Social Problems as Collective Behavior Herbert Blumer (paper introduced by Laurent Riot) This paper presents to a French audience a major text in sociology of social problems : H. Blumer's text "Social Problems as Collective Behavior". For Blumer, social problems have their existence in a process of collective behavior. This process determines whether social problems will arise, whether they become legitimized, how they are reconstituted in putting planned action into effect. According to Blumer, sociological theory and study of social problems should respect this process.

Symbolic InteractionVolume 6, Issue 1 p. 127-137 GOING ASTRAY WITH A LOGICAL SCHEME* Herbert Blumer, Corresponding Author Herbert Blumer University of CaliforniaDepartment of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720.Search for more papers by this author Herbert Blumer, Corresponding Author Herbert Blumer University of CaliforniaDepartment of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720.Search for more papers by this author First published: Spring 1983 https://doi.org/10.1525/si.1983.6.1.127Citations: 14 † Direct all communications to: Dr. Herbert Blumer, Department of Sociology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720. AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onEmailFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat REFERENCES Campell, James 1983 Mead and pragmatism. Symbolic Interaction 6(1). Google Scholar Mead, George Herbert 1938 The Philosophy of the Act. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar Miller, David L. 1982 Journal of the History of Sociology 4(1). Google Scholar Mills, Peter J. 1982 Misinterpreting Mead. Sociology 16(1). 10.1177/0038038582016001012 Web of Science®Google Scholar Citing Literature Volume6, Issue1Spring 1983Pages 127-137 ReferencesRelatedInformation

(1977). Comment on Lewis' “The Classic American Pragmatists As Forerunners to Symbolic Interactionism”. The Sociological Quarterly: Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 285-289.

Social Problems as the Journal of a Social Movement: Comments and Suggestions Get access Herbert A. Aurbach Herbert A. Aurbach Former Associate Editor Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social Problems, Volume 24, Issue 1, 1 October 1976, Pages 76–90, https://doi.org/10.2307/800323 Published: 02 August 2014

Sociologists have erred in locating social problems in objective conditions. Instead, social problems have their being in a process of collective definition. This process determines whether social problems will arise, whether they become legitimated, how they are shaped in discussion, how they come to be addressed in official policy, and how they, are reconstituted in putting planned action into effect. Sociological theory and study must respect this process.

(1970). Comment on Deutscher's Paper. The Sociological Quarterly: Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 541-543.

The view that the early stages of industrialization inevitably lead to frustration, aggression, and rebelliousness on the part of the workers is challenged on theoretical and empirical grounds. Empirical evidence from recent cases of industrialization of backward areas shows wide variation in working conditions, rewards, and worker-management relations, and this variation is attributed to indigenous social and cultural factors and to accelerated social change rather than to industrialization per se.—Editor

In this paper I am proposing an approach to the study of race prejudice different from that which dominates contemporary scholarly thought on this topic. My thesis is that race prejudice exists basically in a sense of group position rather than in a set of feelings which members of one racial group have toward the members of another racial group. This different way of viewing race prejudice shifts study and analysis from a preoccupation with feelings as lodged in individuals to a concern with the relationship of racial groups. It also shifts scholarly treatment away from individual lines of experience and focuses interest on the collective process by which a racial group comes to define and redefine another racial group. Such shifts, I believe, will yield a more realistic and penetrating understanding of race prejudice.

Previous articleNext article No AccessIn Memoriam: Louis Wirth, 1897-1952Herbert BlumerHerbert Blumer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 58, Number 1Jul., 1952 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/221076 Citations: 1Citations are reported from Crossref PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Leah N. Gordon The individual and “the general situation”: The tension barometer and the race problem at the University of Chicago, 1947-1954, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 46, no.11 (Sep 2010): 27–51.https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.20408

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewsMan, Mutable and Immutable: The Fundamental Structure of Social Life. Kurt Riezler Herbert BlumerHerbert Blumer Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 57, Number 6May, 1952 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/221049 Views: 1Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.