Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-19-1978
College/Unit
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
Department/Program/Center
Social Work
Abstract
The principal thesis of this paper is that the inadequacies of recent efforts at social planning are essential failures of theory, rather than failures of practice. Economic, land use and social welfare planners it is suggested have all shared a common unwillingness or inability to abandon commitments to an essentially utilitarian rhetoric of reasoned behavior, wherein means are matched with ends, persons are viewed as essentially self-interested and goal-directed rational problem solvers operating on schedules of goal attainment known or predictable by the planners. Symbolic interaction theory has resources to revitalize planning theory. Selected publications by John Dewey, G.H. Mead, W.I. Thomas, E.W. Burgess and Harry Stack Sullivan are reviewed and discussed.
Digital Commons Citation
Lohmann, Roger A., "Symbolic Interaction and Social Planning: Perspectives From The Early Years" (1978). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 868.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/868
Source Citation
This unpublished conference paper was presented at the Second Annual Symposium of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, Columbia, South Carolina, March 19, 1978.
Included in
Social Policy Commons, Social Psychology Commons, Social Welfare Commons, Social Work Commons, Sociology Commons
Comments
This paper was written during the early phase of the 'interactionist revival' of the 1970's and later, when the literature on the subject was very limited and difficult to retrieve.