action theory

• micro theory

• bottom-up

• voluntaristic

actions and the interactions of individuals

• the level of cause

• the level of meaning

calvinism

• instrumentally rational action

• value-rational action

• traditional action

• affectual action

where someone calculates the most efficient means of achieving a goal e.g., low wages for maximum profit

action towards a goal that someone regards as desirable for its own sake e.g., a believer worshipping in order to get into heaven

customary, routine or habitual actions with no conscious thought or choice e.g., saying ‘bless you’ after someone sneezes

an action that expresses emotion e.g., weeping out of grief

being empathetic

• valuable corrective to the over-emphasis on structural factors in functionalism and marxism

• an affirmation that we must understand subjective meanings to explain actions

• schutz → too individualistic and cannot explain the shared nature of meanings

• typology of action is hard to apply

• advocated verstehen but we cannot be another person so we cannot understand their motives

seeing interactions as based on the meanings we give to situations

unlike animals. our behaviour is not determined by instincts, but rather by giving meaning to what is significant to us

putting ourselves in the place of another person. we learn to do this through social interaction

• actions are based on meanings

• meanings arise from interaction

• meanings are result of the interpretative procedures used

• the definition of the situation

• the looking glass self

• a career

the label of something (W.I.Thomas) that will have real consequences if defined as real

an idea by charles cooley used to describe how we develop our self concept by taking the role of the other

the stages through which an individual progresses through their labels

goffman’s analogy of how we actively construct our ‘self’ by manipulating others impressions of us

controlling the impression our performance gives by studying our audience’s reactions and adjusting our performance

that there is a role distance between the actor and the role

• avoids determinism

• dramaturgical model is useful

• more of a loose collection of descriptions than an explanation

• ignores social structures

• cannot explain consistent patterns

• reynolds → lacks structure

• not all action is meaningful

• everyone plays both audience and action

• EM → fails to explain How actors create meaning

husserl

the world only makes sense because we impose meaning and order on it y constructing mental categories

the categories and concepts we use are shared

shared categories that we use to classify information. schutz says without them, social order is impossible

they have a shared life world: a stock of shared typifications or commonsense knowledge to make sense of experiences

believing the social world is a solid, natural thing out there

• mail letter to bookshop to order book

• assume unknown and unseen people will perform a series of operations in a certain way

• we get book

its right to focus on shared commonsense knowledge but they reject his view that society is merely an intersubjective reality

ethnomethodology

attempting to discover how we construct social order by studying the methods people use to make sense of the world

meanings are always potentially unclear - this is a threat to social order

what enables us to behave as if meanings are clear and obvious - using commonsense knowledge to apply meaning to everyday situations

• acting as lodgers in their own homes

• haggling at supermarkets

the orderliness of everyday interactions is not inevitable but an accomplishment to those who take part - social order is participant produced

• draws attention to how we actively construct order and meaning

• craib → findings are trivial

• EM argues everything is essentially fiction so why should we believe that is true

• functionalists → norms are social facts not fiction

• ignores wider structures of power and inequality

anthony giddens

structure and action cannot exist without each other - through our actions, we produce and reproduce structures which make our actions possible e.g., language

rules and resources

a need to feel the world is really as it appears to be

• rules contain a stock of knowledge about how to live our lives and we sue resources when following them

• deep seated need for ontological security

we reflexively monitor our actions and choose a new deliberate cause of action

• makes an important attempt to overcome the division between structure & action

• archer → underestimates capacity of structures to resist change

• craib → doesn’t explain why, only describes

• craib → fails to unite structure and action

• doesn’t explain how the theory applies to large scale structures