Social work theory · Volume G: Knowledge, Ethics & Professional Practice

Interpretive and meaning-making traditions

The interpretive and meaning-making traditions are a group of philosophical and sociological approaches that study how people understand their world and act on the basis of those understandings.

1. What it is

The interpretive and meaning-making traditions are a group of philosophical and sociological approaches that study how people understand their world and act on the basis of those understandings. They share the interpretivist assumption that human action is meaningful and must be understood from the actor’s point of view (see Epistemology and philosophy of knowledge). Hermeneutics concerns the interpretation of texts and of human expression more broadly. Phenomenology studies the structures of lived experience. Symbolic interactionism examines how meaning and the self are created through social interaction (Crotty, 1998). These traditions are philosophical and methodological foundations more than substantive theories of behaviour, but symbolic interactionism also makes testable claims about the self and social life. In social work they underpin listening, empathic understanding and much qualitative research (Payne, 2021).

Hermeneutics. Hermeneutics began as the art of interpreting scripture and legal texts. Schleiermacher and Dilthey extended it to the understanding of any human expression, and Dilthey proposed it as the method of the human sciences. In the twentieth century, Heidegger (1927/1962) argued that understanding is a basic feature of human existence, since people always encounter the world through prior interpretations.

Hans-Georg Gadamer and the hermeneutic circle. Gadamer (1960/2004) argued that every interpreter brings prejudices, or pre-understandings, shaped by history and tradition. These cannot be eliminated, but they can be made visible and tested. Understanding occurs through a “fusion of horizons” in which the interpreter’s horizon meets that of the text or person being understood. The hermeneutic circle describes the movement between parts and whole: each part is understood in light of the whole, and the whole is revised as parts are understood. Understanding is therefore always provisional and dialogical.

Phenomenology (Edmund Husserl). Phenomenology is the study of experience as it appears to consciousness. Husserl (1913/1931) urged a return “to the things themselves” and proposed the epoché, or bracketing, in which the inquirer suspends assumptions about the external world to describe experience as lived. He emphasised intentionality, the principle that consciousness is always consciousness of something. The humanistic and existential applications of phenomenology are discussed in A4.

Alfred Schutz. Schutz (1932/1967) brought Husserl’s phenomenology together with Weber’s interpretive sociology. He studied the “lifeworld”, the taken-for-granted everyday reality people share. People draw on a stock of knowledge and typifications (shared categories such as “a teacher” or “a client”) to make social life predictable. Schutz’s work later informed Berger and Luckmann’s social constructionism (G3).

Symbolic interactionism (George Herbert Mead). Mead (1934) argued that the self emerges through social interaction. Through language and role-taking, people learn to see themselves as others see them. Mead distinguished the “I”, the spontaneous and responsive aspect of the self, from the “me”, the internalised attitudes of others. The “generalised other” represents the expectations of the wider community. Cooley’s (1902) “looking-glass self” was an earlier statement of this idea.

Herbert Blumer’s three premises. Blumer (1969), who coined the term symbolic interactionism, summarised the approach in three premises. First, people act towards things on the basis of the meanings those things have for them. Second, these meanings arise from social interaction. Third, meanings are handled and modified through an interpretive process used by the person dealing with them. Social life is therefore an ongoing process of interpretation and negotiation.

Erving Goffman. Goffman extended interactionism through close study of everyday encounters. His dramaturgical approach describes social life as performance, in which people manage the impressions they give to others in “front stage” and “back stage” regions (Goffman, 1959). In Asylums, he described “total institutions” that strip residents of former identities (Goffman, 1961). In Stigma, he analysed how a discredited attribute produces a “spoiled identity” that people must manage (Goffman, 1963). Stigma theory is also discussed in D6.

2. Historical development

These traditions developed largely in parallel. Hermeneutics and phenomenology emerged in German philosophy as accounts of how the human sciences differ from the natural sciences. Symbolic interactionism grew from American pragmatism (G1) and the Chicago School of sociology, where Mead taught and Blumer later systematised his ideas. Each became an independent tradition because it offered a distinct method: textual interpretation, description of experience, or the study of interaction.

