9.4C: The Interactionist Perspective
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The interactionist perspective on social inequality focuses on the way that micro-interactions maintain structural inequality.
Learning Objectives
- Design a scenario which illustrates the interactionist perspective on inequality in action
Key Points
- Interactionists often consider the question of how power is exchanged in a situation.
- The interactionist perspective on inequality looks at how certain social roles have more power or authority than others.
- Micro-interactions all have the ability to reinforce or undermine power and status differentials. Thus, social stratification is a result of these individual interactions.
Key Terms
- Social Roles : One’s position and responsibilities in society, which are largely determined in modern developed nations by occupation and family position.
- Interactionist Perspective : An approach to inequality that focuses on how micro-interactions reflect and create unequal power dynamics.
The interactionist perspective on inequality focuses on how micro-interactions reflect and create unequal power dynamics. Interactionists consider the question of how power is exchanged in a situation. For example, when a child and an adult engage in conversation, the adult establishes their power by claiming knowledge and authority that the child cannot. When considering larger systems of inequality, interactionists look at the inequality between social roles. Social roles refer to one’s position and responsibilities in society, which are largely determined in modern developed nations by occupation. The interactionist perspective on inequality looks at how certain social roles have more power, or authority, than others.
An example using real social roles can help illustrate the interactionist perspective: A CEO has more power than a receptionist. Macro-sociologists may explain this disparity by pointing to the unequal education of the two employees, the unequal salaries they earn, or the differing skill levels required to fulfill each job. Interactionists, on the other hand, would focus on the way that day-to-day exchanges demonstrate and reinforce the gap between the CEO and receptionist. When the receptionist hangs up the CEO’s jacket, he takes on a subservient position; when the receptionist makes excuses for the CEO missing a deadline, he accepts responsibility for the CEO’s mistake; when the receptionist laughs at jokes that he does not find funny, he flatters the CEO because he recognizes that his job depends on doing so. All of these micro-interactions, which may seem trivial at the time, add up to status inequality, according to the interactionist.