Sociologies of Interaction

Greg Smith author Alex Dennis author Rob Philburn author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:John Wiley and Sons Ltd

Published:13th Sep '13

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Sociologies of Interaction cover

Social interaction lies at the heart of our everyday experience. We make our way down the street and avoid crashing into others, take our place in the supermarket queue, take care in the way we talk about others in conversation, acknowledge the social status of people we meet, and enjoy leisurely pursuits in the company of friends and like-minded others. All these things are fundamental parts of human sociality that can be discovered and understood through ‘sociologies of interaction’.

This book provides an invaluable introduction to the theoretical foundations and practical applications of interactionist approaches to everyday life. Beginning with an overview of three core traditions - symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, along with Goffman’s work on the interaction order - the text moves on to examine in detail topics such as leisure, work, health and illness, deviance, class, status and power, education, ethnic relations and gender. Highlighting a range of empirical studies, the book shows how sociologies of interaction have the capacity to reframe and make us rethink conventional social science topics.

This illuminating book will be of interest to undergraduates across the social sciences, particularly in sociology, social psychology and communication studies, as well as those who have an interest in understanding the interactional underpinnings of everyday life.

"Written by internationally recognized experts in the field, the first part of this book is an excellent guide to the different strands of qualitative sociology. The authors are able to convey complicated ideas in clear and accessible language. The authors then demonstrate that these ideas have a tangible impact on our understanding of a range of contemporary social issues. I highly recommend Sociologies of Interaction."
Philip Manning, Cleveland State University

"It neither simplifies the complexity of the three key approaches to social interaction, nor does it complicate the elegant simplicity of their central ideas. Along the way students are offered dozens of empirical hooks to hang the ideas from, leaving little excuse for losing their interactionist hats. Not so much a foundation, then, as a hallway connecting into a number of further intriguing rooms."
Eric Laurier, Edinburgh University

ISBN: 9780745646077

Dimensions: 229mm x 155mm x 20mm

Weight: 399g

248 pages