action theories

• Weber's levels of explanation


  1- The level of cause (objective structural factors that shape people's behaviour)

  2- The level of meaning (subjective meanings that individuals attach to their actions)
• Calvinism at the level of cause


  Protestant reformation introduced Calvinism and led to changes in labour and development of capitalism
• Calvinism at the level of meaning


  Believed that hard work glorified God so labour took on a religious meaning so they began to accumulate wealth
• Weber's 4 types of action


  1- Instrumentally rational action (calculate the most efficient way to achieve a goal)

  2- Value- rational action (action towards a desirable goal. There is no way of calculating how effective he action is)

  3- Traditional action (routine or habitual)

  4- Affectual action (expresses emotion - important in religion)
• Goffman's dramaturgical model


  We can actively construct our 'self' by manipulating others impressions of us by acting out a performance of the roles we adopt
• Reynolds


  84 interactionist sociologists asked to select most essential concepts. Most selected 'role', 'self', and 'interaction' as most essential concepts with only 2 selecting 'power' and 'class'. Shows a lack of structural ideas.
• Phenomenology


  The idea that we cannot have definite knowledge of what the world outside our minds is really like, we only know what our senses tell us.
• Schutz's typifications (phenomenology)


  Shared categories to organise experiences according to context called 'recipe knowledge
• The natural attitude' (phenomenology)


  The idea that society appears objective even if it isn't and we assume people share the same meanings, allowing cooperation.
• Berg and Luckmann (phenomenology)


  Once society has been constructed, it becomes an external reality as meanings are embodied in structures, laws and norms.
• Ethnomethodology


  Studies how people construct order and meaning in every day life.
• indexicality (ethnomethodology)


  Views meanings as unclear and dependent on context. This threatens social order as communication and cooperation becomes difficult.
• reflexivity (ethnomethodology)


  We use commonsense knowledge to construct meaning and order based on everyday interactions, counteracting indexicality.
• Garfinkel's 'breaching experiments' (ethnomethodology)


  Aims to disrupt social order. Concludes that orderliness is not inevitable but is constructed.
• Structure and action


  Combining structural and action theories into one theory
• Gidden's structuration theory


  Society is based on the duality of structure as action and structure cannot exist without one another as we reproduce or challenge structure through our actions and the structure allows our actions.
• Giddens two elements of structure


  -rules

  -resources
• Gidden's need for ontological security


  We reproduce structure because we need to feel the world is as it appears.
• Reflexively monitoring'


  We monitor our own actions as they may have unintended consequences such as Calvinists creating capitalism.