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Internet Exercises
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The Symbolic Interactionism website at the University of Colorado-Boulder can help you to learn more about one of the key theoretical perspectives in sociology, symbolic interactionism. Enter the site at socsci.colorado.edu/SOC/SI/index.htm, and click on Enter. Next, click on the link to Symbolic Interactionism: A Brief Explanation of the Paradigm. Read the paragraph there, and answer these questions.
  1. Do symbolic interactionists view the social world in a way that seems consistent with your own experience? Do you feel that you create a meaningful world in large part through your interactions with other people?
  2. It is clear from this passage that symbolic interactionists are more interested in analyzing social life at the micro level, rather than the macro level. What, in your view, are the pros and cons of such an approach?
Press your browser's back button, and click on Contemporary Thinkers and Topics in Symbolic Interactionism. Read several of these short biographies.
  1. Do you see any names you recognize? Does the work of these symbolic interactionists appear to contribute to sociology in important ways?
  2. Can you draw any conclusions about the kinds of research techniques that symbolic interactionists are likely to use?
  3. Does the range of research topics among these symbolic interactionists surprise you? Did you realize that the symbolic interactionist perspective could be applied so broadly?







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