Individuals relate based on our conception of reality.
Microsociology is the area of sociology focused on the analysis of the social ties established by the members of a community . Microsociology also examines how these people integrate into the rest of society.
Observation and reflection
Microsociology can be understood as a level of analysis oriented to everyday interactions that take place on a small scale . That is why its object of study is people, families and social groups with a limited number of members.
Typically, microsociology resorts to direct observation and interpretive reflection , leaving statistics in the background. His investigations allow him to propose theories around social roles, behavior, identity and communication, for example.
Based on their interactions, individuals socially construct reality. In other words, microsociology maintains that subjects shape what is understood as reality through their social interactions.
A close look
Close in many aspects to social psychology , microsociology investigates the forms of sociability that occur within a community. Thus he studies what happens to people in their own environment.
It is important to keep in mind that microsociology allows the sociologist to generate knowledge about social phenomena of greater complexity and magnitude . The evaluation of these global phenomena is part of macrosociology .
Each person, in short, is socialized through the daily interactions that microsociology explores. There are no social structures that exist beyond the individuals that make them up. Both ethnomethodology , constructivism and symbolic interactionism have made contributions of great importance to microsociology.
Ethnomethodology
It is a current belonging to sociology that emerged in the 1970s and is attributed to the research of the American sociologist Harold Garfinkel . One of its characteristic features is that it breaks with the bases of structuralist functionalism , Talcott Parsons ' theory, according to which the actor limited himself to respecting the rules imposed on him.
Garfinkel proposes that people have a practical sense that we use to adapt rules to the needs of our daily lives. This means that we can find a balance in which we respect the rules while still respecting ourselves, so that we allow ourselves certain licenses that we consider fair and reasonable.
Constructivism
It is a set of theories that belong to psychology and also support the idea that human beings are not a mere passive recipient of knowledge but actively construct their own reality . This importance of the individual is key to microsociology.
For constructivist psychology, therefore, each person creates their own meaning systems to provide meaning to their reality and their experiences, and it is through this structure that they create their personality .
Microsociology contributes to macrosociology
symbolic interactionism
This sociological current is related to social psychology and anthropology, and is based on the study of society through communication . We must point out that he has not only contributed to microsociology, but also to studies on communication.
We must place it in the interpretive paradigm, which studies social action taking the position of each participant as a point of view. At the same time, it understands communication as the creation of meaning within a symbolic universe. One of its bases is that to interact with others and with the objects that surround us, we rely on the meanings they have for ourselves, which we represent through the use of symbols .