ABSTRACT
Symbolic action is centrally concerned with the symbols that give meaning and order to our world, including social relations, and thereby shapes our beliefs and prompts us to behave in certain ways. In the political sphere, symbolic action works at least in part by giving cues to targeted social groups that they occupy a certain status in relation to other groups. Rather than serving to accomplish a defined purpose, the main function of symbolic action resides in its use of language to organize allegiances, perceptions, and attitudes. It is in these terms that the concept of symbolic action may cast light on what we regard as the success (and perhaps even the failure) of vocationalism as curriculum policy. For people like that ardent champion of vocational education, Charles Prosser, the introduction of vocational education was a way of breaking the elitist barrier that academics had so long maintained within the American curriculum.
