Meads central theories and method

The self in society: The behavior of an individual can be understood only in terms of the behavior of the whole social group of which he is a member, since his individual acts are involved in larger, social acts which go beyond himself and which implicate the other members of that group." "studies the activity or behavior of the individual as it lies within the social process, The concept of play stage and game stage distinguish child from being conscious.

Mead argued that there can be no self apart from society, no consciousness of self and no communication. In its turn, society must be understood as a structure that emerges through an ongoing process of communicative social acts, through transactions between persons ,mutually oriented toward each other.
The genesis of the self: Mead's most notable achievements the genesis of consciousness and of the self through the gradually developing ability in child-hood to take the role of the other and to visualize his own performance from the point of view of others. Humans are both actors and reactors and the human sense of self is a product and process, as the self is simultaneously shaped by the larger society. The I and the Me: Mead distinguishes between the "I" and the "me." The "me" is the accumulated understanding of "the generalized other" i.e. norms, unconscious opinions, patterns of social response etc. The "I" is the more personal opinions, the reflector or observer, the social struggler -- it is what creates the individual's individuality. The Me is what is learned in interaction with others and (more generally) with the environment: other peoples attitudes, once internalized in the self, constitute the Me. By contrast, I is the response of the individual to the attitude of the community. The I acts creatively, though within the context of the me.

Symbolic Interaction and the Chicago School:

Founded 1892 by Albion Small; the Chicago School (also known as ecological school) is the name given to an approach to sociological work associated with the department of sociology at the University of Chicago, formed in 1892 as the first in the United States. Their way of thinking about social relations was heavily qualitative analysis, and focused on the city as a social laboratory. The Chicago School relied heavily upon the ideas of social psychology, specifically upon the concept of symbolic interaction as outlined by George Herbert Mead. The central figure of Chicago school is Herbert Blumer, who coined the label symbolic interaction. However the core members of the Chicago School were: Albion W. Small, William I. Thomas, Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess etc. Special Contribution of Chicago School in the Symbolic Interaction Theory: Developed the field of qualitative methodologies, especially those used in naturalistic observation. However, over-reliance on qualitative methods, to the exclusion of reasonable quantitative measures, later became one of the Schools greatest liabilities. Tracing out the concept of socialization; George Herbert Mead and Charles Horton Cooley focused on how all the symbol-based interactions we have with others shape and form our self, our roles, our becoming human, and ultimately our experiencing socialization. Chicago School convey symbolic interpretation as a combination biological metaphor and ecological models, constructed through psychological interpretation of social reality, the resulting ecological models, that emerged from actively examining the parallels between natural and social systems. It has focused on human behavior as determined by social structures and physical environmental factors, rather than genetic and personal characteristics. It focuses on micro-level analysis of social interaction giving more emphasis on human behavior. Developed the observational type of study method using unstructured interview techniques. Develop the concept of sensitization with particular reference and abandon the deductive methods.

Herbert Blumer (1900-1987) and his perspective: Blumer was a strong follower of George Herbert Mead, clarifying, expanding, and extending Meads sociological psychology and philosophy into empirical work. He was editor of the American Journal of Sociology from 1940-1952, was elected president of American Sociological Association in 1955. He was also president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and vice-president of the International Sociological Association. He received honorary degrees from the University of Missouri and Southern Illinois University. He tough sociology at university of Chicago and California Berkley for 25 years each. Herbert Blumer coined the term symbolic inter-actionism in 1937. He define culture as a conception, whether defined as custom, tradition, norm, value, rules, or such like, is clearly derived from what people do. Similarly, social structure in any of its aspects, as represented by such terms as social position, status, role, authority, and prestige, refers to relationships derived from how people act toward each other. Major Perspectives of Blumer: People, individually and collectively are prepared to act on the basis of the meaning of the objects that comprises their world. Objects take on different meanings according to the perspectives of the individual considering the object, where that perspective is determined by identity, role, and so on. The sense of objects strongly relates to the method of object interaction found in The Sims. Common objects are defined culturally, they have the same meaning to a class of people. Social acts, whether individually or collectively are thus constructed by actors noting, interpreting and assessing the situation confronting them. The complex interlinking of acts that comprise organization, institutions, division of labor and networks of independency are moving and not static.

Erving Goffman and the presentation of self in everyday life. Goffman was born in Alberta Canada, Canada in 1922, received his graduate from University of Toronto, post graduate from Chicago with Herbert Blumer and received Ph.D in 1953. Goffman joined department of sociology at Berkeley in 1957 in close relation with Blumer. Join University of Pennsylvania as a department chair and taught sociology until his death in 1982. Goffman believed that an individual becomes attached to society through rituals. He highly influenced with George Simmels concept of sociation a process in which an individual is grown up in the society as a face to face interaction. Goffmans conception of the behavior is a product of tension between I, the spontaneous self, and me, the social constraints within the self. The tension result from the differences between what people expect us to do and what we may want to do spontaneously. He created the field of dramaturgy; the dramaturgical perspective compares all human interaction to a theatrical or dramatic performance. Society is viewed as a stage culture (identity) as a script, where humans are actors giving performances for audience. Goffman had long been regarded as a cult figure in sociological theory particularly with his concern on how society forces people to present a certain image of themselves that often switch back and forth for many complicated roles.

Goffmans interest in rituals brought him close to the later work of Emile Durkheim, especially the elementary forms of religious life generally accorded with Durkhiems sense of social fact, Goffman came to focus on rules and to see them as external constraints on social behavior.
The conclusion of Goffman is that underlying all social interaction there is a fundamental dialectics. When individual enter the presence of other, they seek to discover the facts of the situation. The innermost feelings and the thought of those involved in a interactions reflects the social reality.