Gil Richard Musolf - Böcker

The charge that symbolic interactionism (SI) is impaired by an astructural bias orbits around a number of sociology's core concerns: structure and agency, methodological individualism and methodological holism, the micro-macro link, the proper procedures to conduct research and when to state and how to test hypotheses and, whether interactionism can address structural concerns such as class, race, gender, power, and oppression. The Astructural Bias: Myth or Reality constitutes a collection of outstanding essays by scholars who address the concern of an astructural bias. Chapters explore the nature of social structure and SI's effectiveness in using the concept. This volume is beneficial for contemporary interactionists and their critics, social theorists, and all students of sociology who are interested in assessing the ability of SI to fully address the grave social circumstances and social problems of an increasingly precarious and dangerous world.

Oppression and resistance dialectically envelop everyday life, for both the privileged and the oppressed. The disenfranchised live under regimes in which repression ranges from brutal to institutionally subtle. The privileged socially reproduce their rule through ideology that justifies and policy that institutionalizes subjugation. However, rejecting depression, detachment, and disaffection that emerges from surviving ruling-class regimes, many previously dispirited, instead, choose defiance. They engage in subjectivity struggles by crafting critical consciousness, refusing to be dupes to ideology that represents them as inferior. They undertake social struggles demanding policy that dismantles institutional discrimination and that enhances opportunities for learning and achievement. The exploited, as best as they can in regimes of ruling class and white male supremacy, reconstruct their selves and, it is hoped, transform society. The qualitative studies that comprise this edited collection, present a structure-and-agency perspective, broadly defined, that constitutes the best sociological lens through which to understand oppression and resistance. Contributors interrogate various aspects of oppression and resistance, from the personal to the institutional, exploring situations in which the structure of oppression was insurmountable and illustrating cases in which agency was able to transform either individual or group identity.