From an interactionist perspective it is not the structure or system of society that creates and shapes our thoughts, actions and behaviour rather we create society through our constant action and interaction with each other. This is why it is a social action, rather than a social system approach. This is why it is a bottom-up rather than a top-down theory.

Interactionists are interested in how people attempt to make sense of the social world, how we try to interpret other people's behaviour in order to discover what that behaviour means.

The interactionist approach is a micro approach - it looks closely at the day-to-day, face-to-face interactions that people have with each other and at how people attempt to negotiate a shared view of reality.

Interactionists, therefore, ask different questions to those asked by structuralist sociologists. They're less concerned with how the family fits into the structure of...