ABSTRACT
Contemporary symbolic interactionism comprehends several diverse schools of thought. Their number and character vary according to differing conceptions of the central ideas that constitute the general orientation. The ‘offshoots’ of interactionism are held to have stemmed from the essential ambiguities and contradictions in the Meadian statement of the general theory, particularly with regard to the issue of determinacy and indeterminacy in human conduct. The chapter describes two major varieties, the Chicago and Iowa schools, on the basis, primarily, of differences in preferred methodology. The Chicago school tends to conceive of both self and society in processual terms, while the Iowa school stresses structural conceptions of both phenomena. Fostering such parochialism and militating against the reconvergence of the Chicago and Iowa schools, is their fundamental and irreconcilable divergence on the methodological level.
