"Interaction Ritual Chains" by Randall Collins

I am endeavoring to use theories of social interaction as an analytical lens in my study of classroom interactions ranging from the traditional to the progressive.

In Randall Collins book "interaction ritual chains" there are several concepts that stimulate my thinking along these lines.

p. 3 "if we develop a suffficiently powerful theory on the micro-level, it will unlock some secrets of large-scale macrosociological changes as well."

he emphasizes the primacy of the "situation" in his analytical framework "a theory of interaction ritual (IR) and interaction ritual chains is above all a theory of situations. It is a theory of momentary encounters among human bodies charged up with emotions and consciousness because they have gone through chains of previous encounters."

both Collins and Goffman see the individual as largely a construct of a chain of situations
Goffman: "not men and their moments but moments and their men"

Collins: "incidents shape their incumbents , however momentary they may be, encounters shape their encountees."

it is precisely this type of notion from social interaction theory that intrigues me...how many seminal moments are there in students lives that they spend in the classroom...in these moments they can be either included in the classroom social interactions or excluded from the classroom social interactions. and these social interactions can have varying effects on them.

Collins does not really like the use of the term agency seeing it really as arising out of the situation rather than out of the individual. i still feel i tend to disagree with him here, nevertheless the concept of emotional energy that arises out of successful encounters is an intriguing one and especially in the context of student participation in the classroom. does a progressive classroom offer more opportunities for students to experience social interactions that result in an increase in levels of emotional energy. Collins posits that rituals can fail or they can succeed to different degrees of intensity in the extent to which they generate ritual solidarity.

Collins reviews the historical meanings of the term ritual. he draws heavily on both goffman and durkheim in developing a definition of ritual.

"Goffman is a social constructionist, except that he sees individuals as having little or no leeway in what they must construct; the situation itself makes its demands and they must follow."

p. 31 "In Durkheim's formulation, rituals create culture, and sometimes reproduce existing culture. In either case, culture is socially alive only when rituals are successful, that is, when the situational ingredients exist to make rituals emotionally intense and cognitively focused."

p. 44 "we are constantly being socialized by our interactional experiences throughout our lives. but not in a unidirectional and homogenous way; it is intense interaction rituals that generate the most powerful emotional energy adn the most vivid symbols, and it is these that are internalized...IR theory is not a model of a wind-up doll, programmed early in life, which ever after walks through a pattern once laid down. It is a theory of moment-to-moment motivation, situation by situation."

the components of Collins' interaction ritual theory are:

group assembly
barrier to outsiders
mutual focus of attention/shared mood

the outcomes are then:

group solidarity
emotional energy in the individual
symbols of social relationship
standards of morality

based on these ritual components it is hard to distinguish between traditional and progressive classrooms. Collins has the concept of the failed ritual and the successful ritual but there are occasions for both of these in traditional and in progressive classrooms. perhaps one measure of weighing a succesful class vs. a relatively unsuccessful class would be the number of students who have a heightened sense of emotional energy. does a class that has a large number of students with heightened emotional energy tend to be more difficult to control? perhaps only if students are engaging in other interactions that are outside the main classroom interaction ritual that is occurring.

in Collins' idea of a rational actor model in which individuals are attracted to situations in which they have the opportunity to gain high EE and repulsed from situations in which they will lose EE this may have implications for student engagement.

emotions are central to Collins' theory. interaction rituals produce emotions in the form of moral solidarity and perhaps anger...

"this puts us in the position to use the flow of emotions across situations as the crucial item in the micro-to-micro linkage that concatenates into macro patterns. the most important of these patterns of IR chains is what from a macro view point apperas as stratification." (p. 105)

collins focuses on two main emotions happiness and sadness which are expressed in a variety of emotions (joy, elation, enthusiasm, effervesence--disappointment, dreariness, listlessness, depression) physiologically he states that these two emotions have no specific location in the brain..."they are distinctively human blends of emotion adn cognition, implicating the entire workings of the cognitive regions of the brain)

"EE gives energy, not just for physical activity...but above all for taking the initiative in social interaction, putting enthusiasm into it, taking the lead in setting the level of emotional entrainment. Similarly, sadness or depression is a motivational force when it is a long-term mood, reducing the level of activity, not only bringing physical listlessness and withdrawal...but making social interaction passive, foot-dragging and perfunctory." p. 107

and emotional energy continuum: "low emotional energy is a lack of durkheimian solidarity. one is not attracted to the group; one is drained or depressed by it; one wants to avoid it. one does not have a good self in the group. and one is not attached to the group's purposes and symbols, but alienated from them." p. 108

"for Scheff, intact social bonds...give participants a feeling of pride; broken social bonds results in a feeling of shame." p. 110

collins then discusses the repercussions of lack of attunement...it sets up a cycle of failed interactions...

"Scheff shows that Durkheimian solidarity, operating on the micro level of situatoinal encounters, is highly attractive to individuals, and is experienced as pride, a favorable social self. the failure of solidarity, down to the minute aspects of coordinating mutual participation in a conversation, is felt as a deep uneasiness or affront, which scheff refers to as a feeling of shame"

p. 373
"I have put the central formula as follows: human beings are emotional energy seekers, thereby linked to those interactions and their derivative symbols that give the greatest EE in the opportunities presented by each person's social networks. If not EE seekers what else could we be? Are we simply pain avoiders...? the image is too inert, passive; human beings are active, excitement seeking, magnetically attracted to where things are happening."

"we are deeply socially constituted beings, from the moments as babies when we begin to make noises and gestures in rhythm with our parents, through the adult networks that induct us into cults of experience that we elaborate in our inner lives. Symbols make up the very structure of our consciousness. symbols are the lenses through which we see."