ABSTRACT
The term “social worlds” has been used sporadically, sometimes descriptively rarely conceptually. The best known, though brief, discussion of social worlds as such is by Tomatsu Shibutani who, in arguing the collective and communicative aspects of reference groups, suggested four aspects of social worlds. Among the greatest strengths of the Chicago tradition, especially as developed by Thomas and Park, is its central focus on the problems of social change, with concomitant emphasis on large-scale interaction—the history of group conflict and encounter—as setting the most significant limits for social action. In each social world, at least one primary activity is strikingly evident; such as climbing mountains, researching, collecting. The social world perspective yields the usual interactionist vision of a universe often bafflingly amorphous. But this perspective has analytic thrust and implicit directives. Socialization is associated not only with degrees and kinds of authenticity but also with how people enter and leave social worlds and subworlds.
