Social Interaction and Group Dynamics in a Risk Society
Sociological Theories and Group Social Work
Mid-Level Theory
Facing Parsons’ grand theory, Merton calls for a mid-level theory. This approach focuses on analyzing a defined area of social phenomena, favoring the establishment of proper connections between theoretical and empirical research.
Conflict Theory
Its main proponent is Ralf Dahrendorf. He believed society always has two aspects: conflict and consensus. These processes are interrelated. Dahrendorf devoted his efforts to developing a theory of conflict based on the analysis of authority: the structural origin of conflict due to the allocation of social roles and expectations equipped with domination. Authority lies in the positions people occupy, not in the individuals themselves. The object of conflict theory is to analyze the conflict between these positions.
Dahrendorf analyzed the conflict of interest between rulers and the ruled, and the formation of interest groups pursuing an agenda or objective. He examined what he called “conflict groups” and the processes of conflict and change. He claimed that, once established, conflict groups engage in actions that cause changes in social structure. When the conflict is acute, the changes are radical. When accompanied by violence, structural change is sudden. Whatever the nature of the conflict, sociologists must consider the relationship between conflict and change, and the relationship between conflict and the status quo.
This approach has influenced the development of group social work as a scientific discipline. It highlights that the proper management of conflicts, the role of authority and leadership within the group, and personal and group change are crucial in a group’s life. These factors should be considered to achieve the goals proposed by the participants, the social worker, and the group itself.
Symbolic Interactionism and Ethnomethodology
When analyzing group dynamics, the social worker considers three types of problems: those related to the group’s structure (how to structure and give cohesion), those deriving from conflict and change within the group, and those related to the interactions between participants, based on language.
Symbolic interactionism and ethnomethodology have significantly influenced group social work, focusing on communicative practices and the micro-level.
1. Symbolic Interactionism
Herbert Blumer coined the term “symbolic interactionism” based on a rereading of George Herbert Mead’s work, which was published posthumously by his students. Mead’s work develops an analysis of the person as a social being.
Differences in their work lie in the individualistic nature of Blumer’s theory compared with Mead’s community-oriented postulates. For Mead, the social dimension of the person rests in the communication process. In this process, the person expresses themselves, recognizes themselves in the interaction, and recognizes the other, adopting their perspective on themselves and reality. From Mead’s viewpoint, socialization is an interactive process in which each person self-regulates, internalizing the general pattern of action while evaluating and redirecting it in a permanent review exercise. The human being “becomes a person to the extent that you can adopt the attitude of another and act toward himself as others act.”
For Mead, the personality-society relationship, or the relationship between “I” and “me,” refers specifically to how actors, in their interaction, change their psychology and the intersubjective reality, even globally. The “self” is the personality itself, the social individual. The “self” is structured through two dialectically intertwined phases: the “I” (the body’s response to the actions of others) and the “me” (the organized set of attitudes of others that one assumes). In this sense, the “I” is the new element, and the “me” is the social element that corresponds to the “generalized other.” The “I” embodies the creative aspects of the “self” and is the source of innovation, while the “me” embodies the set of attitudes and norms of others that have been internalized and assumed by the actor. Therefore, social control resides in the “me.”
Therefore, personality does not exist before social interaction. Through the roles we assume, we organize our experiences and develop abstract thinking and objectivity through the representation of the generalized other’s perspective.
Blumer resumed Mead’s work to formulate what he called “symbolic interactionism.” Its main objective is the analysis of symbols that mediate interaction. The main theoretical proposals on its agenda are:
- The creativity of the subject and its capacity for interaction.
- Social order depends on recurrent practices based on an identical interpretation, and social change is possible because people redefine their actions and establish estimates that lead to new types of behavior.
- We deal with situations depending on the meaning we attach to our actions, the environment, and the actions of others, in a process where the significance is not reducible solely to the subject or the object. Each object can have infinite meanings, depending on the direction that each person has in their relationship.
- The joint action of individuals is based on previous performance frameworks that they share and always come from previous experiences: they are historical and transformed into a complex process through practice.
Erving Goffman, a student of Blumer, developed his dramaturgical perspective based on the tension between what people want to do and what others expect them to do. He adopted a perspective of social life as if it were a series of dramatic performances that resemble responses on a stage. He became interested in face-to-face interactions where people are always physically present. For Goffman, people not only act as predetermined by the script but also seek to influence audiences.
Goffman’s work is characterized by its systematic refusal to create a grand theory. His writings, however, have influenced the subsequent evolution of the social sciences, specifically in group social work.
2. Ethnomethodology
From a different perspective, ethnomethodologists focus on studying the “body of common-sense knowledge and the range of procedures and considerations (methods) through which ordinary members of society make sense of the circumstances in which they find themselves, find their way forward in these circumstances, and act accordingly.”
The leading representative of this trend is Harold Garfinkel, who posed a triple object of study:
- The object of research is the tacit knowledge that people use to make sense of reality and thus influence and direct their actions.
- Social order is the result of shared procedures. Therefore, it is an achievement of the interaction of people working together, based on the capacity to interpret and forecast the actions of other subjects.
- Action is based on people’s ability to predict responses, made possible by the theory of reciprocity.
Social Interaction and the Challenges of the Emerging Society
We are immersed in a society characterized by technological innovation, the transformation and adaptation of forms of social interaction to a new context, and the need for greater social skills, adaptability, and resilience. At the same time, we see increasing work and family instability. All this occurs in a context characterized by individuation, where social bonds are weakened.
Group social work becomes even more critical in this environment, as it allows us to recover or strengthen our capacity for social interaction.
Social Interaction in a New Model of Society: Risk and Network
In this age of accelerated social, economic, and cultural change, a key issue takes on special relevance: how to achieve social inclusion in an uncertain scenario.
For Ulrich Beck, it is necessary to address new problems emerging with new categories, as the classic strategies of nineteenth-century societies have become obsolete.
To address this new issue, Beck developed the notion of a “risk society”: a society in which the logic of risk production dominates the logic of industrial production.
The analysis of the changes we are experiencing, and future trends emerging in today’s society, must consider the social structures of power and distribution, bureaucracies, rules, and…
Risk Society
Risk society (or the sociology of risk) is the sociological synthesis of a historical moment in the modern period in which it loses its core, causing a series of debates, reformulations, and new strategies of domination. It is a post-industrial society in the sense that the basic matrix of modernity and the correlation of forces have changed substantially. The first theorist who spoke of this change was Ulrich Beck, who, in his book Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity (1986), presented a series of changes that were not being noticed by the social sciences and that greatly affect the younger generation.
Source: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociedad_del_riesgo