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Notes for a Critical Interactionist Theory for Educators: Signification

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Notes for a Critical Interactionist Theory for Educators: Signification SECOND DRAFT 9/17/03 Notes for a Critical Interactionist Theory for Educators: Signification by Richard A. Quantz Educators have a dizzying array of social theories from which to choose. There are the classic theories of Durkheim, Weber, and Marx, as well as modernist theories such as Parson's functionalism, Blumer's symbolic interactionism, Luhman's (and a host of others) systems theory, the interpretive theories of phenomenologists such as Garfinkel and Burger and Luckman, as well as the critical theory of Habermas and the other members of the Frankfurt School. We have some interesting contemporary theories such as Bourdieu's field theory, Giddens's structuration theory, and, of course, the poststructuralism of Derrida and Foucault, the feminist poststructuralism of Kristeva, Irigaray, and Butler, the postcolonial theories whose roots are found in the work of Fanon and Du Bois and given its most recognized form in Said's Orientalism. There is the racial formation theory of Omi and Winant and the Critical Race Theory of Bell, Delgado, Crenshaw, and Lawrence. And, of course, there are the postmodern theories of Baudrillard and of Deleuze and Guattarri. Given the variety of this list and the even greater variety of all of those theories left out of this list, is there really a need for another social theory? And even if there is such a need, does it make any sense to conceptualize a social theory specifically for educators? The simple answer to these question is "Yes. There is." 1 SECOND DRAFT 9/17/03 Much classical and modern social theory conceives of society as a total integrated system. Whether we are talking about Durkheim, Marx, Parsons, or the critical theorists, society is presented as a single whole with integrated parts. While they may disagree about the nature of these parts and of their implications, society is typically reified by these theories so that society has its own ontological status. The loyal opposition of interpretive theories such as symbolic interaction, neo-Weberian theories, ethnomethodology, and phenomenological sociology may reject the systemization of a totality but tend to replace it with the reification of a subjective society located in the minds of social actors. The contemporary theories are each, in their own way, attempting to address such shortcomings, but, so far, few have caught on with educators. While Bourdieu is frequently referenced, it is his theory of cultural capital that is latched on to rather than his basic field theory. At the present time, at least among those who consciously build upon social theory, the most appealing seem to be a revived Marxism or some version of poststructuralism, particularly feminist poststructuralism. But for many of us, each of these theories seems to be inadequate for addressing the particular questions of educators. Educators cannot use social theories that arise pristine from the world of schools as if schooling is somehow not integral to the rest of social life. Any theory used to address questions of education must arise from the full specter of human experience. And yet, I believe the days when we can expect a social theory to explain everything are gone. We need a social theory that can be utilized broadly but that has particular usefulness for educators—a heuristic theory or one that I prefer to call "intellectually useful" to those interested in 2 SECOND DRAFT 9/17/03 education. Those theories drawn upon by educators in the present moment often provide important insights, but none seems adequate enough. While Marxism's various reproduction and resistance theories still have their resonance, they simply do not explain enough. In recent years Marxism has made a strong resurgence following the theoretically devastating destruction of the unitary proletariat in the work of LeClau and Mouffe. But even with the unleased power of capital from the globalized economy, such macro analyses seem dated. They may help us understand such large policy issues as the accountability movement, but they do little to help us understand the micro interests at play in the identity politics around race, gender, and sexuality something that feminist poststructuralists have been much better at revealing. Like the poststructuralists, I am skeptical of theories that claim universality, but I also have problems with poststructural theories. As someone who has always been strongly attracted to the arts, I find the poststructural penchant for self-conscious parody and literary playfulness very attractive. And as someone highly skeptical of the manner in which those in power have used "reason" to justify the most unreasonable and inhumane actions, I find the poststructural refusal to play hegemonic language games by inventing their own almost irresistible. However, when I actually attempt to utilize poststructural writing to construct useful narratives to engage the institutionalized education that we call schooling, I find it lacking. For all of its attractiveness, poststructuralism has too many fatal flaws. For along with the positives that I mention above, poststructuralism also leads to some unconvincing positions. While I appreciate poststructuralism's rejection of the idea of a centered culture, I am less satisfied with its anarchic 3 SECOND DRAFT 9/17/03 decenteredness. While I appreciate its rejection of the heroic subject and the honored authority, I am less comfortable with the erasure of the subject and author altogether (see for example Foucault, 1987). While I greatly appreciate the poststructural attempt to overcome the Cartesian dualisms embedded within structuralism (indeed within all European intellectual movements since Descartes), I find the inherent Cartesian dualism alive and well in the poststructural commitment to the idea of an unconscious and in its apparent willingness to eschew the influence of the material. And while I find absolutely crucial poststructuralism's heightening our awareness of the centrality of patriarchy, Eurocentrism, and heteronormativity in everyday school life through its focus on identity politics, I am distressed at poststructuralism's failure to provide cogent critique of capitalism and the class-based destruction of human potential that accompanies it. If Marxists ere on the side of reducing everything to political economy, poststructuralist appear to ere on the side of reducing everything to identity politics. So for those like me, who find Marxism important but inadequate for explaining everyday life in schools and poststructuralism attractive but lacking in explaining the role of materialism in everyday school life, what are we to do? Is there a way out? Is there a way to take advantage of the culturalism that poststructuralists have recognized without falling into its traps? Is there a way to bring the politics of the material into identity politics? I believe so. What follows is the first installment in a series of essays that will layout such an alternative. This essay presents an option that does not build on the traditional European discourses and, therefore, does not contain one flaw 4 SECOND DRAFT 9/17/03 found in nearly every theory above. It avoids a Cartesian dualism. Each of the theories mentioned above to one degree or another contain such dualisms. This is true even of theories that try to eliminate the dualism through dialectics such as critical theory. It is true for poststructural and postmodern theorists who understand their very project as attempting to overcome such dualistic thinking but who also posit an unconscious in opposition to a conscious, as well, of course, of a "post" to a "modern." It is even true for the American born symbolic interactionism which raised W. I. Thomas's "definition of the situation" to such importance that symbolic interactionism seemed to have more in common with the interpretivism of German rationalism than with its American pragmatic roots and, therefore, leaving most of its practitioners to accept the inherent dualism between mind and body that such a dictum suggests. The approach presented here has room for both the cultural and the material, the subject and the social, the creative and the structured and, yet, presents none of them as binaries. I call it critical interactionism--an approach that builds on the early twentieth-century work of both the American pragmatists and the Russian Bakhtin circle. It is not merely a lumping together of the two, but a reconstruction of each in light of the other to create something somewhat new—an action theory that can be used to make sense out of micro-interactions and an interaction theory that can be used to critique macrostructures. While I would love to publish the whole of the theory at once, the hard work of theory construction requires a more deliberative and tedious process. As a result, in this essay, I present only a beginning narrative: one that centers on the smallest unit that can be used in social analysis. What follows is an introduction to a critical interactionist 5 SECOND DRAFT 9/17/03 theory of signification that I believe will be of particular usefulness to educators for it provides the beginning of a way to approach the everyday life of schools in a manner that can illuminate and integrate the politics of both the material and the cultural because it fails to accept such a dualism in the first place. A Critical Interactionist Theory of Signification Humans are social animals, but hardly the only social animals. Sociability is a trait of many animal species. Certainly the primates such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and monkeys live in social units with well-developed rules of interaction. But other non-primate mammals such as elephants, lions, sheep, and wolves also live in complex social units. These social units may be marked by different patterns of interaction, but they each have a system of complex communication. In fact, we might argue that social action is predicated upon a system of communication.
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