Social work has close links with these traditions. The Chicago School shared the city and the reform concerns of the settlement movement, and Forte (2004) argues that symbolic interactionism was an early, though later neglected, foundation for social work. Phenomenology informed person-centred and existential approaches from the 1950s. Goffman’s work on institutions supported deinstitutionalisation in mental health and disability. Today, hermeneutic and phenomenological methods, such as interpretative phenomenological analysis, are widely used in social work research (Smith et al., 2009).

3. Practical guidance

These traditions guide how workers listen, interpret and respond.

• Start from the client’s meanings. Following Blumer’s first premise, explore what a situation means to the person before deciding what it “is”. A missed appointment may mean avoidance to the worker and self-protection to the client.
• Notice your pre-understandings. Gadamer’s account of prejudice invites workers to identify the assumptions they bring from training, agency culture and personal history, and to test them in dialogue (Gadamer, 1960/2004).
• Use the hermeneutic circle in assessment. Move between details and the overall picture. A single incident should be understood in the context of the person’s history, and the overall formulation revised as new details emerge.
• Describe before explaining. Phenomenological bracketing encourages careful description of lived experience before applying theoretical categories.
• Attend to typifications. Schutz’s work shows how categories such as “non-compliant parent” simplify people. Check whether a label fits the individual (Schutz, 1932/1967).
• Reduce stigma and institutional effects. Goffman’s analysis supports practice that protects privacy, preserves identity and avoids routines that degrade people in residential, hospital or custodial settings (Goffman, 1961, 1963).

4. Critical evaluation

Strengths. These traditions provide a rigorous basis for the empathic understanding at the centre of social work. They treat clients as interpreting agents and give weight to subjective experience. Symbolic interactionism links the self to social context, which fits the person-in-environment perspective. Goffman’s work has had lasting influence on deinstitutionalisation and stigma reduction.

Limitations. Critics argue that interpretive approaches pay too little attention to power, material inequality and structures that shape meaning (Payne, 2021). Phenomenological bracketing has been questioned, since complete suspension of assumptions may be impossible, a point Gadamer himself made. Symbolic interactionism has been criticised for focusing on face-to-face encounters at the expense of social structure. Interpretive findings are also difficult to generalise.

Overall importance. The interpretive traditions supply the philosophical basis for listening carefully, understanding experience and recognising how identities are formed and damaged in interaction. They connect directly to social constructionism (G3), reflective practice (G4) and narrative approaches (E6). Combined with structural perspectives, they help workers understand both what people experience and why.

5. References

• Blumer, H. (1969). Symbolic interactionism: Perspective and method. Prentice Hall.
• Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
• Crotty, M. (1998). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. Allen & Unwin.
• Forte, J. A. (2004). Symbolic interactionism and social work: A forgotten legacy, Part 1. Families in Society, 85(3), 391–400.
• Gadamer, H.-G. (2004). Truth and method (2nd rev. ed., J. Weinsheimer & D. G. Marshall, Trans.). Continuum. (Original work published 1960)
• Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Doubleday.
• Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the social situation of mental patients and other inmates. Anchor Books.
• Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the management of spoiled identity. Prentice Hall.
• Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time (J. Macquarrie & E. Robinson, Trans.). Harper & Row. (Original work published 1927)
• Husserl, E. (1931). Ideas: General introduction to pure phenomenology (W. R. Boyce Gibson, Trans.). Allen & Unwin. (Original work published 1913)
• Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist (C. W. Morris, Ed.). University of Chicago Press.
• Payne, M. (2021). Modern social work theory (5th ed.). Red Globe Press.
• Schutz, A. (1967). The phenomenology of the social world (G. Walsh & F. Lehnert, Trans.). Northwestern University Press. (Original work published 1932)
• Smith, J. A., Flowers, P., & Larkin, M. (2009). Interpretative phenomenological analysis: Theory, method and research. Sage.