odds with each other until the conflict is resolved and a new social order is created with equally distributed power. Okay, so that's the big picture perspective. Let's go to the other extreme and check out microsociology. Kind of sounds like microscope, right? With a microscope you can look at individual cells or really tiny things. Well, in microsociology you're looking at the small scale every day, face to face social interactions between individuals or maybe small groups. You're looking at families and schools and other small social interactions. Unlike macrosociology, in microsociology you don't have the same large test group. So microsociology is more of an interpretive analysis of the society. You look at a sample of your society and interpret how those individual interactions would affect the larger patterns of the society, like institutions and social structures. You can look at how the expectations of a teacher will affect a student's grades, or you can look at doctor-patient interactions, or how family dynamics affect the expression of prejudiced attitudes. So you can get an idea of microsociology in practice, you can look at symbolic interactionism, which is a social theory that is a microperspective. Symbolic interactionism focuses on the individual and the significance or meaning they give to objects, events, symbols and other things in their life. Cool, so you have macrosociology starting from the big picture and seeing how it affects the individual. And you have microsociology going the other way, looking at the individual interactions and seeing how they affect the big picture.
Theory
Microsociology exists both as an umbrella term for perspectives which focus on agency, such as Max Weber's theory of social action, and as a body of distinct techniques, particularly in American sociology. The term was conceived by Georges Gurvitch in 1939, borrowing the term from the micro-physics and referring to the irreducible and unstable nature of everyday forms of sociality. It also provided an extra dimension between the studies of social psychology, sociology, and social anthropology—focusing more on individual interaction and thinking within groups, rather than just large social group/societal behaviour. At the micro level, social status and social roles are the most important components of social structure. Microsociology forms an important perspective in many fields of study, including modern psychosocial studies, conversational analysis and human-computer interaction. Microsociology continues to have a profound influence on research in all human fields, often under other names.
Competing frames of reference
Some have considered that face-to-face interaction can be studied in at least three distinct (if overlapping) ways: psychology; intersubjectivity; and microsociology.[1]: 22
Erving Goffman however saw a central tension between Durkheimian approaches, and those drawn from ethology, especially in respect of interpersonal ritual;[2]: 84, 88–9 while followers of him have seen in a Durkheimian microsociology the key to the understanding of large-scale social conflict as well.[3]: 42 Erving Goffman's theories of social interaction challenged other sociologists to redirect their focus to the questionable aspects of social behavior.[4] Contrary to Erving Goffman's theory, Émile Durkheim believed that advanced methodological principles should guide sociologists and that they should research social fact.[4]
Influences
Sartre, in his work on the phenomenology of social dynamics, Critique of Dialectical Reason, written in the late 1950s, called microsociology the only valid theory of human relations.[5] Jürgen Habermas and Pierre Bourdieu are two more recent theorists who have put microsociological concepts to good use in their works.[6] R.D. Laing was much influenced by Garfinkel's ideas on "degradation ceremonies".[7]
(Humanistic) social work
Key issues, categories and principles of the microsociology, such as human relations, face-to-face interaction, interpretive/qualitative analysis, attachment and empathy, micro-level analysis, human behavior, micro-community, everyday human life, human context, microculture, focus on agency, have influenced and still influences today the social work theory and practice, having a crucial role in the emergence of humanistic social work (Petru Stefaroi),[8] as response to the structural and systemic social work, which theoretically originates from macrosociology or mesosociology. This is why Malcolm Payne considers microsociology a fundamental theoretical-methodological source of this postmodern and innovative orientation from the contemporary social work, especially of the humanistic social work practice.[9]
Research
Research begins by evaluating the social life of the individuals with the goal of showing the reciprocal relationship between events/actions and the nature of the societal context in which they occur.[10]
Empirical evidence from recorded conversations and the microsociology of emotion has proved of particular interest to students of interaction ritual.[3]: 47
See also
References
- ^ a b Smelser, Neil J. 1997. Problematics of Sociology..
- ^ a b Goffman, Erving. 1972. Relations in Public.
- ^ a b Collins, Randall. 2004. Interaction Ritual Chains.
- ^ a b Giddens, Anthony (2014). Introducrion to Sociology. W.W. NORTON. pp. 18, 10–11. ISBN 978-0-393-92223-3.
- ^ Stack, George J. 1977. Satre's Philosophy of Social Existence. p. 56
- ^ Calhoun, Craig, et al. 2012. Contemporary Sociological Theory. p. 33.
- ^ Laing, R. D. 1984. The Politics of Experience. p. 86.
- ^ Stefaroi, Petru. 2012. "Humanistic Paradigm of Social Work or Brief Introduction in Humanistic Social Work." Social Work Review 10(1):161–74.
- ^ Malcolm Payne. 2011. Humanistic Social Work: Core Principles in Practice. Chicago: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 9.
- ^ Scheff, Thomas J. 2007. "Microsociology", edited by G. Ritzer. ISBN 9781405124331.
Further reading
- Turner, Jonathan H. Sociology Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, NJ. 2006.
External links
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This page was last edited on 20 April 2024, at 06:12