ABSTRACT

The Interaction Ritual chain model originated in an effort to systematize the theory of social stratification on the basis of new research in micro-sociology. By 1970 a great deal of research had accumulated from traditional methods of surveys and community studies, on cultural and attitudinal differences among social classes. Collins (1975) proposed that much of the evidence falls under Durkheim’s dimension of organic and mechanical solidarity. On the one hand, the culture of the higher social classes is cosmopolitan, abstract, relativistic, tolerant, features corresponding to the Durkheimian ethos of highly differentiated social structures; on the other hand, the culture of working classes and rural and isolated communities is localistic, tradition-oriented, symbolically reified, emphasizing close ties and distrust of outsiders, features corresponding to Durkheimian low social differentiation. Collins also concluded that these patterns could be derived from the patterns of micro-interaction in everyday life recently explored by Goffman under the rubric of “interaction rituals”; and proposed that Goffman’s “frontstage” performance in the formal rituals of everyday life generates the self-presentation and cultural attitudes of higher classes, whereas “backstage” informality is characteristic of lower classes subordinated or excluded by formal rituals.