The Local Surfer - University of Exeter

severe critique most notably from Mullins and Mullins (1973:98, cited in
Plummer, 2000:202).
It is clear that the original ideas that developed within symbolic
interactionism, like those of standard American sociology, have run
their course intellectually and socially. Some symbolic interactionists
are still actively publishing and, as a theory in social psychology,
symbolic interactionism still has respectability. As a change maker
and general orientation for sociology and as the loyal opposition to
structural-functionalism, however, it has come to an end.
However other criticisms included that it was individualising and subjective
rather than structural and objective, it was relativist in the extreme,
methodologically muddled and confused in its conceptualisations (Plummer,
2000). This sparked what Plummer (2000:203) labels as a premature burial as
“within this most recent period, there has been a great deal of productivity”.
Criticisms of symbolic interactionism still appear however and in particular it
has been noted that symbolic interactionism is unable to deal with social
structure (Turner, 1978). Many sociologists consider that interactionist
sociology focuses on examining human interaction in a vacuum, focusing on
small scale face to face interaction with little concern for its historical or social
setting (Haralambos and Holborn, 1991). In reaction to these statements
Plummer (2000:206) writes that symbolic interaction‟s concern with;
the empirical world has always made it recognise the falseness of
dualisms such as action and structure; has always made it look at the
historical anchorage of social actions; and has always found itself
embedded in networks of power. This is not to say that all
interactionist work does these things all the time; but it is to say that
it can and often does handle these concerns.
Leading on from this criticism Coakley (2001) believes its major weakness is
that our attention is focused upon relationships and personal definitions of
reality. This is done “without explaining how interaction processes and the
construction of meaning in sports are related to social structures and material
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