Symbolic Interactionism and Family Studies

Abstract

Symbolic interactionism occupies a unique and important position in family studies. The principal theoretical orientation of the 1920s and 1930s (when family studies was endeavoring to establish itself as a science) and one of the most popular family perspectives today, symbolic interactionism probably has had more of an impact on the study of families than almost any other theoretical perspective (Hays, 1977; Howard, 1981).