Pursuit of Pursuits
Job descriptions, explicitly or not, provide all their applicants with a list of qualities that they expect. Effectively, these are attempts to single out people who meet the standards for the job. Consequently, in the applicants’ perspectives, these qualities provide a set of guidelines and roles to live up to. Often, the workplace can provide a venue for anticipatory socialization: the process of “learning the norms and behaviors of the roles” which one aspires to [Brym and Lie 2012:67]. As a tutor, my workplace integration experience gives me a personal experience of anticipatory socialization. Furthermore, symbolic interactionist analysis can classify this situation as evidence to support an alternative view of dramaturgical …show more content…
My experience of taking steps to normalize myself to the social structure of a tutoring workplace involves many instances of learning from example. Most often, the design of the social structure embraces emulation instead of innovation. Indeed, while attempting to socialize into my teaching role, I often emulate the success of successful teachers which I see elsewhere. Erving Goffman describes the idea of presenting the ideal self to the world as one where the presenter earnestly requires acceptance from their audience [Innocente, 2016]. In my case, while adopting norms and behavior, this idea is promptly evident. Indeed, much of the emulative presence of this social structure is due to Goffman’s dramaturgical view. Due to the emotion labour the tutoring role involves, and the wealth of referential material (i.e. other teachers), the ideal self a tutor presents is often an emulation of another teacher. Ultimately, this is what occurs in my …show more content…
As symbolic interactionists define it, the self-fulfilling prophecy is the phenomenon of an expectation helping to “cause what it predicts” (Brym and Lie, 2012:61). While there exists an obvious conclusion that manipulating students could adhere to the self-fulfilling prophecy (Brym and Lie, 2012), there is a subtler one regarding my own socialization experience. As the preceding paragraph explains, Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis can explain a sizable amount of my success integrating into the tutoring role. However, while attempting to present their ideal self to the world, applicants often acquire compliments about how well they are upholding their status. These compliments lead to tutors expanding on what they did prior. Ultimately, the process leads to the recursive structure Merton describes for a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tutors like myself proffer their best self for dramaturgical reasons; subsequently they maintain this truth due to premises which their students and employers provide. Fundamentally, my situation displays how Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis can act as a basis step for Merton’s self-fulfilling prophecy to springboard
Job descriptions, explicitly or not, provide all their applicants with a list of qualities that they expect. Effectively, these are attempts to single out people who meet the standards for the job. Consequently, in the applicants’ perspectives, these qualities provide a set of guidelines and roles to live up to. Often, the workplace can provide a venue for anticipatory socialization: the process of “learning the norms and behaviors of the roles” which one aspires to [Brym and Lie 2012:67]. As a tutor, my workplace integration experience gives me a personal experience of anticipatory socialization. Furthermore, symbolic interactionist analysis can classify this situation as evidence to support an alternative view of dramaturgical …show more content…
My experience of taking steps to normalize myself to the social structure of a tutoring workplace involves many instances of learning from example. Most often, the design of the social structure embraces emulation instead of innovation. Indeed, while attempting to socialize into my teaching role, I often emulate the success of successful teachers which I see elsewhere. Erving Goffman describes the idea of presenting the ideal self to the world as one where the presenter earnestly requires acceptance from their audience [Innocente, 2016]. In my case, while adopting norms and behavior, this idea is promptly evident. Indeed, much of the emulative presence of this social structure is due to Goffman’s dramaturgical view. Due to the emotion labour the tutoring role involves, and the wealth of referential material (i.e. other teachers), the ideal self a tutor presents is often an emulation of another teacher. Ultimately, this is what occurs in my …show more content…
As symbolic interactionists define it, the self-fulfilling prophecy is the phenomenon of an expectation helping to “cause what it predicts” (Brym and Lie, 2012:61). While there exists an obvious conclusion that manipulating students could adhere to the self-fulfilling prophecy (Brym and Lie, 2012), there is a subtler one regarding my own socialization experience. As the preceding paragraph explains, Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis can explain a sizable amount of my success integrating into the tutoring role. However, while attempting to present their ideal self to the world, applicants often acquire compliments about how well they are upholding their status. These compliments lead to tutors expanding on what they did prior. Ultimately, the process leads to the recursive structure Merton describes for a self-fulfilling prophecy. Tutors like myself proffer their best self for dramaturgical reasons; subsequently they maintain this truth due to premises which their students and employers provide. Fundamentally, my situation displays how Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis can act as a basis step for Merton’s self-fulfilling prophecy to springboard